by Kia KahaRyan ‘freakazoid’ Abadir, who has been a part of Cloud9 since being signed in April 2015, has left the team’s active roster.
Since being signed in April of 2015 alongside Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham, Ryan “freakazoid” Abadir was part of Cloud9’s rise to prominence during the team’s memorable Summer 2015 run that included reaching the grand finals of the ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 finals, ESWC 2015, and the FACEIT Stage 2 finals at DreamHack Valencia. The North American wonder-team entered a prolonged slump in the fall of 2015, which ultimately led to longtime brains of the team Sean “seang@res” Gares stepping down and the team enlisting Jake “Stewie2K” Yip instead.
In their appearances in 2016, Cloud9 seemed dogged by leadership issues and had a weak T-side in particular, leading to a below-the-belt finish at the Game Show Finals and, following a successful Major qualification campaign, the team were stomped out of the Major after two convincing best-of-one losses. Abadir himself ran afoul of controversy when, following an online altercation with Liquid’s Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, the Cloud9 organisation were forced to issue a statement with the player’s apology, in addition to a pay cut for the month and attendance of the by-now-infamous seminar. After middling results, the Cloud9 organisation have now announced that Abadir has stepped down from the team’s active roster although he will remain under contract for the rest of 2016, implying a buyout will be necessary for organisations looking to secure the services of the player. While Cloud9 will search for a permanent fifth, they have meanwhile decided to use Eric “adreN” Hoag as a stand-in, who recently saw an upswing in play occur when he concluded his days at Team Liquid whilst playing at the MLG Columbus Main Qualifier and Major.
Cloud9’s roster is now:
Jordan “n0thing” Gilber
Mike “shroud” Grzesiek
Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham
Jake “Stewie2K” Yip
Eric “adreN” Hoag (stand-in)
Source: HLTV.org
