Many people think that this new roster change on Cloud 9 is not a good one. I think otherwise. He has an extremely high potential and Cloud 9 need a 5th immediately who can grow into a star role. These are less than optimal circumstances for this addition, but Stewie2k is a player screaming to be picked up by a pro team.
Just last year, Thorin said on an analyst desk, I forget which one, that if anyone wants to compete, even at a semi-pro level, they need many years in previous Counter Strike games. It is an obvious statement to make; no one who has started CS with CS:GO has become a pro yet. There tons of people with many more hours of experience than anyone who has started with CS:GO. Sure, people started playing professionally early on in 1.6, but that’s because everyone was bad. In League of Legends, there is a move called an Insec. This was first performed on Lee Sin by a pro player called Insec. It was considered virtually impossible at the time, but now, loads of people can do it, I can do it. It is essential for playing Lee Sin. My point is that as time goes on, people learn little tricks, and these tricks are eventually learned by everyone and become the baseline. Any person who has started out with CS:GO should not be able to compete with people with people like f0rest who have been playing for over 10 years, except Stewie can. In PUGs, he wrecks players like tarik, shroud, and others.
Many people now bring up that Stewie has only been wrecking people in PUGs, except that’s not quite true. In official matches, he has a 1.01 KDR, and he has a 50% headshot ratio. The best player in the world, olofmeister, has a KDR of 1.21 and a headshot percentage of 42.%. Okay, olofmeister has a better KDR and plays more LANS, but he has been playing longer and is without a doubt the best player. Stewie isn’t doing too bad. FugLy is bad with somewhat similar stats because he’s on one of NA’s best teams. But why is Stewie different? I think that the reason why Stewie can destroy PUGs and not do so well in official matches is because a more equal footing. On his last team, Splyce, he had ptr and a bunch of shitters. He is playing against teams like Liquid and Cloud 9 with that shit team he was on. In FPL, he is able to do well because the teams are attempted to be made even. If his team is shit, then the other team will be shit, and he will clean up. Judging Stewie based on his teammates is unfair. KennyS was said to be amazing on Titan, and those “scrubs” on Titan minus KennyS could easily beat Splyce minus Stewie. Now, who is really the one in elo hell?
Getting on a proper team, like Cloud 9, will be very good for Stewie’s development as a player and person, except it isn’t quite the right time. If sean were still on the team, he could really be taught what it means to be on a team; after all, it was Cloud 9’s teamwork, under seang@res’ leadership, that brought them to that three week period of prominence. Unfortunately for Stewie and Cloud 9, n0thing, a bit of scatterbrain, will be leading the team. n0thing hasn’t shown tactical mastery nor amazing play. In fact, he would often ask for the call multiple times after being stated. Maybe, it was just Adderall?
Cloud 9 right now is certainly less than perfect for a new player to grow, but some of the players can offer quite a bit to Stewie. He isn’t just a noob whose capabilities are limited to cheesing people with outright aggression. Hopefully, Cloud 9’s extremely passive players (everyone but seang@res–who is gone–and freakazoid) will rub off on Stewie and Stewie rub off on them. freakazoid and n0thing seem to be rather friendly people. They may be able to bring out the best in Stewie, someone who may have attitude problems.
All in all, this is a good pick for Cloud 9. They are doing something that NiP has refused to do, pick up a player before they are taken. This will only be good for Cloud 9 and Stewie. The question is how good. They don’t have an in game leader or coach. The loss of seang@res will do them more harm than good. It’s something C9 couldn’t have prevented, and they are trying to make the best of it. With that in mind, they are making the best of their NA choices. I think gobb would have been a great choice to fill sean’s position. They have identical styles, he speaks pretty good English, and is willing to live outside of his home country. To get a really good lineup you’d have to remove n0thing or shroud and to have both gobb and Stewie2k. Since that’s not going to happen, this is the best that it’s going to get. And the best Cloud 9 can hope for is cleaning up NA.
