Cloud9

Cloud9 is a North American eSports Organization. The team currently competes under the name Cloud9 G2A, in representation of their sponsor G2A. Aside from SMITE, the team also has divisions for League of Legends, DotA 2, Halo, Hearthstone: Heroes of WarCraft, Super Smash Bros and Counter Strike: Global Offensive.

Pre Launch
On December 28th, 2013, Cloud9 entered the SMITE eSports scene by picking up the roster of Azzur. Shortly before the Launch Tournament, FrostiaK left the team, replaced by Murrdurr, as former support Suntouch moved to jungle.

At the Launch Tournament, Cloud9 finished in 5-6th, after losing 2-1 to SNIPE Gaming in the first round, defeating Team Coast 2-0 in the first round of the Loser's Bracket, and finally being knocked out by Team Dignitas 2-0 in the Loser's Bracket Quarterfinals.

Season 1
Following the Launch Tournament, HalfDevil joined the team as a support player, and Murrdurr left to join the Challenger team Agilitas under the new alias of KanyeLife.

On April 24th, Smek left to join competitor Team SoloMid as their hunter YOUNGBAE left. Shortly thereafter, on May 4th, YOUNGBAE joined Cloud9 along with enQu, as solo laner Xaliea left the team.

On July 30th, Psiyo, HalfDevil, and Suntouch left. Two days later, on August 1st, only a week before the Kick-off LAN, Optixx, emilitoo, and Hyrrok joined to complete the roster. Cloud9 then finished in 3-4th place at the EU SPL Kick-off LAN.

Over the next seven weeks, Cloud9 would face off against 5 other top European teams in the first season of the SMITE Pro League. They emerged tied for 4th place with SK Gaming at a 9-11 record, winning out in tiebreakers, claiming the definitive 4th position and qualifying for the Regional Championships, while SK was relegated to compete for a spot in the Regional Play-ins. Shortly thereafter, on October 8th, enQu left and was replaced by NinjaBobat.

At the Regional Championships on November 15th, Cloud9 faced off against Aquila, the newly sponsored team qualifying from the Regional Play-ins. Quickly going up 1-0, C9 looked prepped to take the series, with all three of Aquila's phoenixes down and the titan at less than a quarter health. However, in a now-infamous comeback, Aquila defended their titan, waited for phoenixes to respawn, snuck a Fire Giant, and won the game after a quadra kill and Deicide from Aquila's Repikas on to tie up the series. Game 3 was easily won by Aquila, knocking Cloud9 out after just one round of play.

On December 22nd, the Cloud9 roster would disband.

Season 2
Prior to the start of Season 2, Cloud9 picked up the former roster of COGnitive Gaming on January 26th, 2015, fresh off their victory at the SMITE World Championship 2015.

Spring Split
Despite having no roster changes since the World Championships, Cloud9 was met with middling performance in the Spring Split. They finished with a record of 3-2, beating out the tie with 3-2 Denial eSports due to their better game score. Cloud9 lost series in week 2 against their former sister team, playing under the new sponsorship of Team SoloMid, and in week 5 against AFK Gaming. Cloud9 finished in 3rd place, qualifying for the Summer Split but failing to make the cut for the Multi-Region LAN.

Summer Split
Cloud9 would return in the Summer Split with a vengeance, rocketing out of the starting gates with an immediate eight game win streak. During the winstreak, hunter BaRRaCCuDDa would go deathless for the first 7 games, racking up an incredible 95 KDA before finally dying in Cloud9's game 2 win over TSM. On May 16th, after their first match, the team would pick up MrMakey, as a coach and substitute. The rest of the split continued to go well, with Cloud9 dropping a single game in an upset loss against Team Eager. In the 7th and final week, Cloud9 would face off against AFK Gaming for a battle for first place, which AFK would win handily in a 2-0 series. This put Cloud9 in 2nd place with an 11-3 record, tying in score with TSM but winning in the head-to-head tiebreaker from week 3. With their 2nd place finish, Cloud9 qualified for the Summer Finals, where they are slotted to play against Europe 3rd seed Paradigm.

At the Summer Finals, Cloud 9 struggled. Unfortunately, starting hunter BaRRaCCuDDa was sick and unable to play, forcing Cloud 9 to shift Omega to hunter and use coach and sub MrMakey in the solo lane. After going down 0-2 against Paradigm, BaRRaCCuDDa was able to begin playing, starting a rally in the third game and helping Cloud 9 come back 1-2. However, Funballer's, aided by support play by Trixtank, proved too strong to overcome, and Cloud 9 dropped down to the 5th place match 1-3. Facing off against Fnatic, Cloud 9 once against drafted MrMakey, this time in the hunter role, with 0mega back in the solo lane. However, they were unable to overcome the unorthodox picks of the European 2nd seed, losing 0-1 and finishing in 6th place.

Fall Split
After rumors of 0mega leaving, he was finally announced to have joined Team Eager on August 12th 2015, only days before the start of SPL Season 2 NA Fall. Two days later, Baskin was announced as the team's new solo laner. During the Fall Split, many members of C9, would have connection issues, leading to a multiple unfortunate losses. Despite these problems, the team still managed to finish in 3rd place, and qualify for the Season 2 NA Super Regionals. Along the way, they picked up their substitute, the "famous multi-role player", Hurriwind.

At the Super Regionals, they faced off against COGnitive Gaming in the quarterfinals. While all three games were close, C9 would defeat COG 3-0 to advance to the semifinals. In the second round, C9 faced Eager, arguably one of the most wanted match-ups in all of Smite. Winning the first 2 rounds and then losing the next 2, the entire set was decided mainly by, with both MLCst3alth and Lassiz being highly comfortable on him, despite his poor performance at the event overall. With Eager selecting Zhong Kui in Game 5, JeffHindla's choice of actives, Shell, led C9 to victory. With this win C9 advanced to the finals against Enemy, as well as securing a spot in the 2016 SMITE World Championship. Despite Enemy's upsets against Team SoloMid and Team EnVyUs in the same tournaments, they were unable to take a single match versus the then reigning World Champions, losing 0-3 to C9, who took first seed in North America.

Receiving a bye through the placement stage of the SWC, C9 faced the Qiao Gu Reapers of China, easily walking over them 2-0 in the quarterfinals. Their semi-finals round would be one of the most hyped-up matches in all of SMITE as they faced Epsilon eSports, who were largely considered the best team in Europe as they went 27-1 in the Season 2 SPL EU Fall. This match also featured the top 2 junglers in the world, Andinster and Adapting. Going all five matches, C9 took Game 1 from Epsilon in an incredible comeback spearheaded by MLCst3alth's pick, forcing Epsilon to ban Janus in the remaining games. In Game 2, Epsilon returned with a cautious vengeance, picking apart MLCst3alth's and BaRRaCCuDDa's  with calculated precision. In Game 3, C9 revealed their pocket strategy, MLCst3alth's Neith mid, something that had not been seen since the hunter meta of the Summer Split. Combined with 2 Guardians from JeffHindla and Baskin and another hunter from BaRRaCCuDDa, C9 took Game 3 in convincing fashion. In Game 4, MLCst3alth played Neith yet again, but this time, C9 would not win. Led by Adapting's, C9 was simply too slow to react, and they lost Game 4 largely due to the performances from Adapting and Dimi. By Game 5, C9 had apparently run out of steam, and picked Neith in their first draft despite the overwhelming evidence that and  were much better picks. C9 would lose Game 5 to flawless performances from Dimi, iRaffer, Yammyn (who played middle to amazing effect), and emilitoo.

Pre-Season 3
With this loss, C9 would be eliminated from the tournament, resulting in a 3-4th place finish alongside the 1st seed of Europe, Paradigm. In the following month, Hurriwind, their substitute, left to play mid for Problem Solved, and Andinster made the decision to swap out both JeffHindla and MLCst3alth for Snoopy and TheBoosh, as he wanted to play with his friends. Baskin followed in his footsteps, and after tough deliberation, BaRRaCCuDDa did as well. On February 8th, 2016, BaRRaCCuDDa announced the team had chosen to leave Cloud9, this to surprise by many fans of the team.