With the LCS summer split starting this weekend, it comes as quite a shock to hear that Cloud 9 will be benching some of their most beloved players. Jensen, Sneaky, and Smoothie have all been moved to the academy roster and will be replaced by Goldenglue, Keith, and Zeyzal.
Goldenglue and Keith have long been considered to be players that just don’t perform on stage. Many professional players have praised their skills during scrims but for some reason neither Goldenglue or Keith know how to translate that scrim success to on-stage success. This makes the change rather shocking to most C9 fans as Sneaky and Jensen are players that have proven themselves over and over again. Although Smoothie is getting replaced by Zeyzal too, this change is less shocking as Zeyzal has never played on the big stage before, so nobody knows how good he is.
The change is most likely made due to the complacency of the C9 players. Cloud 9 has long been known as “the meme-team”. While this normally never impacted their results, Jack, C9’s manager, has now stated that the players on the Academy roster are playing better than the players on the main roster.
For now, the change will just be for the first week of LCS to see how the new players will fare against established LCS legends. It’s most likely a punishment towards complacent C9 members to show them that they can’t just do as they please. The Cloud 9 management is most likely trying to show to Cloud 9 members that if they don’t practice, they won’t be on the roster.
Although Sneaky has one of the busiest League schedules out of all players, not much time of that is dedicated to actual practicing. Most of his time he spends on streaming. While he’s still playing the game, many pro’s have stated that streaming doesn’t help you practice. You won’t be able to concentrate as much as you should and don’t have time to watch replays. Sneaky has most likely gotten used to the extra income he has gotten from streaming so it might be hard for him to change this schedule without losing fans.
Some Cloud 9 fans have seen the change as a positive change though since Sneaky will have more time to cosplay now that he’s on the academy roster.
