Cloud9 Looking To Make Changes To CS:GO Roster

As revealed on Monday, December 5, Cloud9 is reportedly looking to make changes to its Counter-Strike: Global Offensive division. As stated, most of the current lineup is potentially leaving the organization, marking the first major change to the CIS lineup in two years.

As revealed by reputable sources on Monday, December 5, Cloud9 is set to make major roster changes to its CS:GO roster. Timofey “interz” Yakushin is reportedly nearing the exit doors of the team and is one of many candidates to leave the organization by the end of the year.

It is currently unclear whether Cloud9 will opt to replace more pieces, but as it stands now, interz is supposedly all but guaranteed to step down from the lineup that he was a part of since October 2020.

Interz made his CS:GO debut in August 2017 with Comache, and has since played for several other stacks in Sherifi, El’quvet, and RAVE, before he joined Gambit Youngsters in April 2019. After spending 18 months with the Gambit’s academy CS:GO team, he was promoted to the main lineup, where he teamed up with Abai “HObbit” Hasenov, Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov, Dmitriy “sh1ro” Sokolov, and Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov, who he has been playing with ever since.

With the Russian squad, inters has achieved a lot and has won a plethora of events, including DreamHack Open November 2020, Intel Extreme Masters XV – World Championship, Pinnacle Cup I, Intel Extreme Masters XVI – Summer, and BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2021. Moreover, he has helped Gambit reach the semifinals of PGL Major Stockholm 2021 and the grand finals of BLAST Premier: World Final 2021.

Even after Gambit disbanded its division and sold the roster to Cloud9, inters remained with the core of players, but failed to achieve much throughout 2022. The team’s only notable success this season was a top-four finish at ESL Pro League Season 16, which likely is the main reason for the upcoming roster changes.

And even though it’s unclear who will replace the 22-year-old, three names have been mentioned as potential candidates.

Besides unveiling interz’s expected departure from Cloud9, it was also revealed that the NA esports organization has already created a shortlist of potential replacements. The three potential replacements include Sanjar “SANJI” Kuliev, Igor “Forester” Bezotecheskiy, and Timur “buster” Tulepov.

Forester is currently under contract with Entroipiq as the only remaining player since Entropiq transfer listed its entire division following poor results in Major qualifiers. However, despite having yet to find a new home, Forester was one of Entropiq’s top players, averaging a 1.10 rating throughout 2022.

SANJI and buster, on the other side, have been sitting on the sidelines since they got benched by Virtus.pro in October and May, respectively. SANJI was removed from the team to make room for Evgenii “FL1T” Lebedev, while buster got benched in favour of David “n0rb3r7” Danielyan.

It was yet to be revealed which of the three candidates will replace niterz and whether the roster change will actually happen. But if the move comes, though, it would make the end of the longest-standing roster in the CS:GO scene, which has been competing together since July 2020.

Although we can expect Cloud9 to announce its plans, the organization still has plenty of time to rebuild its CS:GO division, as they have a free calendar until IEM Katowice on January 31, 2023. The delay could, however, be even longer since Poland has denied Russian citizens from entering the country amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But however, we might have to wait for Cloud9 to play its next official match; we can expect the roster changes to be announced by the end of 2022.