In July 2023, a Russian super team under the Cloud9 banner was announced with the acquisition of Denis "electroNic" Sharipov and Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy from Natus Vincere to further elevate Cloud9 into the absolute top of competitive Counter-Strike.

But quickly the project fell apart with Dmitriy "sh1ro" Sokolov’s exit from the team which left Cloud9 without a dedicated AWP’er up until this day. Last week Denis "electroNic" Sharipov transferred to Virtus.pro, and now both Abay "HObbit" Khassenov and Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy have been benched on the team.

Immediately after the announcement, Cloud9’s CEO Jack Etienne assured the fans of Cloud9, that the organization is staying in Counter-Strike, and is doing a full rebuilding process in collaboration with Sergey "Ax1Le" Rykhtorov and Kirill 'Boombl4' Mikhailov.

Cloud9 reached the Quarter-Finals at the PGL Copenhagen Major, where they were eliminated by Team Vitality. 

Perfecto

H0bbit

Cloud9

The first match of the CS2 Major almost gave us the first big upset!

Cloud9 got off to an excellent start against the Danish team ECSTATIC, but the hometown boys clawed their way back into the match and equalized the score at 7-7 on Ancient. The Danes went ahead 10-8 before losing a catastrophic round in a 5vs5 retake situation, where Cloud9 managed to salvage what seemed like a lost round. 

[twitchClip:HumbleOriginalWalrusPlanking-JwEWaCdrRPhV_XuQ]

From here on Cloud9 showed their class and won the remaining rounds to win 13-10. Abay "HObbit" Khassenov played a superb game going 28-12 in K-D including the first ace of the tournament.

On the Secondary Stream, Eternal Fire quickly found momentum after going down 0-2 on Nuke against TheMongolz. From here on, there was no doubt about the outcome. The Turkish roster won 13-6 and move on to the 1-0 bracket.

All four teams will be back in action later tonight in the second round of the event starting from 18.00 (CET).

Eternal Fire

Abay “HObbit” Khasenov started as the youngest semi-pro in Kazakhstan to joining his favorite organization.

The now 28-year-old Kazakhstani has for a long time in his career used to being underestimated. When he won a Major, all anyone could talk about was his in-game leader at the time, Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko. Then, after the Major-winning Gambit squad fell apart, most experts and CS:GO fans wrote HObbit off for good. And even after a brand new Gambit began to win everything during CS:GO’s online era, his role in the team’s success was still being questioned. But, HObbit was ready to prove everyone wrong.

Cloud9 lived up to the expectations with 2-0 win against 1WIN.

In the CIS derby it was Abay 'HObbit' Khasenov and his young teammates that could celebrate after a tough match against 1WIN.

On both Vertigo and Overpass it all came down to how many CT rounds, that each team could muster. In total 11 T rounds were won in the match between the two teams, where Cloud9 won 16-12, 16-13. On the second map of Overpass Cloud9 had to turn a 3-12 deficit into a victory. Again it was their CT side that prevailed keeping 1WIN on 1 win exactly during the second half.

Cloud9 is ready for Rio, and is also in contention to be handed a Legends status.

Cloud9 - 1WIN 2-0 | IEM Road to Rio RMR (Group A)

16-12 (Vertigo) | {cflag:KZ} HObbit – 1.49 Rating / 28–24 K-D / 119.8 ADR

16-13 (Overpass) | {cflag:RU} sh1ro – 1.49 Rating / 24–11 K-D / 75.9 ADR

Player of the Match: Sergey 'Ax1Le' Rykhtorov

	30 days	90 days
Fixture count	0	0
Maps count	0	0

H0bbit

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