A Look at Cloud 9's Current Roster By Daniel Jeffries Clarksville Tennessee

                There aren’t a lot of things to do in a relatively small city like Clarksville, Tennessee, which leaves ample time to read up on eSports and follow pre-season matches.  One team that’s pretty much always in the spotlight is Cloud 9.  2017 was a good year for C9’s League of Legends team, and this year looks just as promising.  Even with the departure of Impact and Contractz, there’s no shortage of talent on this team.  Here’s a look at their current roster:

Licorice – Top Lane

Eric Ritchie, AKA “Licorice”, was a substitute player for C9’s Challenger team for a few years, until he joined eUnited in 2016.  From there, he proved himself as a formidable top-laner, and he helped their team secure first place in both Spring and Summer 2016.  Cloud 9 quickly took note of Licorice’s prowess, and they recruited him as their main top-laner for this year.

Svenskeren - Jungle

Sven is widely regarded as one of the best junglers in the world.  As a fairly aggressive jungle-main, he has a strong track record of establishing a strong advantage with early ganks, which forces his opponents to play it safe and avoid making bold plays.  Sven’s performance last year with TSM allowed them to finish as the #1 team, and it’s definitely possible he’ll continue this trend by securing a championship win for Cloud 9 this year.

Jensen – Mid Lane

Jensen is one of the most terrifying Mid players to lane against, especially given his skill at denying CS for his opponents while maintaining nearly perfect CS for himself.  A staple part of C9’s roster, Jensen has been with the team for 3 years now, and they’d be foolish to let him go at this point.  His skill with Zed is arguably on-par with Faker in his prime, and I’d expect most teams to auto-ban Zed whenever they’re matched against C9 this year.

Sneaky – AD Carry

Sneaky has been around for a while as well, and this will be his 5^th year with Cloud 9.  A well-known streamer, Sneaky puts forth little effort in hiding his playstyle, which allows his opponents to study his strategies well.   Fortunately, he recently switched roles from Mid to AD Carry, so there’s not much data for his opponents to look at currently.  This preseason, Sneaky’s proving himself as a formidable ADC, especially when he picks Vayne or Tristana.

Smoothie - Support

Smoothie has a strong reputation among Support players for his ability to secure kills with crowd control abilities.  Like many talented League players, he’s often able to predict opponents’ moves pretty consistently.  His success rate with landing Thresh hooks reflects this, as there have been times where his opponents will waste their Flash and end up getting hooked anyways.  Paired with Sneaky as ADC, Smoothie is in a strong position to help Cloud 9 secure a Championship win this year.