LoL: Hip US team relies on young Koreans, fails – now bring back the old white men

The US team Cloud 9 had dared a radical change in League of Legends: They rely on young players from South Korea and sorted out the old veterans in rows. After a disappointing season, they are now taking a completely different approach, bringing back experienced players from Europe, including a 27-year-old Dane.

Cloud9 has always been the modern, somehow different team in League of Legends. For years, Sneaky was a colorful franchise player who liked to try his hand at cross-dressing.

But lately, people have been overdoing it a bit with the upheavals.

3 completely different identities in 1.5 years

This is what the team looked like a year ago: A year ago, Cloud9 was a team with 3 outstanding players: They bought Croatian Perkz for a lot of money. The strong Dane Zven raged on the botlane with his supporter Vulcan, who was considered a huge talent in North America.

However, the team’s weak points were jungler Blaber and top planer Fudge, who played solidly but not outstandingly.

Blaber once had such a terrible play that Zven apparently freaked out and was then banished to the “Academy League” where he ran amok.

Cloud9 finished second in the LCS with the team – but that wasn’t enough, so the team was completely rebuilt. You had to because Perkz slipped back to Europe after the chaos year.

Perhaps the most compelling story in LoL is about a “reformed” troll:

Cloud9 becomes the Korea Branch in the LCS

This is what the team looked like half a year ago: Before the 2022 Spring Split, the team made a radical bet on Korea: they did a boot camp in Seoul, brought in an innovative coach who had trained in Korea, and bet on a young, hungry team peppered with Koreans:

• The experienced Dane Zven was replaced on the botlane with the young Korean Berserker (18)
• Summit (23), another talent from Korea, moved to the top lane – the Australian Fudge had to switch to the mid lane, where the European and very expensive star game Perkz was lost
• Winsome, an American with Korean roots, now played as a supporter

In general, they were in a radical mood and now wanted to build a “10 man” squad with players of equal value in order to enable optimal training.

This is how it went: The team had a strong run in the regular season, with South Korean Summit even being voted America’s best player on the top lane. But there were already cracks: The coach left the team early from an unspecified position.

Then in the playoffs, Cloud9 collapsed and lost all 6 games.

MVP Summit left the team after just 6 months – just like Winsome. Allegedly, the players were even offered to all other teams in the US-LIGA LCS for free.

What’s next? Before the summer of 2022, Cloud9 is undergoing a complete turnaround:

• Only Berserker remains from the South Korean offensive.
• Zven (24) should now play the support part, the trained botlaner with a penchant for penta kills should become Berserker’s partner.
• Midlaner Fudge moves back to the top plane to replace Summit.
• Jensen, of all people, is now being brought back for the midlane, the 27-year-old Dane who played for Cloud9 from 2015 to 2019. But was last sorted out as part of Team Liquid and remained without a club in spring 2022.

So after Cloud9 relied on young Koreans in spring 2022, older Danes should now take care of it.

Two years ago, Jensen was already wondering why he got so much money again – a year later he was replaced by his team at the time:

LoL: Man of retirement age (25) reportedly receives record deal of $ 4.2 million