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The New Heavy Hitters: Cloud9 Valorant officially introduces its new VCT 2023 Roster
The much anticipated Cloud9 Valorant roster was finally announced today with the old c9 core of Xeppa, Vanity, and Leaf joined by Optic's Yay and Version 1 and Sentinels sensation Zellsis. The team will also feature Guards Coach mCe and assistant coach qpert as the sixth man.
The Origins
Cloud 9 started its Valorant division before the official release of Valorant by introducing Tenz as the first member of its Valorant division. Soon relyks, mitch, vice, and shinobi joined to round out the roster. The team wasn't the best, but they managed to win a few events here and there.
The organization also invested in the female Valorant division in Cloud9 white, arguably the best Game Changers team, and Cloud9 Korea, which later shut down because of Riot restriction. The organisation salvaged Coach Autumn and Xeta from the C9 Korea squad and added them to the main roster.
The Valorant roster's most successful iteration was with Leaf, Xeta, Xeppa, Vanity, and mitch when the roster won the VCT NA LCQ and placed third at VCT NA Stage 1 Challengers 2022.
When the VCT NA Challengers Stage 2 was around, XETA, Coach Autumn, and Cloud9 parted ways. Post the roster move. The squad struggled to find consistent results, even falling out of VCT NA LCQ 2022.
The team had applied for the Valorant Partnership program and was among the five NA orgs to be selected for the program. Slasher on Hiko's stream today claimed that C9 wasn't originally in the set of teams to be selected, but since G2 was out of contention, Cloud9 became the fifth NA organization.
The Cloud9 Valorant 2023
After the announcement of Partnered orgs, Cloud9 let go of Mitch, Curry, and Coach JamezIRL. With the space already created, and the open market, Cloud9 went for the best in the game, Optic Gaming's star Yay.
Dubbed the El Diablo, there has been no player as impressive as Yay in 2022 and throughout the year. Ever since he was picked up back in 2021 by Envy, Yay has helped the team get consistent results with the VCT Masters Reykjavik trophy, a second-place Valorant Champions 2022 finish, and a third-place at VCT Masters Copenhagen.
But with Optic Gaming denied the partnership, Rumors about Yay joining surfaced. With George Geddes reporting Yay joining the C9 trio on 28th September.
The final piece of the puzzle was Zellsis, Vanity's former teammate and one of NA's strongest flex/duelist players. The Version 1 player recently played for Sentinels and was one of the most impactful players on the squad, helping them secure a good 5th-6th finish.
The addition of Zellsis was reported around 1st October by Geoge Geddes. Today, finally, Cloud9 announced their complete roster along with the addition of reported Guard Coach mCe and the sixth player, qpert.
With the latest addition to the C9 trio, the VCT 2023 Cloud9 roster will be as follows:
- Anthony "Vanity" Malaspina
- Erick "Xeppaa" Bach
- Nathan "leaf" Orf
- Jordon "Zellsis" Montemurro
- Jaccob "yay" Whiteaker
- Mateja "qpert" Mijovic
- Matthew "mCe" Elmore
On paper, The Cloud9 Roster will be one of the most explosive and hard-hitting rosters of VCT 2023. It will be fun to watch how the team performs in the coming VCT 2023 kickoff tournament.
Image source: Cloud9
