Cloud9\u2019s new esports strategy is concerning claim Richard Lewis & Thorin In a recent episode of Thorin and Richard Lewis\u2019 By the Numbers podcast, the duo discuss the uncertainty around Cloud9, their Counter-Strike team and OWL franchise London Spitfire, questioning decisions around roster moves and their status in the upper tiers of esports. Duncan \u2018Thorin\u2019 Shields and Richard Lewis have been running By the Numbers on a semi-regular basis since August 2017, discussing the goings-on in the esports world, particularly in CS:GO. In the October 20 episode of By the Numbers, episode 94, the pair discussed the future of Cloud9 in esports, debating some of the interesting roster moves the organization has made in recent years in both Counter-Strike and Overwatch, with OWL franchise London Spitfire. \u201cWhat\u2019s depressing for me about the Cloud9 situation is some of the talent they had in the last couple of years were good people,\u201d Thorin started. \u201c People like Flusha, people like Kioshima, you want to keep one or two of these but unfortunately you ended up with none of them.\u201d Concluding, Thorin said: \u201cIn the next 6-8 months, we\u2019ll know a lot about where Cloud9, the entire org, is in esports\u2026 Literally days ago, it was announced that London Spitfire, their Overwatch League team, has sold a whole bunch of their absolute best players, in a manner which implies they don\u2019t want to be a big spender. You only sell those players if you\u2019re desperate for money or want to get out of the game.\u201d Thorin continues, \u201cIf you look generally at where they\u2019re going at the moment\u2026 the CS teams are already on what seems to be cost-cutting measures, waiting to gamble on something that will actually make them money.\u201d He goes on to discuss a North American CS:GO league, which we should know more about in the next 6-8 months, as something to note on whether C9 \u201cwants to be a big player in esports.\u201d While it\u2019s clear that they are correct about the Cloud9 CS team, referring to the \u201cmusical chairs\u201d of roster changes they\u2019ve gone through to cut costs and find something that works, Thorin\u2019s statement on the future of London Spitfire is incredibly telling. Saying that they might want to get out of the Overwatch League, the first city-based franchise league in esports, is a huge implication. What this means for Cloud9\u2019s future remains to be seen, but these two believe we may start seeing them fall behind their opposition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cloud9\u2019s new esports strategy is concerning claim Richard Lewis & Thorin In a recent episode of Thorin and Richard Lewis\u2019 By the Numbers podcast, the duo discuss the uncertainty around Cloud9, their Counter-Strike team and OWL franchise London Spitfire, questioning decisions around roster moves and their status in the upper tiers of esports. Duncan \u2018Thorin\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39203\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}