Steven R. December 7, 2019
Gen.G Esports has officially entered the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive scene.
The organization confirmed the addition of former members of the Cloud9 roster in Timothy “autimatic” Ta, Damian "daps" Steele, and Kenneth "koosta" Suen. The team also added Cloud9 assistant coach Chris "Elmapuddy" Tebbit, who will seemingly take on head coaching duties.
“We are honored to join the CSGO community and welcome three veteran players as the core of our CS roster,” Gen.G announced on Twitter. “Two more players will be announced in the coming weeks. Our goal is to bring home another major to North America.”
Gen.G is a large, multi-game esports organization based out of Korea. It is best known for its League of Legends team in the LCK and also fields all-Korean teams in PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Overwatch League with the Seoul Dynasty franchise.
In 2019, Gen.G has also started aggressively expanding into other titles and other regions. The organization had North American teams in Apex Legends and Call of Duty, and currently has teams in both Fortnite and the NBA 2K League.
The expansion into CSGO marks a huge step forward for Gen.G, as well as a possible end to Cloud9’s time in the game.
Gen.G gets strong foundation despite Cloud9 CSGO struggles
Cloud9 has had almost constant struggles in CSGO since famously winning the ELEAGUE Boston Major in 2018. Though it has had a few pockets of success in the two years since, it has largely struggled in every notable event it has been invited to.
The team has been anchored by autimatic, who has consistently performed well for the organization and stood as the last remaining player from the major-winning roster. The team added longtime NRG Esports in-game leader daps and former Counter Logic Gaming player koosta in July. The new core showed hints of being formidable, but wasn’t especially active outside of ECS Season 8’s North American division and dealt with further roster trouble.
It is currently unclear who will take the two final spots, but previous rumors have suggested the team has been in talks with Georgi "SHiPZ" Grigorov of CR4ZY.
As for Cloud9, the transfer of three of its players leaves the organization’s future in CSGO in doubt. Oscar "mixwell" Cañellas Colocho is the organization’s only remaining active and full-time player. Yassine "Subroza"' Taoufik was signed to the team on a trial basis, Tyson "TenZ" Ngo was benched earlier this year, and Maikil "Golden" Kunda Selim has been loaned to Fnatic since June.
Cloud9 has a strong history in CSGO but will likely need to perform a full reboot on its roster in order to get back into the business. That’s an incredibly tall order at the moment, with many of the top free agents and sponsorless teams being snatched up over recent months.