Cloud9 suffered an early elimination from IEM Dallas 2023 after losing to FaZe Clan in the lower bracket final of Group B on May 30. Following the match, their star player sh1ro apologized for the team’s performance.
“I’m sorry for the failure, I don’t know what’s wrong,” Sh1ro wrote on Twitter after the elimination. This comes after C9 failed to qualify for the BLAST.tv Paris CS:GO Major in April.
With C9’s firepower, fans expected the team to compete with the best in tier-one tournaments this year. Ax1le was named the fourth-best player of 2022 by HLTV, while sh1ro climbed all the way to third place.
Despite the duo performing generally well throughout the year, they failed to live up to expectations at IEM Dallas 2023. Ax1le is ranked just the 15th best player of the event so far with a 1.17 rating, while sh1ro is 33rd with a 1.08 rating, according to HLTV. The rest of the team recorded a rating below 1.0.
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After missing out on trophies last year, C9 replaced interz with buster in January 2023, hoping it would improve their chances of earning silverware. C9 have so far only won smaller, online tournaments like Brazy Party while falling short in offline events like IEM Dallas 2023, IEM Rio 2023, and ESL Pro League Season 17.
With a roster shuffle likely following the BLAST.tv Paris Major and the summer player break on the horizon, C9 will have opportunities to once again revamp their roster if they feel like another change is necessary.
