What Happened to Cloud 9?

Fans are dismayed, the League of Legends subreddit is enraged and the sky may be falling: Cloud 9 are a bottom team in the North American LoL Championship Series right now.

Though they’ve traditionally been a dominating force since their debut, this split sees their record sit at a miserable 2 wins to 6 losses after 4 weeks of play. So the big question on everyone’s mind is… what happened to Cloud 9?

Who are Cloud 9?

Cloud 9 have been rather unique within the Western professional scene. They remain the only rookie team to come into the LCS and immediately take a championship. They’re the only other team in NA besides Team Solo Mid to ever capture a title, and they won two straight championships with the most impressive win rates in LCS history. (25-3 in Summer 2013, and 24-4 in Spring 2014)

Sometimes they looked like the best hope the West had of defeating the juggernauts of Korea and China. They rallied against Samsung Galaxy Blue at the 2014 World Championships off of their signature rotation based play and tight calls, even when behind.

They were also the longest running unchanged roster in professional League of Legends before the departure of their mid laner, Hai “Hai” Du Lam, with over 740 days together. But little did anyone know just how much Hai really did give to the team until he left.

Losing the Hai Ground

Did Hai’s departure kill off the once great dynasty of Cloud 9? How much did Hai bring to the team, really?

To understand just who Hai was as a player and member of Cloud 9, you can read my article about him here. Suffice it to say he was the core of the team, and the player on which all C9’s decisive play was grounded.

The loss of Hai left a bigger hole in Cloud 9 than most expected.

But now that Hai has moved on, we must contend with his replacement, Nicolaj “Incarnati0n” Jensen. It was understood that the addition of Incarnati0n would change the team dynamic drastically.

His skill ceiling was hailed to be insane, with one of his accounts boasting a 94% win rate in Season 4.

But even if Incarnati0n was a solo queue prodigy of the highest order, there were worries in the community. Hai’s role as main shot caller; that kind of leadership is not easily replaced, even by someone of superior mechanical skill.

So now, without their field commander and rock in dire situations, it falls to jungler William “Meteos” Hartman to fill in. But it seems like they haven’t gotten the hang of this new chain of command just yet.

The Verdict

Cloud 9 are without their world class shot calling for the first time in… ever. More than that, Hai’s shot calling was key to masking some of the flaws in the other members of the team.

Meteos is not pressuring his lanes well and he’s still falling behind farm against most enemy junglers. Whether this is due to the added expectation of him having to coordinate the team on top of his play is unknown, but the fact is he’s not showing up on the map when he needs to.

Watch Cloud 9’s complete lack of map pressure in the highlight video below:

An “Balls” Le, who used to be regarded as one of NA’s premier top laners, has now looked ineffective for most of 2015. Daerek “LemonNation” Hart, though a support he may be, only picked up his first kill of the split in their loss against Counter Logic Gaming.

Without Hai jumping in as the sacrificial initiator to blow cooldowns, and Balls being neutered in his role as secondary damage dealer, Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi has no protection for him to showcase the play making ability that had many regard him as the best AD Carry in NA. Given the right support however,  Sneaky can still become devastating, as evidenced by his one Jinx game this split where he racked up a stellar 10/1/7 KDA.

Sneaky can still carry games, if only his team would set him up properly.

One of the few bright spots on the team right now seems to be Incarnati0n, who has at least made some key plays on Azir and had a one-off impressive performance on Varus against Team 8.

What can they do to bounce back?

The scary thing is, it seems that all C9 can do is keep fighting. Their pick and ban phase is still held down with the help of LemonNation and his notebook, so the plans are fine. It’s in their execution that C9 falters.

The team needs to trust in Meteos’ calls and Meteos in turn has to step up his shot calling, and that takes time. If C9 are to get better, it won’t be overnight, especially against the top of the NA table which is seeing teams like Gravity Gaming and Team Dignitas upset the power rankings.

Can Cloud 9 synergize with their new mid laner in time?

But they do have capable carries in their ranks, and with enough time to gel with Incarnati0n, they may be able to bounce back late in the season, which is another thing Cloud 9 was known for.

In the meantime, it may be wiser to not make any bets involving facial hair. I’m looking at you, Lemon.

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