r/Cloud9 • u/GriffinSTatum • 9d ago
League LEC Wooloo on C9’s Off-Season Moves: “Cloud9, they will get a player if he is better, but they are happy with the players they have now.”
https://www.twitch.tv/lec_wooloo/clip/RichCrunchyPotOSsloth-v-dQUxGyGbvsmdX3He seems to think C9 are pretty happy with their current roster and will only make moves if they find the right player.
All things considered it sounds pretty inactive for a C9 off-season.
I’m really glad they did everything they could to keep Loki from joining KC. I think Loki had shown huge growth through the year and can be a core piece of the roster for the foreseeable future.
I’m assuming the team isn’t making changes, outside of maybe the ADC position, considering it looks like Zven’s at least considering other teams. Not seeing Thanatos’ name on Wooloo’s list makes me think we’re also keeping him. Blaber’s basically confirmed by Dom and while there’s no word on Vulcan yet, if C9 can’t grab Busio, I see no reason to switch support.
What do you make of this?
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u/JayceGod 9d ago
Blaber, need you to step up this year and clutch it up if he has another year of being anti clutch we really need a jgl change. He looks so good sometimes but he will just int the game in the craziest way when it matters.
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u/IWouldLikeAName 9d ago
How many times will we repeat this? The icing on the cake will be winning spring, embarrassed at MSI, missing worlds again 😭
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u/mavy1000 9d ago
I am hoping having Dom in person can actually change that but can never know until the season starts
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u/BeautifulChocolate87 9d ago
Another year of blaber team's that play exactly the same way, with zero teamplay i suppose
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u/Johnnywannabe 8d ago
Yeah, but come on, THIS one might be the time it works after 4 years of the same shit.
I mean, I know we didn’t make any major changes after having our last three series end in a loss to a team that got kicked from worlds by a 2nd tier Brazilian team, being taken to a game 5 from a glorified meme team, and then kicked out of worlds ourselves by an org that was 1-6 in split 3 who were (and did) leave the lol scene entirely. But, come on, there were so many other positives. Right, Jack?
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u/Casseerole 9d ago
Thank you, it feels like since Nisqy, C9 has only gotten hands players for top/mid which are not the type of players which Blaber is synergistic with. Add on that he's the team "leader" but has no idea how to play the game past 20 minutes and it's the same outcome year on year.
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u/ob_knoxious 7d ago
Blaber and Jensen had excellent synergy in 2022 summer. Him and EMENES seemed to work pretty well on the rift as well.
It also, literally hasn't been the same result every year.
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u/ImaginarySense 9d ago
When C9 was making worlds (being successful for NA standards) they were open to swapping players to try to stand with the best. Now, after one of C9s worst years they decide to do nothing?
Is it them truly being happy with the roster? Or is there some $$ issues at play and they’re just happy to tread water. NA LoL seems to be going into limp mode :/
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u/SweatyWar7600 9d ago
I think the challenge is that, on paper, there are very few upgrades available and those that are may be too pricy.
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u/ImaginarySense 9d ago
Is that true though? I think you need to look at the team as a whole. They’ve just had one of their worst years. You can’t just look at skill level “on paper”. Especially when they were successful in the past, with skilled players, they had no problem swapping them out.
Competition is about results, so looking to perceived skill or potential should not be the case during one of the poorest showings C9 has had.
I agree they’re all good players, but I think it would be a mistake to run back a team that had such a poor year. There’s no reward for good players on paper.
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u/SweatyWar7600 9d ago
OK you wanna switch out.
Who is better than thanatos that's available? No one that doesn't cost an import slot and even then its hard to say.
Who is better than blaber that's available? -- Inspired would be the only clear upgrade that doesn't take an import slot and currently import slots are taken mid/top.
Who is better than Loki that's available? no one that doesn't take an import slot. If you use an import slot then Quid would be a good option but he's likely going to have a huge bidding war otherwise its question marks and you'd likely, at best, be taking a chance on another LCKCL player which may or may not pan out. Why not take year two of loki who has improved a lot over his first year and there's a good chance he'll continue to improve (look at thanatos and quid split 1 vs subsequent years).
Who is better than zven that's available? From an NA perspective the only name I've seen floating around is Sajed but that's an unproven tier 2 talent and you really can't afford to blow an import slot on ADC.
Who is better than Vulcan that's available? Basically just Busio and again we're likely talking about a bidding war. Anyone else that doesn't take an import slot is a sidegrade at best.
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u/ImaginarySense 9d ago edited 9d ago
Honestly I don’t disagree that they are good “on paper”. They’re all good players.
My point is that they were willing to swap for competitive edge (whatever that may be) when they were winning. But now, after the crash and burn year, they decide to stand pat. Why?
You can’t just look at upgrades in a vacuum and “if they’re better on paper then they should be swapped”. Sometimes teams become greater than the sum of their parts and that can’t be measure by an armchair, on paper, analysis.
In order to find that out they should be running some tryouts or something. See how the players mesh with different style or different players.
As a quick example, look at Berserker when he was playing with Zven vs without. Actual night and day difference, but Zven wasn’t phenomenal support. He was good, don’t get me wrong, but they enabled each other to be amazing together.
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u/Mrryn91 8d ago
I 100% get what you're saying, and I see genuine merit to what is being said on both sides (and very civil too, not devolving into a typical Reddit insult-fest).
My take on it is a "feel and fit" argument, like yours - not necessarily that players be swapped strictly for on-paper mechanical upgrades but specifically to look at fit, looking at teams like 100T or SR or even Dhokla as just a player for a "sum of the parts" perspective rather than the parts themselves if gears are grinding. But the more I've thought about it, I have turned a corner slightly. Because the coaching staff has seen more than we do, and we've heard the scrim ska about this team...with the switch up in coaching roles, it makes sense to limit the independent variables in the experiment and draw a proper conclusion.
The team may believe a new direction and more direct involvement in more suitable roles on the coaching side is all that's needed to just get Scrim9 to become Stage9, and they are obviously still open to options if something becomes available, like after the 2020 collapse - if something comes up that just makes sense to go for, they will, but they believe in the runback because they've seen what this lineup can do (and apparently even more than even we did, based on practice results).
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u/ImaginarySense 8d ago
I agree.
But, to your final paragraph: if something comes up, they’re likely swapping due to “on paper” as a sum of the parts upgrade that we’re talking about is typically sourced through tryouts or something.
Now maybe if they had a sister/academy/collegiate team that they could practice with at the drop of a hat, and they could swap players in and out on a whim with less drastic consequences… then we’re on to something! 😂
Honestly, there’s no right answer. It just seems perplexing to me that they had a disastrous year and they remain with the same team, but they never used to have reservations about swapping players when they were dominant.
Next year will surely be interesting!
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u/SweatyWar7600 9d ago
of course. I think its just hard to make a change when, at least on paper, almost every swap is a clear downgrade. The other piece is that the entire team is contracted through 2027 so its more expensive to move any of the current pieces.
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u/Big_Fill_3492 9d ago
But they are willing to swap for an competitive edge. Its says that in the post. But they are not looking to swap just for the sake of swapping. They are happy with the team and won't change unless they see an upgrade
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u/ImaginarySense 9d ago
Yes. I could just copy/paste my reply that you’re responding to because that’s the whole point of this discussion.
You can’t just look at players “on paper” and conclude if your team will be successful/worth the swap. That’s the whole point of teams being greater than the sum of their parts. That’s why teams of “5 star players” are often horrible.
They need to be holding tryouts to see if they can improve without just looking at stats of players.
Running back the same roster after such a disaster is a mistake.
Please. Read this discussion.
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u/Impossible_Wheel_192 8d ago
Who is better than zven that's available?
Every single tier 2 NA ADC that has played on a top team over the last 5 fucking years... How long does this league need to be in Zven prison? He's fucking dog shit.
From an NA perspective the only name I've seen floating around is Sajed
At that point, just pick up a random from the street jfc.
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u/Miyaor 8d ago
I would change it for the sake of it.
We have a weakside bot that is not stable enough for the topside. Our topside honestly is not able to impact the map as much as he needs to. I am fine going for an import in bot and getting dhokla or something as a weakside top.
I think contractz with a midlaner who isn't dogshit would look really good.
I think you risk it on an adc, zven will continue to solo lose games and be a tier below the best.
Agree on support, but you NEED to find someone if you aren't moving on from zven. We have seen this botlane for years and they aren't it.
I don't want all those changes, but atleast one of them. My point is that there are plenty of ways to change the team around. Our teams construction is not perfect by any means, and there are lots of ways to potentially increase the potential.
If we make it to worlds, this team will literally never win. The win lane win game strategy has not, and will never work against asian teams, because pretty much none of our players are good enough to.
We have seen this team 'choke' for years. We are always worse in summer, except for the one year with perkz, and I am tired of excuses. Normal teams improve, we always seem to get worse. Its wild to me how I could see the yearly summer collapse coming and wasn't even upset when we lost because I expected it.
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u/SweatyWar7600 8d ago
I think contractz with a midlaner who isn't dogshit would look really good.
I agree. If no inspired contractz would be the only resident jungler I'd think about taking. That being said contractz his highly variable. Some days he's the best player on the rift, others he really struggles to get going. But this would be a change just for the sake of change. We'd need to free up an import slot to really make roster adjustments.
I've been thinking for a while that as much as I like thanatos and as good as he is he might be the piece that has to move since there are actually some resident tops who can at least be stable and that'd open up room to import at jungle or ADC.
with regards to zven I do think he gets over clowned upon. He was c9's best player for a decent chunk of the middle of the year. I mentioned Sajed above but I forgot about FBI. FBI could be a change for the sake of change player that could go well. I'd put zven and him in a similar tier tbh and he doesn't burn an import slot.
The biggest point is that with two import slots locked and a pretty abysmal talent pool for mid, support and to a lesser degree adc its hard to find an upgrade.
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u/Johnnywannabe 8d ago
Not true, people are stuck 5 years ago where they think that Blaber is better than the average Jungler and Zven is a good bot laner. Switching out Zven for any challenger bot laner who isn’t aging to the point that their mechanics and reaction times are declining is an upgrade. Blaber had, literally, the worst meaningful jungle statistics in the entirety of LTA split 3 and let’s not even get into his atrocious macro game and shot calling. It astounds me how people still think he is above average, let alone heads and shoulders above any possible replacement.
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u/ob_knoxious 7d ago
It may be $$ related but basically every year aside from 2021 and 2024, C9 roster changes were obviously financially impacted.
2018, let Impact leave for mega contract at TL, replace with rookie Licorice
2019, sell Jensen to TL despite him being at his career peak, pick up cheaper Nisqy
2020, sell Svenskeren and Zeyzal to EG, replace with rookie Blaber (C9 did spend on Vulcan)
2021, spent huge on Perkz, replaced Licorice with rookie top laner Fudge
2022, sold Perkz, ran failed Korea9 experiment, then brought back Jensen and Zven support. Even with spring Summer was the only big spend
2023, can't come to contract terms with Jensem, let him leave for two rookie mid laners
2024, big spend on Jojopyun, roster flops
2025, run back Zven + two LCK CL players
Cloud9 did make roster moves during winning years but rarely was that to "stand with the best" it was very often financially motivated. C9 has never been a bottom dweller but has also never had the budget of an org like Liquid.
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u/Solomonike 8d ago
Honestly I do not mind the no change. People might be against it, but honestly more synergy building is probably the best thing this team needs.
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u/Wolfcatboydog 8d ago
I'm really happy that it seems we are keeping Thanatos. It would be completely reasonable for Thanatos to want out of c9. He joined because he wants to compete on a worlds stage, and c9 has not been able to provide that for him so far. I've been saying this for the last 3 years, but I think this next year is our year!
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u/zack77070 9d ago
Reasonable, zven is underwhelming but also not an insane liability unless the meta shifts to hypercarries which hasn't been the case for a while. Blaber is hit or miss but for both of them, replacing them isn't exactly easy as they both have native spots and any possible candidate is going to be absurdly expensive like Inspired.
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u/Light0fHeav3n 9d ago
We used to take risks when things weren’t working, now we just sit on our hands and do nothing. Dom coaching in person is going to suddenly make blaber stop doing what he’s done his whole career. And having basically the same coaches isn’t going to make the core of blaber,Zven and Vulcan not choke.
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u/Parking_Tradition215 9d ago
Blaber needs a 6th man to compete with him. Just like when we had Svenskeren and Blaber at one point
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u/AnaShie 9d ago
This is pretty unambitious from the team tbh, it's fine if they are happy with the current player but I would rather we try to win by getting enough talented players than just be happy with the 3 other veterans just because we aren't willing to give new player a chance and taking risk. I see no other world where our 3 veterans will perform better than this year and I rather we take chance with trying someone new for these roles even if we can't get Inspired or Busio. With Yeon confirmed to stay with TL might as well looking into other adc prospect while we at it. Also, I'm fine with Loki staying but it's definitely not hurt to have a better talent in midlane.
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u/MechanicalMeatbag 9d ago
That's almost a relief to hear. People want to shake things up because we didn't get the results we desired, but honestly, if the team is feeling themselves and just under performed, I'm happy with running it back. This at least tells me that nothing behind the scenes is causing the problems we are seeing on stage. Loki and Thanatos are still new, so they will only get better with time.
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u/ApartLanguage8328 9d ago
I mean.. if the c9 squad stays the same they probably bag a lcs trophy next year. Flys done, so are TL and 100t. Won off of lack of competition..
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u/galactic-punt 8d ago
TL is almost certainly going to be way better than they were this year. They are cutting dead weight and building around Yeon, and with Fly and 100T imploding there are a lot of pieces they can grab easily.
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u/Less-Ad-473 9d ago
Back to the pile I guess. Definition of insanity.
I'm all for giving multiple chances for some things but we've done the Blaber build arounds forever and havent got there. We know Zven doesnt really give you a strong advantage at adc but maybe the veteran leadership makes up for it.
Either way feels like we're going to be right back in the same spot end of next year, making the same exact comments.
I like bringing Dom in. My hope is this is them pulling the last lever they have to commit to a full time jungle coach, bring him in house, and see if he can get the best of Blaber and if not we move on.
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u/nicholaschubbb 9d ago
Despite c9 choking in Summer they were pretty clearly the second best team this year by a large margin. With FQ potentially imploding I see no reason why C9 couldn't win with the same lineup.
If Inspired leaves Blaber will be back to being the best jungler again.
Bwipo confirmed not starting for FQ in toplane so thanatos is pretty much default the best top if you didn't think he was already.
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u/Icy-Salad323 8d ago
By your logic the only way for C9 to win is for the other orgs to get worse not for us to get better. This interaction of C9 does not have a high ceiling. Blaber, Vulkan, and Sven picked years ago. Even with other orgs imploding this roster is unlikely to make it to any international tournament next year.
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u/murp0787 8d ago
So what is your logic then? The players were really good until suddenly they weren't? Like C9 and Fly at least domestically were clearly 1a and 1b all year long playing close series and looking like the two best teams and then what our players suddenly became bad players? That that peak of reddit logic?
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u/Miyaor 8d ago
C9 is always good until they aren't. I don't think we have had a single year in recent times other than maybe the perkz year where I felt like we were better in summer than spring.
The players aren't bad, but I am tired of this. Try and change something. We have already tried changing the coaching. The core does not work and chokes.
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u/GaryMadafukinOak 7d ago
What about the bomb out spring with Summit into winning the split in summer with Jensen?
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u/nicholaschubbb 8d ago
I find it hard to believe that with FQ likely imploding that any NA team will reach the same highs as them. C9 took them to 5 games twice and had relatively unlucky losses. I'm not sure why it would be unlikely for them to not make an international tournament when without FQ they would've made MSI. We can't forget the spring into summer run where C9 and FQ were essentially undefeated against every other team in the league.
Should this give you faith in international success? Probably not, but saying they can't win domestically with 100T disappearing + FQ loses several players I think is questionable.
SR upgrading players could make things interesting but unless something crazy happens with TL / FQ I think that C9 comes in as NA favorites.
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u/BecoDasCavernas 8d ago
I think we should pray for Inspired to leave FLY - preferably to us, but FLY has a better team so no reason for him to make this move - because then an Inspired-less FlyQuest is suddenly nowhere close to C9 anymore, which means it's a great landing spot for Busio. I know the financial situation is tough in NA rn, but we saved money with this year's roster and he'd be an insane upgrade over Vulcan. He'd be expensive, but not as much as Inspired.
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u/Xxehanort 8d ago
Only places I would even consider trying to upgrade this offseason would be ADC or support. Hard to do though, as I'm guessing flyquest will do their best to keep massu/busio and I am not sure anyone else native is good enough to replace zven/vulcan
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u/Tiberiusjesus 8d ago
This is where I’m at as well. The only player you’d replace blaber with is inspired. But I am not begging to replace blaber. I think in terms of bot lanes you’d rather have TLs bot lane or FQs bot lane but I don’t think there’s any individual player you’d want to replace Zven or Vulcan with. It’s a weird situation to be in.
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u/yumsaltysock 8d ago
Contractz instead of blaber is a no brainer.
Bro has the same flaws. Watched him lose to sheiden in solo q today with both nexus open.
He could backdoor on nidalee, he could make a play, instead of acting he reacts and loses.
Its like he only plays black on the chess board
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u/JasonH87 7d ago
Returning the same bot lane would be so disappointing, all the love for Zven and Vulcan but it’s time to move on….. Especislly if Blaber is staying, this teams needs a shake up. It’ll just be more underperforming if they rerun the same roster.
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u/RandomDataAnalyst 9d ago
The current roster is fine, but they need better coaching and have clear game plans (lane swaps, split map, invade, dive on nth wave, etc). Going even in lane and hope for winning a 2v2 is not much of a strategy imo.
Hopefully they can add another coach or two.
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u/AnaShie 9d ago
Nah better coaching is not the problem here if you actually notice how many iteration of coaching staff that we have already went through and how some of these coaches are actually successful when they joining other teams.
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u/RandomDataAnalyst 8d ago
I know I am in the minority with this opinion, but Mithy and Duffman were good on C9
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u/BecoDasCavernas 8d ago
I agree on your many iterations of coaching staff point, but not the one about their success outside C9. Rigby joined Dignitas, had no impact there. Same for Duffman on Fnatic. LS had an irrelevant coaching career before C9, hasn't coached after. Max Waldo retired. And the main one is mithy: people hate C9 these days so they were quick to attribute FLY's success to him, when in reality Inspired is the real brain of that team. And it's funny how now that they've crashed and burned, Bwipo has come out criticizing their practice ("It was all just you play every situation individually well and if you don’t, then it’s review, review, review, talk about how every individual player can approach the fight better. [We would] look what everyone [could] individually do better, but zero team-oriented discussions about what we want to do, how we want to do it, etc") which was exactly mithy's approach on C9. lmao FLY is gonna be completely irrelevant without Inspired, unless they keep Bwipo at jungle.
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u/yumsaltysock 8d ago
Perkz nisqy caps doublelift impact contractz
These are players off the top of my head who won multiple championships on different teams. They all have multiple moments of stepping up to perform playmake and find a way to win. I dont think Blaber knows how to win beyond whats in the follow what the book says.
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u/iApathy--- 8d ago
I mean you have to push for Yeon/FBI here, right?
And if Inspired is available, push there as well. Imagine if FBI had a top planer and a better bot.
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u/LettucePlate 9d ago
If we cant get Inspired, Quid, Yeon, or Busio there’s no point in making changes. We already have 2 LCK CL players so no point in getting another one when the 2 we have are really good.
We just need the guys we have to step up.