Cloud9 (esports organization)

Cloud9
Location Los Angeles, California
Founded 2012
Manager(s) Jack Entienne
Sponsors Kingston HyperX
Divisions League of Legends
Hearthstone
Super Smash Bros. Melee

Dota 2
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive
Halo: The Master Chief Collection
Smite
Heroes of the Storm

Cloud9 (C9) is an American electronic sports organization. They field teams in League of Legends, Hearthstone, Super Smash Bros. Melee, Heroes of the Storm, Dota 2, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Halo: The Master Chief Collection, Smite, and Heroes of the Storm. Their full name is Cloud9 HyperX, named after sponsor, Kingston HyperX. They also sponsored by HTC. Cloud9's League of Legends team competes in the North American League of Legends Championship Series. They also have a team called Cloud9 Tempest that competes in the North American League of Legends Challenger Series. The organization was founded in December 2012. The owner and manager of the team is Jack Etienne.

History

Cloud9 has its origins in the League of Legends team of Orbit Gaming, which had several current C9 team members.[1] After Lone Star Clash in November 2012, members of Orbit Gaming signed with Quantic Gaming, which had only been sponsoring a StarCraft II team. Quantic Gaming was an esports team and media company founded in 2010 by Simon Boudreault, a Quebec native who had come upon a large inheritance upon the death of his father and decided to invest nearly all of it in esorts.[2] During its existence, several players and coaches claimed that they consistently missed payments from Boudreault.[3] When QG failed to to make the 2013 LCS Spring split Boudreault cut off contact with society and soon dissolved the company. Despite being owed tens of thousands of dollars, former players say they are no longer considering legal action against Boudrealt. Former Team SoloMid manager Jack Entienne bought the team for US$10,000 in December 2013 and also became its manager.[4]

In July 2014 the C9 Smite team disbanded just before the start of the Smite Pro League.[5] In May 6, 2014 Cloud9 signed Super Smash Bros. Melee player MaNg0.[6] Cloud9 acquired CompLexity Gaming's Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team in August 2014. The team left CompLexity after it received a better offer from C9 before renewing their contract with their previous team.[7] Cloud9 announced the formation of a Challenger Series team and held open tryouts.[8] On November 26, 2014 Cloud9 added a Halo team by acquiring The Agency, which boasted several experienced players.[9] In December 2014 Cloud9 withdrew their Dota 2 team from the Chinese I-League because of concerns over poor playing and living conditions and were subsequently banned for the next seasons for doing so.[10] In February 2015 Riot suspended C9 Tempest after it was revealed that the team had illegally used a non-roster member during a game.[11]

League of Legends

Pre-Season 3

During the off-season, the Quantic Gaming organization went bankrupt and shut down operations, leaving its League of Legends team without a sponsor. Competing first under the name Team NomNom and then Cloud9, Nientonsoh, Hai, Yazuki, Wild Turtle and LemonNation secured a spot in the Season 3 North American Offline Qualifier for the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS).[3] However, Cloud9 was knocked out of the tournament in the group stage after losing to Azure Gaming and future LCS team Team MRN in a close base race.[3]

Initially, Nientonsoh said that Cloud9 would disband in light of the loss. The team later decided to stay together, although Nientonsoh and Yazuki left the team.[3] Hai shifted from jungle to mid, and the team tried out new junglers and top laners in online competitions.

Season 3

On April 1st, the Cloud9 roster of Hai, LemonNation, Meteos, Sneaky and Balls was reacquired by Quantic Gaming, now led by former COO Bernie Catalan. However, just a few weeks later the roster would once again become Cloud9 with previous TSM manager Jack Etienne becoming the manager and owner of the team.

In the Summer Promotion Qualifier, Cloud9 went 5-0 to earn a spot in the LCS Summer Split, beating Team Astral Poke 2-0, and former LCS team compLexity 3-0.[12] Midway through the season, Cloud9 went on a 13 game win streak, the longest in LCS history. They went on to earn 25 victories, the record most in an LCS season split, and won first place in the Summer Split regular season. Throughout the NA LCS Summer Playoffs, they won every single one of their games and sets, first against Team Dignitas, and then the grand finals against TSM 3-0.[13] Cloud9 took home US$50,000 as well a first round bye at the Season 3 World Championship. They finished their season 3 LCS and playoffs with a 30-3 total, the highest in LCS history and with a 91% win rate.

With high hopes, C9 went into the Season 3 Championship quarterfinals with a first round bye for being the North American champions. Their first international match was against the top European seed, Fnatic.[14] Cloud9 lost the set 1-2, being the last North American team to be eliminated and ending up in 5th-8th place.[14]

Pre-2014 Season

On October 29, the organization announced the departure of coach Alex Penn and the addition of Dan Dinh as Penn's replacement.[15]

At the first international tournament after the World Championship, IEM Cologne in November, Cloud9 received a bye into the second round and competed against Gambit Gaming of Russia. Gambit defeated Cloud9 2-0, marking their second immediate exit from an international tournament.

In December 2013, Cloud9 joined four other North American LCS teams at the Battle of the Atlantic, facing European champions Fnatic for the second time. With dominating performances by mid laner Hai, Cloud9 took the series 2-0, resulting in an overall North American win at the tournament and US$10,000 for the team.

2014 Season

As a top five finisher in the Season 3 LCS Summer Split, Cloud9 earned a berth in the 2014 Season Spring Split. After having trailed just behind Team SoloMid after the first week, Cloud9 finally regained first place by facing off against and defeating them during week 7. They would go undefeated afterwards (equaling their previous 13 win streak record) and finish first place for the regular Spring Season. During the eighth week of the season, Cloud9 secured a top six finish and a spot in the Spring Playoffs. Cloud9 would repeat their 2013 Summer Playoff success with a 2-0 victory over Curse in the semi-finals, and a 3-0 against TSM in the grand finals.[16] Their LCS playoffs victory earned the team a spot in the 2014 All-Stars. Cloud9's LCS success had resulted in a record regular season win percentage of 87.5% (49-7) and 89.4% including playoffs (59-7).

In March, Cloud9 competed against an international field at the IEM Season VIII World Championship in Katowice. Cloud9 opened with 1-0 victories against the World Elite and Taipei Assassins, but fell 1-2 against rival Fnatic in the tournament semifinals. The team thus took home third/fourth place and US$14,000.

On April 28, Hai suffered a collapsed lung, which prevented him from attending the All-Star event in Paris.[17] CLG's Link replaced him on the lineup.[18] In May Cloud9 would participate in the All-Star Paris 2014 event. In group stage, the team defeated OMG, Fnatic and Taipei Assassins but lost to SK Telecom T1 K finishing 2nd with a 3-1 record. In the semi-finals, Cloud9 lost to OMG placing 3rd-4th in the tournament.

Cloud9's several international encounters with Fnatic in late 2013 and early 2014 has resulted in a rivalry between the two teams. Cloud9 currently has a 5-4 game record and a 1-2 series record against Fnatic, winning the Battle of the Atlantic while losing at IEM and the Season 3 World Championship.

During the summer split of the LCS, Cloud9 faced unprecedented competition and briefly found themselves in fifth place at 10-8.[19][20] However, with an 8-2 record in the last 10 games to finish the season, the team leapfrogged struggling top competitor LMQ by holding the tiebreaker at a record of 18-10.[21] With the first place position, Cloud 9 qualified to compete at the August 2014 2014 Season Summer Playoffs as the top seed.[22] There, Cloud9 first faced Team Curse, a team against which they held a 3-1 record, and continued this success by sweeping Curse 3-0. Advancing to the finals, Cloud9 hoped to extend its unprecedented playoff win streak of thirteen games against Team SoloMid. TSM made history by ending Cloud 9's streak and winning its second LCS playoff, while C9 settled for second place and a berth in the Season 4 World Championship.

During the World Championship group stages due to Balls and Hai excelling Cloud 9 became the first NA team to ever beat a Korean Team at the World Championship taking down NaJin Shield.[23]

Preseason 2015

After Worlds Cloud9 beat Alliance in a 2-1 victory and crushing Unicorns Of Love 3-0 to win IEM becoming the best team in two regions for the third time. C9 has started every season rather slow. For the first time they dropped their first three games in the new Season of the LCS eventually falling to a unfamiliar 10th place. Soon C9 took down second place CLG and then proceeded to defeat through TSM, Gravity, and CLG a second time in the fastest 27 minute win of the split, automatically advancing them to Semi-Finals. Like in the previous Summer Split and right on time Cloud9 rallied excelling with uncommon picks coming from behind and making their way to second place and tying with rivals TSM for first place. Balls, Meteos, and Sneaky all took top players in week 9 in their respective roles. With Sneaky taking first place overall, a familiar place for Sneaky considered to be the best and most consistent ADC in North America.[3]

2015

C9 was upset by the GE Tigers at IEM Katowice.[24] Cloud9 met TSM in the finals of the LCS Spring playoffs but lost three games to one.[25] It was the fourth consecutive LCS final that featured the two teams.[25]

Roster

League of Legends

Cloud9 Tempest (League of Legends)

Dota 2

Maelstrom (HOTS)

Heathstone: Heroes of Warcraft

Super Smash Bros. Melee

Counter Strike: Global Offensive

References

  1. ↑ "Cloud9". LoL Esports. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  2. ↑ Howell O'Neill, Patrick (December 31, 2013). "After owner's mysterious disappearance, an eSports team collapses". The Daily Dot.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 Shields, Duncan 'Thorin' (April 28, 2014). "The history and formation of Cloud 9 - Part 1 of the Cloud 9 story". OnGamers. CBS Interactive. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  4. ↑ Goldberg, Harold (October 21, 2014). "Winners, losers, and Legends". Playboy (Playboy Enterprises).
  5. ↑ Lingle, Samuel (June 30, 2014). "Cloud9 'Smite' team disbands on eve of pro league". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  6. ↑ Breslau, Rob "slasher" (May 6, 2014). "Smash Bros star Mango joins Cloud 9". Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  7. ↑ Lewis, Richard (July 30, 2015). "Cloud9 set to acquire CompLexity's 'CS:GO' team". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  8. ↑ Turton, William (November 25, 2014). "Cloud9 begin open tryouts for challenger team". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  9. ↑ Lingel, Samuel (November 26, 2014). "Halo Pro Team “The Agency” Joins C9 as Cloud9 Halo". Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  10. ↑ Barker, Ian J. (December 18, 2014). "Cloud9 withdraws from I-League, gets banned". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Cloud9". Retrieved April 22, 2015.
  12. ↑ Ho, Jack “NeoIllusions” (May 10, 2013). "Cloud 9 vs Team Astral Poke". Cloud 9 vs Team Astral Poke. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  13. ↑ http://www.dailydot.com/esports/cloud9-lcs-playoffs-tsm-hai/
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Cloud 9 vs Fnatic LoL - LoL - Season 3 World Championship". GosuGamers. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  15. ↑ Dan Dinh to coach Cloud9 na.lolesports.com
  16. ↑ Waxman (April 20, 2014). "Cloud 9 Dominates 2014 Spring Playoffs, Repeats as NA LCS Champions first=Jeremy". esportsMax. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  17. ↑ Mitchell, Ferguson (April 30, 2015). "'League of Legends' star plays with a collapsed lung from hospital bed". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  18. ↑ Mose, Kelsey "Prehistorique" (April 28, 2014). "Hai cannot attend AllStars due to a collapsed lung". GosuGamers. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  19. ↑ http://www.dailydot.com/esports/cloud9-dignitas-lcs-stats-week-10/
  20. ↑ Lingle, Sam (June 16, 2015). "Team SoloMid bests Cloud9 in undefeated week". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  21. ↑ http://www.dailydot.com/esports/cloud9-clg-stats/
  22. ↑ http://www.dailydot.com/esports/curse-cloud-9-stats/
  23. ↑ Yordanov, Daniel 'd1dx' (October 4, 2014). "The top 10 games from the group stages of the Season 4 World Championship". OnGamers. CBS Interactive. Retrieved April 23, 2015.
  24. ↑ http://www.dailydot.com/esports/cloud9-hai-lam-lcs-interview/
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Lingle, Samuel (April 20, 2015). "After another NA LCS title, TSM will aim for international glory". The Daily Dot. Retrieved April 20, 2015.