Shroud returns to CS:GO and gets a shockingly low ranking

Michael “shroud” Grzesiek got quite a surprise when he returned to playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

The former Cloud9 player decided to return to his old stomping grounds and play some competitive games during streams. Though he remains a sharpshooter and demonstrated the same skills that made him a top star from 2014 to 2017, he was given a bit of a surprise when he was slapped with a relatively low Master Guardian Elite rank.

The moment was clipped by fans.

According to CS:GO Stats, Master Guardian Elite players are at the 86th percentile of CS:GO players. That would technically rank him better than the vast majority of players, but lands him well outside the top Global Elite level. This seemingly irked Shroud, with him noting that Master Guardian Elite is the lowest he has ever been.

Though frustrated players will often blame the game’s ranking system for any troubles they encounter, Shroud is one of the rare cases where those gripes are likely legitimate.

A former member of Cloud9, Shroud helped establish the team as an international force with strong showings at events like the ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals and Esports Championship Series Season 3. During those years he produced many memorable highlights, most notably popularizing a boost spot on Cache that has since been named for him.

He retired from active competition in 2017, but remained with the organization as a streamer until 2018. From there, he became one of the most popular streamers in the world, recently hitting the 100,000 subscriber mark.

Though most of his recent game time has come in titles like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds and Apex Legends, he remains a strong CS:GO player today.

That said, don’t expect to see too much of Shroud in CS:GO going forward. He may have patched the game back up to speed and stomped around in some pubs, but he likely isn’t going to stick around to scratch his way back up the rankings.