After six months, Cloud9 will pull the plug to its “Colossus” project, placing its entire Counter-Strike squad on the transfer market and dissolving the project lead by General Manager Henry ‘HenryG’ Greer, as the North American organisation re-evaluates their presence on Valve’s competitive shooter.
Defined as an ambitious project from the get-go, the Cloud9 “Colossus” was slowly pieced together towards the end of last year, leaving behind the North American scene to chase a European project with expectations set on the top of the Counter-Strike scene.
In an unprecedented move, HenryG revealed the individual contracts of each player that got signed, with the team being fully assembled by October in order to compete at Flashpoint Season 2.
However, the team struggled at its first event, struggling to fulfil its goals during the online era of events. At the start of 2021, the team saw a number of changes, as Özgür ‘woxic’ Eker gave way to Erick ‘xeppa’ Bach, with the AWP role first being taken by In-Game Leader Alex ‘ALEX’ McMeekin before going to Patrick ‘es3tag’ Hansen.
Even with these changes, the roster still struggled at big events, with the team landing early exits at cs_summit7, at the Play-In qualifier for IEM Katowice and, most recently, at the ESL Pro League Season 13.
In an interview with RushB Media, Cloud9’s CEO Jack Etienne has pointed towards the financial impact and the performance difficulties caused by the ongoing global pandemic as the main motivators of this outcome.
However, the CEO has also hinted at the possibility that the organisation might return to Counter-Strike in the future with a North-American roster, making a return to its origins and investing in a region that has seen a vast amount of its talent migrate to VALORANT.
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