Sneaky shows off Pokemon cosplay after rocky offseason with C9

Cloud9’s Zach “Sneaky” Scuderi is known for his popular gender-bending League of Legends-themed cosplays. The popular AD carry has decided to branch out into other games this time around. 

With constant buzz around Pokemon Sword and Shield since before its release, thanks to some notable leaks, Sneaky treated fans to an unexpected Marnie cosplay. 

“They wanted me to cosplay Pokimane, but I heard Pokemon,” Sneaky joked on Twitter, sharing a quick video of him spinning around to reveal his newest creation. 

Sneaky wore the look for HyperX’s charity stream over the weekend, and the video was immediately met with admiration from his fans and his team, who tweeted back the traditional “you’re so hot brother” meme. Some Twitter users were even convinced Sneaky was a female cosplayer, and his fans had to correct them. It just goes to show how convincing his new look was.

Complete with a Poke ball on his lap, Sneaky wore a stylish black leather jacket and a short pink dress, accurately portraying Marnie’s punk rock fashion choices. Specializing in dark Pokemon, Marnie is a rival in Pokemon Sword and Shield with her own fan club known as Team Yell. 

Sneaky’s rocky offseason with Cloud9 ends in cosplay

Early in November, Sneaky took a break from sharing his cosplays to open up about the amount of bullying he’d experienced since Cloud9 failed to make an impact at the World Championship 2019. 

“The failures and faults we had were collective problems as a team, only rarely individually. That’s what it means to be apart of a good team, recognizing where your mistakes are made and fixing them. But we weren’t able to do enough of that this season so it left us disappointed,” he tweeted. 

Sneaky followed up the heartfelt tweet by adding that no team plays perfectly all the time. Instead, a good team is defined, he explained, by “sticking together” to get through “shitty situations.” 

But apparently his teammates were feeling more similarly to Sneaky’s haters than to him. Sneaky was benched from the active roster shortly after those tweets, which he revealed in a November 19 stream. He even revealed that some of his teammates didn’t want to play with him anymore and candidly ranted about the team asking him to compete for his current bot lane position, which he wasn’t willing to do.

As Cloud9 started to receive backlash after Sneaky’s stream, top laner Eric “Licorice” Ritchie came forward with some more information about the situation. In a stream of his own, Licorice stated that the team never seemed to discuss their individual flaws and errors, which made it hard for the team to improve as a whole. He also claimed that he was unaware the organization was planning to replace Sneaky, and offered disappointment with the lack of communication. 

Cloud9 owner Jack Etienne eventually came forward about the drama as well, offering information Sneaky wanted kept private in an attempt to save face for C9. Some of this information seemed to contradict parts of what Sneaky had said in his own defense, further muddying what became a messy breakup between team and player.

Etienne tweeted that Sneaky had a few decisions ahead of him, including retiring from pro play entirely or staying with Cloud9 as a streamer. At the time of his tweet, which was published November 22, Sneaky had yet to announce his decision. 

Cloud9 nor Sneaky has offered an official announcement regarding Sneaky’s decision since the end of November, but at the moment it appears that Sneaky is still part of the team in at least some capacity.