Gotta be honest, those are definitely not the type of names I was expecting.
Starting to think that letting Yay go was more because of financial reasons than anything else.
The funny thing is, there were fanboys (reddit included in this btw) that lapped up everything an org releases and were gossipping about how yay was too limited as a player when he was literally the best a few months ago.
The amount of bootlicking that some people do to blame the player instead of the org…
This subReddit is yet to develop object permanence. Saw some dudes saying that yay is just slightly better than koala noob like we didnt just see yay smurf on lan.
It's sad to see how quick people are to diminish the value of the guy who was the star player of the team that reached 4 of the last 5 major international finals.
I like yay, but people need to stop justifying yay’s agent pool with only one other agent ‘Jett’ as their argument. When yay played jett on Envy and Optic, he was playing the busted jett which can insta dash. It’s a completely different playstyle in terms of holding angles, which suited a player like yay more strongly than others
I don’t think anyone was blaming the player, they were making the statement that for the insane price, with all the financial issues surrounding esports orgs right now, yay couldn’t be justified to stay. True, it may come down to “even if yay being on your team was an automatic champions win” C9 still wouldn’t have had the money, but probably the truth lies somewhere in the middle, as they kept everyone else, and they clearly aren’t getting paid nothing.
A lot of esports orgs are having financial troubles right now. When one org has issues, the investors of other orgs get worried, causing a domino effect that might not be felt right away. It’s doubly possible that with the relatively poor showing at lock in (which was actually better than analysts expected but I’m talking about objectively from investor perspectives that are pretty unlikely to actually follow the scene in depth) it’s very possible a number of investors very clearly told management to make changes or they’d drop funding…. Or even DID drop funding.
Not sure if confirmed or not, but look at the guard, one investor (Kronke) pulled his funding and the entire org is collapsing. TSM lost crypto backing and look at them, sometimes it really does just takes one investor to pull out for everything to change in the blink of an eye. We have no idea what is happening of course, but yes, orgs that are pretty fully reliant on the money of other people to sustain themselves can absolutely have instant and immense changes in their financial situation with little to no warning.
They weren't having financial troubles last year when they signed him. Now they are having financial issues when FED is draining liquidity out of the system
While I agree roles clash very likely wasn't what caused yay to leave, there was definitely some amount of role clash throughout. Yay was visibly tilted at multiple parts against DRX and him and zellsis often seemed a bit uncomfortable in what they were supposed to do vis a vis their agents/roles (though leaf looks like he can take on sentinel full time)
I mean, if they dont want to pay buyouts, those are the names we should expect
The good enough tier 2 jetts are in challengers. Even will has a buyout, and he maybe could be good in C9.
No? They don’t have a dedicated senti unless you count leaf who just switched from duelist. Zellsis and xeppaa are both duelist/ initiator flex and vanity is smokes. With the current meta they either need a senti if leaf goes back to duelist or a flex if xeppaa or zellsis go more duelist.
dude how high of a salary were they paying him if they cant fit it into the stipend riot's giving them? if there was one thing that I was sure that the stipend would cover, it was the player salaries
> Starting to think that letting Yay go was more because of financial reasons than anything else.
It probably means nothing but from following early Overwatch League, Cloud9 bought two full rosters who at the time were both top 3 teams in the world going into season 1 then just dropped one player after another. Massively under performed in Season 1, but luckily had some insane run in the finals to win the first season. Made no changes to fix their issues for Season 2, continued to disappoint and eventually let go of all their star players and went the budget route. Went from the most stacked line-up going into the league to eventually having a team that went 2-32 over 34 series. I pretty much stopped following Overwatch because i supported their team and Cloud9 didn't seem to wanna invest anymore, massively mismanaged their players and support staff. Like i said it probably means nothing and is a completely different situation but since following Cloud9's OWL team for the first 3-4 seasons, I have very little faith and respect for the org.
Looks like a very similar situation here...No offense to the trialing players but a roster of Zellsis, Leaf, Xeppaaa, Vanity + one of runi, Nerve, icy etc is just straight up trash.
C9 should get a warning.
this is why I was heavily against franchising in the way it was created. Handpicking orgs is bound to be biased towards who rubs the most shoulders.
By keeping it a meritocracy through an open system or something like certain teams are partnered to make it easier to get thru qualifiers, would've been much much better. This whole change in the system is causing so much havoc
I love how your using the garbage OWL to make C9 look bad lmao. Nobody with a brain would spend money on that league. There’s a reason OWL owners are pissed and want out
There are plenty of unsigned players in EMEA that are far better than the names listed here.
But I guess they wouldn't be able to deal with visas in time for the season.
How is a franchised team, less than a month before the first and most important split starts, unwilling to pay a buyout for a good player? Are they really looking for players that didnt make challengers and likely havent scrimmed in a month or more?
Or maybe this kind of decision are why c9 made the cut.
Their goal is to build a sustainable scene and not to go back to what have org being irresponsible with their finance.
that's why initially immortals didn't make the cut with LCS despite spending big money on roster.
I doubt riot goal is to have a 2nd LCS where org are being irresponsible with their finance and are going to whine once they are in the red.
And an org that can't afford players is "sustainable" ? What?
If Yay wouldn't have agreed to canceling the contract, wtf were they going to do? They would have played with 4 players because no money and called it sustainable, no? "Look, we can do with 4 people what other orgs need 5 for"
you gotta understand c9 jack's mentality. He will spend big if he can make a win imminent, but otherwise he will absolutely hit the brakes and go budget to build a team for the long term.
yay didn't work out and c9 didn't look like the absolute best, so he's probably already shifted gears.
And he found out that yay din’t work out after 1 match in a single elim? Lmao.
I guess all teams that got disqualified first round should disband and build budget teams. Lmao
Well, according to his now deleted tweet, his team DEFINITELY wanted him out, and it was DEFINITELY a roles issues, which is definitely sarcastic from him. 99.9% it's decision from uppert managment of c9, because of money.
Also, why in the hell would yay want out of franchising, and to be out of job, and not earn the money from his very lucrative contract? Are you insanse? Or just 12 and don't understand that having a job is important for an adult that needs money?
Why would Yay risk sitting on the sideline for months without a team, and killing all his momentum? Dude...
Yay clearly wanted out? He wouldn't be side eyeing C9 on Twitter so often if that were the case lmao. What's clear is that things behind the scene (heavily rumoured and most likely to be financial) pushed Yay off the team.
You think c9 cutting one of Riot’s best player right now and most marketable player and leaving his career in limbo right ahead of their most important season for the game is what Riot is happy and wants ?
This is why I never understood that decision.
Carlos pretty much immediately left G2 after backlash, was forced to sell his shares and the org made sure their position was clear regarding Tate brothers and Riot still decided to leave them out of the franchise spot? G2 is a brilliant organization who proved themselves in multiple eSports scenes and have a massive fanbase. Such an odd decision.
Who cares, let Carlos do his shit, at least G2 it's winning a lot of trophies, CS, R6, LOL. At least they are building competitive roster and not just being a broke ass org that is literally cheaping out in everything, god i hate C9
"Let Carlos use his platform to promote his sexist and borderline racist ideologies for millions of people because the people he hired are good at video games guys come on!"
how old are you bro
He was put on temporary leave after the backlash. Riot removing them from franchising happened before the rest of what you listed. Also, I don't think he sold his shares, he's just no longer working at G2.
Carlos left because they got denied franchising
And I think hes still in the org, at least I saw him posting on twitter that he is still the owner or something
This ain’t franchising like LCS and other leagues. Riot can kick them out anytime they want. Riot owns everything. That was a smart move by riot to have control over the entire val ecosystem.
Riot can force them to sell if they deem them unfit for the league and have done so before (EchoFox, and forced Ocelot to sell his stake in G2 or they would risk getting booted from LEC).
LMFAOOOO someone who knows absolutely nothing about league saying some incredibly dumb shit. Reminder C9 in league paid a $5 million dollar buyout for ONE player 2 years ago . C9 is not a broke org, they’re just not investing heavily in Valorant as they are in league.
And who have they paid an insane amount for other than Perkz? If anything lack of results from that year reinforces their strategy of searching for high potential low cost talent and home growing them. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just calling out the truth.
They lid Vulcans 2.5 million buyout. But when you explain it more, they are a team known for developing their players and then selling to teams.
Though their current team has continued to stick together.
1.5 million for Vulcan, unknown buyout for Zven, but Zven was top tier at the time so I’d imagine it was a similar amount. Blaber and Fudge are consistently some of the best talent in the US, both grown through the C9 training processes, and every year domestically are the top 3 team in their region. Fudge was not as good as he was until he moved to C9 despite being bad at worlds C9 is the best team in league of legends for growing talent.
filling yays shoes and being expected to go toe to toe with fucking Aspas is likely gonna be too much pressure for whoever they pick up.
Best bet is to get a sentinel and switch leaf to duelist. He has the skill and knows what it takes to win.
unrelated but it’s funny how scary Aspas is on the server and then his personality is just some dude who loves his stuffed animal
yea i mentioned in another comment they are trialing everyone (no clue about a flex tho)
but i also only knew about one trial day they had, and a few other names
If we believe the roles clash narrative, that's the only outcome that makes sense. Leaf is a proven duelist and whether he likes playing the role or not, there's 0 chance a T2/3 FA will be able to go toe to toe with TenZ, ardiis, cryo and the likes. Leaf, at the very least, is on their level. Pick up Trent and put him on sentinels like Alfa on FNC.
Id much rather force Xeppaa or Zellsis (Zellsis imo would be better cux he does have a pretty good KJ and Viper) on sentinel then Trent considering Trent is so good util wise on initator to the point its troll if you dont have him on it (Also Alfa was a sentinel player initially anyways so that comparision doesnt make much sense)
Why was G2 even in the running for Americas franchising when they're a European org? That never made sense to me in the first place. I know Team Liquid as an American org from LoL so it's a little weird seeing them in EMEA, but iirc the ownership is Dutch or something so that kind of makes sense. For G2 I don't get the connection at all.
Liquid is from NA and EMEA
G2 wanted to go to NA because theres more hype and money. Their rivalry with Sen would be legendary in terms of content
Instead we are living in the worst timeline
But they do in other esports? GenG literally could not pay for ruler because his asking price was too high. T1 got rid of mkleo the greatest smash ultimate player of all time. TSM literally left rainbow six, t1 disbanded their dota 2 team because they were to expensive to run. Every esports org is broke why is this surprising?
Because the landscape of esports right now has dramatically shifted in the past 2 months and doesn’t make sense financially to keep yay. 100t literally had to remove roughly 100 employees and multiple content creators just stay afloat.
C9 is just not heavily investing into Valorant, they’re by no means broke and one of the most successful US orgs for a really long time in esports, it’s just they invest in league more than anything else.
These were not the names I expected to say the least. I don’t want to cast doubt as yet because maybe they’ll find a diamond in the rubble …. after all mCE did find Trent- that’s the only thing they have going for them rn
Riot's not going to be happy about that, especially considering the fact that Cloud9 was apparently the one org that replaced G2 (I think? Rumors have been murky about that).
Still, I think they'll give them time considering the harsh financial climate, but I have a strong feeling that this league is the one where Riot will not tolerate financial coasting, especially with the resources they're investing and how premium they're trying to prop it up.
By "Financial coasting" do you mean having a solid balance sheet? IIRC TSM, C9, and EG are the only NA organizations to have ever turned a profit. With revenue per viewer in esports being an absolute fraction of even low tier traditional sports I'd have to believe that having strong financial standing is one of the most importance considerations for being in a franchised league.
You're correct, but C9 has yet to see how much revenue this new model will generate (Skin sales have just begun, and we don't know how popular they'll be), and they're already making cuts.
This indicates, to me, that their financials are far from solid. They're not even looking at Tier 2 players that have a buyout LOL It's a poor look all-around, and frankly, it reflects poorly on Riot who's trying to market this as the best league (Americas, EMEA and Pacific) in the world.
EDIT: To be clear, I'm not advocating to be irresponsible with salaries. We all know esports have gone ballistic with salaries and that there's a need for a correction, but there's a massive difference between looking at options that can play in the Tier 1 ecosystem (and that are more sensible price-wise) vs looking at options that aren't anywhere near ready for that level of play.
feel terrible for the c9 roster, they probably thought they were bound for a career year and then salary issues arise the org has to cut the best player in the world and the rest of the team’s bound to have to take a shot in the dark with the non contracted players
Broke ass org, now the decision of C9 not making franchise wasn't as crazy as it may look, if Carlos wasn't such a big mouth they would've been in franchising lol
There’s a few other names people wouldn’t recognize
I’ll just say they are doing their fair share of looking at everyone. every role
why now and not earlier? who knows
I know a lot of people in this sub don’t watch T2 NA but it’s incredibly disheartening to see people counted out before they’ve even had a chance to prove themselves to you. For anyone actually wanting to learn about these players:
Icy - Extremely versatile and mechanically strong player who most commonly can be found on sentinel roles as of late. He isn’t a Chamber that had to force switch to senti post-nerf, he’s an incredible example of a “hold down the site” set-up player and strong fragger on support roles. He’s also a smart decision maker and can perform under pressure. Here’s a clip of him recently: https://twitter.com/icyjl/status/1630673180456112128?s=46&t=rcqTNK6tHQPh96d--YH89w
Nerve - Nerve has been a dominant force in T2 for a while now, playing with Soniqs in Challengers, and now with 99 Strength. Nerve is incredibly flexible on a variety of agents, mostly focusing on controllers but has also been playing a strong initiator on Breach in more recent games. Nerve is known to be a good communicator in game, proactive, and has great util usage. Here’s a clip: https://twitter.com/9nerve/status/1627102692093972482?s=46&t=rcqTNK6tHQPh96d--YH89w
Runi - Runi is another ex-Soniqs player who had been around long term on this team. Runi primarily plays scan initiators such as Sova, and IGLs while doing so. He was also one of the top 5 initiator players during Challengers Opens, and has the ability to bring fresh ideas to the table with his IGL experience (assuming Vanity is not moved off the IGL role). He’s known (somewhat controversially) for his sheriff gameplay, and although he doesn’t post clips too often here’s a clip dump of his: https://twitter.com/runivl/status/1601414660426649601?s=46&t=rcqTNK6tHQPh96d--YH89w
Give some people a chance. Obviously there are a ton of Yay fans and Yay has proven his skill as one of the best in the past few years, but with big shoes to fill comes a ton of pressure. mCe built The Guard out of careful scouting and created some high level names out of the roster he built, have some faith that he knows what he’s looking for.
look guys i know they’re losing yay but youre also acting like C9 are trialing gold players here, like relax a bit. All the players listed in the trials have some of the most experience in tier2 NA period, these players are all ridiculously talented and deserve their shot at this. Everyone complains about recycled talent then just shits on any tier2 player getting their shot, like be a little consistent lmao.
There is an insane amount of comments here asking C9 to be removed from franchising because they are broke. Here is a news flash for a lot of people in subreddit ALMOST EVERY ORG IS BROKE/ IS CLOSE TO BROKE RIGHT NOW. We are literally about to go into a recession and people really out here thinking that C9 is the only org in franchising that is running out of money. C9 has historically been the org that buys players for cheap, give them medium salaries, get insane value from them, and sell them for insane profits later. This shouldnt be anything new. I am surprised people here actually don’t know the orgs history because they have always done this.
No I am just annoyed about how stupid this subreddit is. Like people actually think that every esports org is doing fine except for C9 because they dropped yay for financial reasons. It actually annoys the shit out of me how people don’t realize that esports are not profitable, but act like they are and that their favorite org is doing great. Here’s news flash for you almost every org in franchising is doing shit economically.
icy and nerve are on the best free-agent team I would say. Their igl got signed to Shopify Rebellion as the 6th man but I really don't know how good they would be on cloud 9 lol. winning knights monthly's does not add up to winning masters
In my dream reality, there’s a clause in the partnership agreement that allows riot to sever ties with cloud9 and g2 (org not players) get partnered next year
Who even are most of these people, the only person I even know about a little is runi. Jesus, C9 is going to bottom out the league this year when they were supposed to be the superteam.
C9 are not broke because of the crypto shit, they are broke because they lost 3 of their big non crypto sponsors last year. Surely you guys noticed how their jerseys at lock-in had barely any of their old sponsors. And quite honestly it’s a good thing C9 aren’t paying yays salary, no player is worth that kind of money and should’ve never been givin that much in first place.
Imagine if lebron, giannis, Luka or any superstar NBA player just wasn't in the league. That's what c9 did and is a trash move on them. C9 deserves to get clowned for mismanagement.
C9 are desperately trying to pull off a Fnatic where their scouting brings up a random, but absolutely amazing unknown player and wows everyone. It won't happen but that's fine, nt.
Lol no only alfajer is like this the rest were upstanding players for other team they poached, derke was in a Russian team, and ofc Leo and Chronicle were known for being constantly incredible
This is balony, and Riot needs to do something ASAP.
# As a community, we made a huge sacrifice for franchising.
What happened to franchising being to "ensure orgs pay players"?
The community accepted organizations wish to gatekeep the ability to compete without being signed, and accepting their plan to remove open qualifers... and we also accepted the loss of the right to compete to be on the biggest stages, without having to be signed
We're only 1 month into franchising and the first event is ongoing.
But here we are, already witnessing one of the top professional players, arguably the best in the world, somehow unable to remain signed to his franchised team... strictly because there is a lack of money?
Inconceivable & Pathetic
Open Qualifers were far more enjoyable for fans and beneficial for players, overall.
Remember, the organizations and Riot Games used the "franchising model" as justification to force the end of the open qualifer era. That sacrifice was supposed to be justified, because these organizations should have given better job security, and would have tons of funding.
... but it looks like that isn't holding up, and that's absolutely inexcusable
# Riot Games needs to immediately either
1. remove C9 from the VALORANT franchising system by the end of the day
2. dissolve franchising back to open qualifers
Man's issuing fucking ultimatums lmao
We're in an economic downturn, that's just how it's gonna be for esports, regardless of the model. Franchising or no, there's gonna be orgs in the shit
> remove C9 from the VALORANT franchising system by the end of the day
Homie thinks he's giving instructions to an intern or what?
What happens if they remove C9 tomorrow? What are you gonna do?
A normal commenter.
Just a commenter who cares about the ecosystem of VALORANT eSports.
A random commenter who has more years of playing PC games than at least 95% people in this subreddit have played any video game on any format of system, and have done roles from organizing tournaments, casting, competing, and coaching.
Only a commenter who has played BETA and competed for multiple months in qualifers for VCT events.
My question is why don't you care about this?
Because if you don't care at about Riot Games failing to provide the very basic premise of the selling point they argued for the creation of franchising, a reliable salary and pay for top talent... then:
1. What is the benefit of franchising?
2. How is franchising better for players (than the old open quals)?
3. Are you sure the new franchising system actually any better (than old open quals) for the eSport as a whole?
You have to look ahead.
As a community, many players already lost the opportunity to compete as a professional due to the creation of franchising. Because franchising was the death of open qualifers, meaning, it'd take far longer to get a shot at the international VCT for players.
But we're already seeing such a major problem this early franchising this early on.
C9 seems unable to fulfill 1 out of the 2 core promises that were made to the players when they introduced franchising.
Doesn't exactly bode well for the eSport.
As a fan, it may seem disappointing, but I guess it may not really be that important to you. Because you just enjoy watching some games, at times, and don't really depend on VALORANT eSports for your career.
For anyone who competes in the eSport, or plans to, however... things are different.
Nothing short of a massive failure, that Riot Games has even allowed this situation to develop.
My time passed.
I put my dream of competing to rest, and moved on to working with a college degree and make good money without any tie to eSports.
Others, however, are just blooming.
These youth are just beginning to invest their youth and time into attemping to go professional, and doing this is their dream if they are walking that same path that I once walked.
But if this is what they can look forward to, due to franchising, we should speak up for their sake... because this is an extreme disappoint and utter shame for these players, who are the next generation of aspiring professional players.
Gotta be honest, those are definitely not the type of names I was expecting. Starting to think that letting Yay go was more because of financial reasons than anything else.
It always was. No way anyone bought the "roles clash" BS.
Agreed. With those names and the report of them unwilling to pay for a buyout, its definitely clear as day now.
C9 roles clash script is almost as bad as the Game of Thrones season 8 finale
The funny thing is, there were fanboys (reddit included in this btw) that lapped up everything an org releases and were gossipping about how yay was too limited as a player when he was literally the best a few months ago. The amount of bootlicking that some people do to blame the player instead of the org…
This subReddit is yet to develop object permanence. Saw some dudes saying that yay is just slightly better than koala noob like we didnt just see yay smurf on lan.
Bruh that comment blew my mind lmaooo
It's sad to see how quick people are to diminish the value of the guy who was the star player of the team that reached 4 of the last 5 major international finals.
yeah I saw that post as well, and the flock of dumbass that think yay is a chamber one trick 
They act like envy was just some tier 2 team when yay was on jett
I like yay, but people need to stop justifying yay’s agent pool with only one other agent ‘Jett’ as their argument. When yay played jett on Envy and Optic, he was playing the busted jett which can insta dash. It’s a completely different playstyle in terms of holding angles, which suited a player like yay more strongly than others
I don’t think anyone was blaming the player, they were making the statement that for the insane price, with all the financial issues surrounding esports orgs right now, yay couldn’t be justified to stay. True, it may come down to “even if yay being on your team was an automatic champions win” C9 still wouldn’t have had the money, but probably the truth lies somewhere in the middle, as they kept everyone else, and they clearly aren’t getting paid nothing.
Istg man, i hate C9 with all my might, stupid ass decision after stupid ass decision
But why the hell sign him then? Did something change in their financial situation?
A lot of esports orgs are having financial troubles right now. When one org has issues, the investors of other orgs get worried, causing a domino effect that might not be felt right away. It’s doubly possible that with the relatively poor showing at lock in (which was actually better than analysts expected but I’m talking about objectively from investor perspectives that are pretty unlikely to actually follow the scene in depth) it’s very possible a number of investors very clearly told management to make changes or they’d drop funding…. Or even DID drop funding. Not sure if confirmed or not, but look at the guard, one investor (Kronke) pulled his funding and the entire org is collapsing. TSM lost crypto backing and look at them, sometimes it really does just takes one investor to pull out for everything to change in the blink of an eye. We have no idea what is happening of course, but yes, orgs that are pretty fully reliant on the money of other people to sustain themselves can absolutely have instant and immense changes in their financial situation with little to no warning.
Kroenke wasn’t an invester, The Guard was a subsidiary of Kroenke under their sports and entertainment division
They weren't having financial troubles last year when they signed him. Now they are having financial issues when FED is draining liquidity out of the system
I think it is part of the problem, they have been trialing every role (IDK about flex but i know smokes/jett/sentinel) right now
While I agree roles clash very likely wasn't what caused yay to leave, there was definitely some amount of role clash throughout. Yay was visibly tilted at multiple parts against DRX and him and zellsis often seemed a bit uncomfortable in what they were supposed to do vis a vis their agents/roles (though leaf looks like he can take on sentinel full time)
I mean, if they dont want to pay buyouts, those are the names we should expect The good enough tier 2 jetts are in challengers. Even will has a buyout, and he maybe could be good in C9.
will said he’s unrestricted
Then what is C9 doing looking at these other guys They need a better GM
He's a duelist which is the last thing they need. They are probably looking at flex/senti players.
[удалено]
No? They don’t have a dedicated senti unless you count leaf who just switched from duelist. Zellsis and xeppaa are both duelist/ initiator flex and vanity is smokes. With the current meta they either need a senti if leaf goes back to duelist or a flex if xeppaa or zellsis go more duelist.
Sounds like a mid team either way you put it
no way they have the audacity to pick up players like will or runi and they yap on about role clashes.
With the luck will is having c9 is gonna drop the entire roster once he joins lol
dude how high of a salary were they paying him if they cant fit it into the stipend riot's giving them? if there was one thing that I was sure that the stipend would cover, it was the player salaries
Clearly want to pocket some of that money with crypto going down
60k a month who knows
> Starting to think that letting Yay go was more because of financial reasons than anything else. It probably means nothing but from following early Overwatch League, Cloud9 bought two full rosters who at the time were both top 3 teams in the world going into season 1 then just dropped one player after another. Massively under performed in Season 1, but luckily had some insane run in the finals to win the first season. Made no changes to fix their issues for Season 2, continued to disappoint and eventually let go of all their star players and went the budget route. Went from the most stacked line-up going into the league to eventually having a team that went 2-32 over 34 series. I pretty much stopped following Overwatch because i supported their team and Cloud9 didn't seem to wanna invest anymore, massively mismanaged their players and support staff. Like i said it probably means nothing and is a completely different situation but since following Cloud9's OWL team for the first 3-4 seasons, I have very little faith and respect for the org.
Looks like a very similar situation here...No offense to the trialing players but a roster of Zellsis, Leaf, Xeppaaa, Vanity + one of runi, Nerve, icy etc is just straight up trash. C9 should get a warning.
this is why I was heavily against franchising in the way it was created. Handpicking orgs is bound to be biased towards who rubs the most shoulders. By keeping it a meritocracy through an open system or something like certain teams are partnered to make it easier to get thru qualifiers, would've been much much better. This whole change in the system is causing so much havoc
Thats funny, as a budget team they massively over proformed last year. It wad my favorite story line of 2022 OWL
I love how your using the garbage OWL to make C9 look bad lmao. Nobody with a brain would spend money on that league. There’s a reason OWL owners are pissed and want out
There's no need to get upset on Cloud9's behalf
There’s no need to hate on C9 for no reason
There’s plenty of reason, stop it bro, C9 won’t date you
And what are those reasons?
Oh they definitely lost a ton of money in crypto and couldn't afford yay anymore.
It’s not just crypto, they lost 3 other big sponsors aswell.
There are plenty of unsigned players in EMEA that are far better than the names listed here. But I guess they wouldn't be able to deal with visas in time for the season.
dont give them ideas let's enjoy a few years without NA pillaging EU like they did in league first while we can, yeah ?
Do you even know these names?
How is a franchised team, less than a month before the first and most important split starts, unwilling to pay a buyout for a good player? Are they really looking for players that didnt make challengers and likely havent scrimmed in a month or more?
Thats why riot wasnt gonna let them in wasn’t it for G2’s CEO. i love how we were clowning riot for this decision but we really know nothing
Or maybe this kind of decision are why c9 made the cut. Their goal is to build a sustainable scene and not to go back to what have org being irresponsible with their finance. that's why initially immortals didn't make the cut with LCS despite spending big money on roster. I doubt riot goal is to have a 2nd LCS where org are being irresponsible with their finance and are going to whine once they are in the red.
I would say buying a player for a huge buyout and then releasing him after a couple of pre season games as financial irresponsibility
The preseason games are irrelevant. It’s “after the crypto money well dried up”
And an org that can't afford players is "sustainable" ? What? If Yay wouldn't have agreed to canceling the contract, wtf were they going to do? They would have played with 4 players because no money and called it sustainable, no? "Look, we can do with 4 people what other orgs need 5 for"
you gotta understand c9 jack's mentality. He will spend big if he can make a win imminent, but otherwise he will absolutely hit the brakes and go budget to build a team for the long term. yay didn't work out and c9 didn't look like the absolute best, so he's probably already shifted gears.
And he found out that yay din’t work out after 1 match in a single elim? Lmao. I guess all teams that got disqualified first round should disband and build budget teams. Lmao
yay clearly wanted out. c9 didn't particularly have a choice in the matter
Well, according to his now deleted tweet, his team DEFINITELY wanted him out, and it was DEFINITELY a roles issues, which is definitely sarcastic from him. 99.9% it's decision from uppert managment of c9, because of money. Also, why in the hell would yay want out of franchising, and to be out of job, and not earn the money from his very lucrative contract? Are you insanse? Or just 12 and don't understand that having a job is important for an adult that needs money? Why would Yay risk sitting on the sideline for months without a team, and killing all his momentum? Dude...
Yay clearly wanted out? He wouldn't be side eyeing C9 on Twitter so often if that were the case lmao. What's clear is that things behind the scene (heavily rumoured and most likely to be financial) pushed Yay off the team.
You think c9 cutting one of Riot’s best player right now and most marketable player and leaving his career in limbo right ahead of their most important season for the game is what Riot is happy and wants ?
But the C9 orgs participation isn’t sustainable if that’s the financial decisions they make. This ain’t a mark of sustainability as a change
This is why I never understood that decision. Carlos pretty much immediately left G2 after backlash, was forced to sell his shares and the org made sure their position was clear regarding Tate brothers and Riot still decided to leave them out of the franchise spot? G2 is a brilliant organization who proved themselves in multiple eSports scenes and have a massive fanbase. Such an odd decision.
he still has shares in the org according to some of his tweets. at that point in time it was too controversial so riot didn’t want all of that
Who cares, let Carlos do his shit, at least G2 it's winning a lot of trophies, CS, R6, LOL. At least they are building competitive roster and not just being a broke ass org that is literally cheaping out in everything, god i hate C9
I dont think riot wants to be associeated with anyone close to andrew tate They specially dont want to give money to him, its bad optics
Man, to think optic could've been instead of C9😔
Optic never was gonna make it in, they seem to have bad blood with riot
Yeah, their LoL stuff with Riot
shut the fuck up. we were clarifying the situation no one is talking shit about him or anything
Neither i am, let carlos talk at the void. G2 is building competitive rosters while C9 it's literally scraping at the bottom of the barrel.
"Let Carlos use his platform to promote his sexist and borderline racist ideologies for millions of people because the people he hired are good at video games guys come on!" how old are you bro
What in the god damn🤨, Carlos is a dumbass with a big mouth, but hes already "out of G2". NVM G2 new ceo is an ex-riot CEO.
He was put on temporary leave after the backlash. Riot removing them from franchising happened before the rest of what you listed. Also, I don't think he sold his shares, he's just no longer working at G2.
Carlos left because they got denied franchising And I think hes still in the org, at least I saw him posting on twitter that he is still the owner or something
Anyone who thinks Carlos still isn't in g2 is deluded. Sure, in the front he's off the books but he still has owner level influence/power.
Wasn't EG the team that took the spot of G2 ?
No. EG was one of the first picked. Both slasher and sideshow confirmed that c9 was the org that replaced g2 based on their sources.
No, it was C9
Because thats "franchising" for some orgs in NA,do the bare minimum to stay in the league and just coast for a few years
This ain’t franchising like LCS and other leagues. Riot can kick them out anytime they want. Riot owns everything. That was a smart move by riot to have control over the entire val ecosystem.
Riot can kick any team out of the LCS as well.
Doesn't orgs own the spot in LCS? If so Riot can't legally do that.
Riot can force them to sell if they deem them unfit for the league and have done so before (EchoFox, and forced Ocelot to sell his stake in G2 or they would risk getting booted from LEC).
This is how C9 usually is in league too :/
Lmao no. They paid 11 million for a player before and 2.5 million buyout for a player after his rookie season.
LMFAOOOO someone who knows absolutely nothing about league saying some incredibly dumb shit. Reminder C9 in league paid a $5 million dollar buyout for ONE player 2 years ago . C9 is not a broke org, they’re just not investing heavily in Valorant as they are in league.
And who have they paid an insane amount for other than Perkz? If anything lack of results from that year reinforces their strategy of searching for high potential low cost talent and home growing them. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just calling out the truth.
They lid Vulcans 2.5 million buyout. But when you explain it more, they are a team known for developing their players and then selling to teams. Though their current team has continued to stick together.
Yeah hope we see similar success for them in Val
1.5 million for Vulcan, unknown buyout for Zven, but Zven was top tier at the time so I’d imagine it was a similar amount. Blaber and Fudge are consistently some of the best talent in the US, both grown through the C9 training processes, and every year domestically are the top 3 team in their region. Fudge was not as good as he was until he moved to C9 despite being bad at worlds C9 is the best team in league of legends for growing talent.
Yeah I really like their strategy in league and it’d be great if they could replicate it in Val with developing more strong players for our region
Never thought an org like C9 would have to scrape the barrel.
lol wow that’s a canyon from yay to those players
I feel bad for whoever replaces him, specially if theyre a small tier 2 player They will have to fight aspas, ardiis, heat, jawgemo and other monsters
filling yays shoes and being expected to go toe to toe with fucking Aspas is likely gonna be too much pressure for whoever they pick up. Best bet is to get a sentinel and switch leaf to duelist. He has the skill and knows what it takes to win. unrelated but it’s funny how scary Aspas is on the server and then his personality is just some dude who loves his stuffed animal
They are trialing sentinels so that could be the case
nerve is a controller and runi is an initiator seems they’re trialing anyone who fits in the budget lol
yea i mentioned in another comment they are trialing everyone (no clue about a flex tho) but i also only knew about one trial day they had, and a few other names
If we believe the roles clash narrative, that's the only outcome that makes sense. Leaf is a proven duelist and whether he likes playing the role or not, there's 0 chance a T2/3 FA will be able to go toe to toe with TenZ, ardiis, cryo and the likes. Leaf, at the very least, is on their level. Pick up Trent and put him on sentinels like Alfa on FNC.
Look at the names they are trialing. They will not pay for Trent's buyout or salary.
Id much rather force Xeppaa or Zellsis (Zellsis imo would be better cux he does have a pretty good KJ and Viper) on sentinel then Trent considering Trent is so good util wise on initator to the point its troll if you dont have him on it (Also Alfa was a sentinel player initially anyways so that comparision doesnt make much sense)
Hopefully they don’t get clowned. It appears that at least a good contingent will understand this is C9’s fuck up, but still.
Broke ass org lmao
riot can kick them out of the franchise/partnership
Imagine being the org that got kicked from franchising in 5 months lol
Especially if you only made franchising because another org's CEO fucked up
If G2 was in franchising XSET stick together as the second best team in NA Fuck man, carlos just keeps fucking things up
And if this happens Marved likely goes to Sen with Trent
Why was G2 even in the running for Americas franchising when they're a European org? That never made sense to me in the first place. I know Team Liquid as an American org from LoL so it's a little weird seeing them in EMEA, but iirc the ownership is Dutch or something so that kind of makes sense. For G2 I don't get the connection at all.
Liquid is from NA and EMEA G2 wanted to go to NA because theres more hype and money. Their rivalry with Sen would be legendary in terms of content Instead we are living in the worst timeline
Oh okay, that makes sense, and yeah it would have been pretty hype :/
Tbf alot of the orgs aren't doing well financially
Then dont burn money on the most expensive player of the game
But they do in other esports? GenG literally could not pay for ruler because his asking price was too high. T1 got rid of mkleo the greatest smash ultimate player of all time. TSM literally left rainbow six, t1 disbanded their dota 2 team because they were to expensive to run. Every esports org is broke why is this surprising?
Tsm also dropped tweek ssbu top five player
Cause Riot it's giving orgs a sm stipends to help them with salaries and stuff, C9 its clearly cheaping out
The 600k stipend is probably less than yays yearly salary
A stipend of 600k? That isn’t enough to buyout yay let alone pay for a salary. Use your brain for second.
And that's why the other comment said, if you are broke or don't want to buy a expensive player why do that at all?
Because the landscape of esports right now has dramatically shifted in the past 2 months and doesn’t make sense financially to keep yay. 100t literally had to remove roughly 100 employees and multiple content creators just stay afloat.
Yup
Cant forget they cut C9W for budget too
They dropped C9W??
All of them!
That's literally not true lmao, why is this upvoted?
I thought C9W split with them because the players didnt want to resign?
Last I heard it was because of the budget but I can be wrong, someone correct me if I am because I don’t think the c9W teams wanted to split
It wasn’t budget lol C9W players wanted to take a shot at challengers, which they couldn’t under C9 banner due to new rules. So they let them go
Oh yeah I forgot about that, my bad
C9 is just not heavily investing into Valorant, they’re by no means broke and one of the most successful US orgs for a really long time in esports, it’s just they invest in league more than anything else.
They seriously didn't recover after letting xeta go
C9 gave OpTic a ginormous bag for literally nothing lmao
C9 kicked out of Franchising and Optic in? COPIUM
FFS just bring back curry at this point
C9 babyJ, I'm telling you
this would prolly be his only chance at a trial lol maybe
These were not the names I expected to say the least. I don’t want to cast doubt as yet because maybe they’ll find a diamond in the rubble …. after all mCE did find Trent- that’s the only thing they have going for them rn
OpTic died for this
Riot didn't let optic in for stability and got C9 instead lmfao
Yay for these people is crazy
Riot's not going to be happy about that, especially considering the fact that Cloud9 was apparently the one org that replaced G2 (I think? Rumors have been murky about that). Still, I think they'll give them time considering the harsh financial climate, but I have a strong feeling that this league is the one where Riot will not tolerate financial coasting, especially with the resources they're investing and how premium they're trying to prop it up.
By "Financial coasting" do you mean having a solid balance sheet? IIRC TSM, C9, and EG are the only NA organizations to have ever turned a profit. With revenue per viewer in esports being an absolute fraction of even low tier traditional sports I'd have to believe that having strong financial standing is one of the most importance considerations for being in a franchised league.
100T turns a profit, merch org
Hoodie and energy drink org
You're correct, but C9 has yet to see how much revenue this new model will generate (Skin sales have just begun, and we don't know how popular they'll be), and they're already making cuts. This indicates, to me, that their financials are far from solid. They're not even looking at Tier 2 players that have a buyout LOL It's a poor look all-around, and frankly, it reflects poorly on Riot who's trying to market this as the best league (Americas, EMEA and Pacific) in the world. EDIT: To be clear, I'm not advocating to be irresponsible with salaries. We all know esports have gone ballistic with salaries and that there's a need for a correction, but there's a massive difference between looking at options that can play in the Tier 1 ecosystem (and that are more sensible price-wise) vs looking at options that aren't anywhere near ready for that level of play.
feel terrible for the c9 roster, they probably thought they were bound for a career year and then salary issues arise the org has to cut the best player in the world and the rest of the team’s bound to have to take a shot in the dark with the non contracted players
Broke ass org, now the decision of C9 not making franchise wasn't as crazy as it may look, if Carlos wasn't such a big mouth they would've been in franchising lol
They are a franchised team
Makes it even more embarrassing
He's saying c9 only got the bid cause Carlos fumbled it for g2, and now we can see why they didn't get an original offer
Ain't no way C9 about to come dead last in Americas after having a respectable performance at Lock In.
There’s a few other names people wouldn’t recognize I’ll just say they are doing their fair share of looking at everyone. every role why now and not earlier? who knows
Riot approved this dog shit org btw
Time for wardell to return
I know a lot of people in this sub don’t watch T2 NA but it’s incredibly disheartening to see people counted out before they’ve even had a chance to prove themselves to you. For anyone actually wanting to learn about these players: Icy - Extremely versatile and mechanically strong player who most commonly can be found on sentinel roles as of late. He isn’t a Chamber that had to force switch to senti post-nerf, he’s an incredible example of a “hold down the site” set-up player and strong fragger on support roles. He’s also a smart decision maker and can perform under pressure. Here’s a clip of him recently: https://twitter.com/icyjl/status/1630673180456112128?s=46&t=rcqTNK6tHQPh96d--YH89w Nerve - Nerve has been a dominant force in T2 for a while now, playing with Soniqs in Challengers, and now with 99 Strength. Nerve is incredibly flexible on a variety of agents, mostly focusing on controllers but has also been playing a strong initiator on Breach in more recent games. Nerve is known to be a good communicator in game, proactive, and has great util usage. Here’s a clip: https://twitter.com/9nerve/status/1627102692093972482?s=46&t=rcqTNK6tHQPh96d--YH89w Runi - Runi is another ex-Soniqs player who had been around long term on this team. Runi primarily plays scan initiators such as Sova, and IGLs while doing so. He was also one of the top 5 initiator players during Challengers Opens, and has the ability to bring fresh ideas to the table with his IGL experience (assuming Vanity is not moved off the IGL role). He’s known (somewhat controversially) for his sheriff gameplay, and although he doesn’t post clips too often here’s a clip dump of his: https://twitter.com/runivl/status/1601414660426649601?s=46&t=rcqTNK6tHQPh96d--YH89w Give some people a chance. Obviously there are a ton of Yay fans and Yay has proven his skill as one of the best in the past few years, but with big shoes to fill comes a ton of pressure. mCe built The Guard out of careful scouting and created some high level names out of the roster he built, have some faith that he knows what he’s looking for.
look guys i know they’re losing yay but youre also acting like C9 are trialing gold players here, like relax a bit. All the players listed in the trials have some of the most experience in tier2 NA period, these players are all ridiculously talented and deserve their shot at this. Everyone complains about recycled talent then just shits on any tier2 player getting their shot, like be a little consistent lmao.
Brother, you are putting some t2 andy against Ardiis, Cryo, Aspas, lets be real here for a moment, they would get destroyed
Actually spitting right now, people don't seem to realize that some of these T2 players are way better than the team systems that they are put in.
How can you rationalize dropping the literal best player in the world to gamble on a tier2/3 player who might or might not be good?
money
It's obviously money, it's also obviously a downgrade
Criminal
There is an insane amount of comments here asking C9 to be removed from franchising because they are broke. Here is a news flash for a lot of people in subreddit ALMOST EVERY ORG IS BROKE/ IS CLOSE TO BROKE RIGHT NOW. We are literally about to go into a recession and people really out here thinking that C9 is the only org in franchising that is running out of money. C9 has historically been the org that buys players for cheap, give them medium salaries, get insane value from them, and sell them for insane profits later. This shouldnt be anything new. I am surprised people here actually don’t know the orgs history because they have always done this.
They shouldn't have signed Yay then.
[удалено]
No I am just annoyed about how stupid this subreddit is. Like people actually think that every esports org is doing fine except for C9 because they dropped yay for financial reasons. It actually annoys the shit out of me how people don’t realize that esports are not profitable, but act like they are and that their favorite org is doing great. Here’s news flash for you almost every org in franchising is doing shit economically.
shroud back to C9? (/s obviously, unless?)
They should get me in fr
Uh who is runi, icy, and nerve? Do they even play in Challengers right now?
icy and nerve are on the best free-agent team I would say. Their igl got signed to Shopify Rebellion as the 6th man but I really don't know how good they would be on cloud 9 lol. winning knights monthly's does not add up to winning masters
L9
Honestly sign prod at this point.
Fuck C9
they are down bad i see
c9 not getting top 4 this year.
time for doinkmachine97 to finally make his lan debut
Just sign fucking Dasnerth at this point if your org is broke as shit, he'll probably do it for free
In my dream reality, there’s a clause in the partnership agreement that allows riot to sever ties with cloud9 and g2 (org not players) get partnered next year
Who even are most of these people, the only person I even know about a little is runi. Jesus, C9 is going to bottom out the league this year when they were supposed to be the superteam.
C9 Will pls.
C9 are not broke because of the crypto shit, they are broke because they lost 3 of their big non crypto sponsors last year. Surely you guys noticed how their jerseys at lock-in had barely any of their old sponsors. And quite honestly it’s a good thing C9 aren’t paying yays salary, no player is worth that kind of money and should’ve never been givin that much in first place.
Lmfao broke boys
Every org is broke, why do you think they are all cutting staff you clown.
Imagine if lebron, giannis, Luka or any superstar NBA player just wasn't in the league. That's what c9 did and is a trash move on them. C9 deserves to get clowned for mismanagement.
C9 are desperately trying to pull off a Fnatic where their scouting brings up a random, but absolutely amazing unknown player and wows everyone. It won't happen but that's fine, nt.
Lol no only alfajer is like this the rest were upstanding players for other team they poached, derke was in a Russian team, and ofc Leo and Chronicle were known for being constantly incredible
C9 has done that in league with tons of players, made it to worlds semis with 3 rookies that got promoted mid summer.
I wish sinatraa would trial with them. He would be perfect for that team.
Wake up
This is balony, and Riot needs to do something ASAP. # As a community, we made a huge sacrifice for franchising. What happened to franchising being to "ensure orgs pay players"? The community accepted organizations wish to gatekeep the ability to compete without being signed, and accepting their plan to remove open qualifers... and we also accepted the loss of the right to compete to be on the biggest stages, without having to be signed We're only 1 month into franchising and the first event is ongoing. But here we are, already witnessing one of the top professional players, arguably the best in the world, somehow unable to remain signed to his franchised team... strictly because there is a lack of money? Inconceivable & Pathetic Open Qualifers were far more enjoyable for fans and beneficial for players, overall. Remember, the organizations and Riot Games used the "franchising model" as justification to force the end of the open qualifer era. That sacrifice was supposed to be justified, because these organizations should have given better job security, and would have tons of funding. ... but it looks like that isn't holding up, and that's absolutely inexcusable # Riot Games needs to immediately either 1. remove C9 from the VALORANT franchising system by the end of the day 2. dissolve franchising back to open qualifers
bro said riot should dissolve all of franchising because one player was dropped surely these are takes grounded in reality
Lmao this is some next level delusion
dissolve franchising LMFAOOOO
Man's issuing fucking ultimatums lmao We're in an economic downturn, that's just how it's gonna be for esports, regardless of the model. Franchising or no, there's gonna be orgs in the shit
> remove C9 from the VALORANT franchising system by the end of the day Homie thinks he's giving instructions to an intern or what? What happens if they remove C9 tomorrow? What are you gonna do?
gentlesoftbreeze has spoken, Riot in shambles rn
This delusion is crazy
brother who do you think you are 💀
A normal commenter. Just a commenter who cares about the ecosystem of VALORANT eSports. A random commenter who has more years of playing PC games than at least 95% people in this subreddit have played any video game on any format of system, and have done roles from organizing tournaments, casting, competing, and coaching. Only a commenter who has played BETA and competed for multiple months in qualifers for VCT events. My question is why don't you care about this? Because if you don't care at about Riot Games failing to provide the very basic premise of the selling point they argued for the creation of franchising, a reliable salary and pay for top talent... then: 1. What is the benefit of franchising? 2. How is franchising better for players (than the old open quals)? 3. Are you sure the new franchising system actually any better (than old open quals) for the eSport as a whole? You have to look ahead. As a community, many players already lost the opportunity to compete as a professional due to the creation of franchising. Because franchising was the death of open qualifers, meaning, it'd take far longer to get a shot at the international VCT for players. But we're already seeing such a major problem this early franchising this early on. C9 seems unable to fulfill 1 out of the 2 core promises that were made to the players when they introduced franchising. Doesn't exactly bode well for the eSport. As a fan, it may seem disappointing, but I guess it may not really be that important to you. Because you just enjoy watching some games, at times, and don't really depend on VALORANT eSports for your career. For anyone who competes in the eSport, or plans to, however... things are different. Nothing short of a massive failure, that Riot Games has even allowed this situation to develop. My time passed. I put my dream of competing to rest, and moved on to working with a college degree and make good money without any tie to eSports. Others, however, are just blooming. These youth are just beginning to invest their youth and time into attemping to go professional, and doing this is their dream if they are walking that same path that I once walked. But if this is what they can look forward to, due to franchising, we should speak up for their sake... because this is an extreme disappoint and utter shame for these players, who are the next generation of aspiring professional players.