Tarik and RUSH joined Cloud9’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive Team

For some time now, Cloud9 has been the most popular team when it comes to the North American region. Over the years, they have won many titles but lately, the team has been facing certain difficulties, especially when it comes to the results. Cloud9, just like every other team in CS:GO world is currently on the August break but they will be returning to action later this month.

Some teams, however, are not waiting for the break to end in order to prepare for the latter part of the season and Cloud9 is one of those teams. In the last couple of days, Cloud9 has been working on improving their team and it can be said that they have a very good job.

The Biggest Shuffle This Season

Earlier today, Cloud9 announced that they have reached an agreement and signed contracts with two new players that will be joining the team. Those two players are William ‘RUSH’ Wierzba and Tarik ‘Tarik’ Celik. For those who are familiar with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive eSports scene knows that Tarik and RUSH are some of the best players that the North American region can offer at this moment.

Because of that, many believe that Cloud9 has done an amazing job by signing these two players. Before joining Cloud9, both of these players played for OpTic Gaming and it is a very big surprise to see them leave the team. OpTic Gaming was doing very good recently and there were no signs of the troubles in the team or that they might be making a change in their roster.

With Tarik and RUSH leave the team, OpTic Gaming is currently in trouble because they are only two players left the team, Kieth ‘NAF’ Markovic and Oscar ‘mixwell’ Canellas. This is not the first departure from OpTiC Gaming in the last ten days because James ‘hazed’ Cobb announced his departure from the team not that long ago.

Besides signing Tarik and RUSH, Cloud9 has also secured services of amazingly talented Braxton ‘swag’ Pierce but he has not played a competitive match for a long time because he was banned from playing for fixing the matches while playing for iBUYPOWER. With these additions to their team, Cloud9 has created a very powerful team that will be able to match some of the world’s best CS:GO teams.

Departing the Team

However, considering that some players are coming in that means that some players have to leave the team. Cloud9 announced that Jordan ‘n0thing’ Gilbert and Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek will be stepping down from the active roster in order to make a place for Tarik and RUSH. Both of those players had a very big role back in 2015 and early 2016 when Cloud9 had their best results.

It is still not known what will happen with n0thing and shroud but some reports indicate that both players might be retiring from the competition. Shroud has even spoken about retirement plans on many occasions during his live streams on Twitch.

OpTic Gaming has not announced any players that would be replacing Tarik and RUSH in the team but many believe that they will be doing that very soon because they will be participating in the ESL One New York Qualifiers that will be played later this month.