Cloud9 will start competing in Valorant, with a surprise twist. The organization has announced the signing of an all-Korean roster that will compete at the regional level.
“With VALORANT esports seeing continued growth, we wanted to increase and broaden our involvement in the scene. Cloud9 has been invested in the Korean esports scene for quite some time, and we saw another opportunity to further support Korean esports in VALORANT. We believe these five players and coach Autumn will fit very well into our new cultural paradigm, as well as our competitive principles and drive for success,” Cloud9 manager Robin Lee said.
The roster itself is a mix of former pros from Overwatch and battle royale titles.
We said we weren’t done yet. Moves have been made.
Welcome our new team, #C9VALKR!
📺https://t.co/fIcVxI9Ato
📰https://t.co/g6E1izPCCp pic.twitter.com/S40FsewjEI— Cloud9 (@Cloud9) August 20, 2020
Two of the biggest names on the team are former Overwatch League DPS mains Byeon “Munchkin” Sang-beom and Park “Bazzi” Jun-ki. Munchkin had tenures with the Seoul Dynasty and Boston Uprising and was known for his skills with hitscan DPS heroes. Bazzi is another hitscan DPS player who competed for the Hangzhou Spark and their academy team, Bilibili Gaming.
Joining OWL veterans will be former PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds player Kim “DoYa” Do-gyeong, Yoo “Moothie” Seung-woo who competed in Apex Legends for DeToNator Korea, and Kang “Try” Tae-wook who played Overwatch competitively before the introduction of the Overwatch League.
DoYa is the most successful of the bunch, playing PUBG for OGN Entus Force and DAMWON Gaming. Together with Entus, DoYa was a part of Korea’s best team of the time, winning PUBG Korea League 2019 Phase 3 and placing fourth at the PUBG Global Championship 2019.
The team’s coach, Yoon “Autumn” Eu-ddeum also comes from a PUBG background, coaching Entus Force’s sister team OGN Entus Ace.
The all-Korean Cloud9 roster will compete alongside Cloud9’s established Valorant team. Cloud9 has a North American team that includes former Counter-Strike: Global Offensive pros Josh “shinobi” Abastado and Tyson “TenZ” Ngo.
It is still unknown when Cloud9’s Korean roster will be making its competitive debut.
