Henry “HenryG” Greer has announced that he will be parting ways with Cloud9. This decision comes eight months after he was brought in to revitalize Cloud9’s Counter-Strike: Global Offensive division as General Manager.
HenryG's time as Cloud9's General Manager of Counter-Strike operations has come to an end after eight months. (Image Credit DreamHack)
https://twitter.com/HenryGcsgo/status/1379234940190126085
It was no surprise when Cloud9 released its entire American and South African roster in early September of last year. While the future was unknown, Cloud9 as an organization has always strived for greatness. The news that former commentator HenryG would be the leader of their new project broke the day after, leaving more questions than answers.
HenryG envisioned an international team that could compete at the top level of the game in a short period of time. Instead of picking up the biggest name players he could find, HenryG used his control of the roster to build a squad who could all fit snugly into their roles. After the dust of negotiations had settled, Cloud9 had a core of Alex “ALEX” McMeekin, Özgür “woxic” Eker, William “mezii” Merriman, and Patrick “es3tag” Hansen.
Issues Cause Chaos
Eventually, flaws in Cloud9’s system started to show. Differences in how the team wanted to play the game caused a rift between players and coach. This led to Aleksandar “kassad” Trifunović’s departure, who had been with the project from the beginning. The team couldn’t meet and play under the same roof or even on the same continent due to travel restrictions. High ping and unfavorable time zone differences caused a bad team environment and eventually led to the release of woxic.
The American duo of Ricky “floppy” Kemery and Erick “Xeppaa” Bach were added to fill out the roster, but results still weren’t showing themselves. Not being able to boot camp contributed to a lack of overall synergy. In the end, Cloud9’s infrastructure issues were just too great to overcome. HenryG’s roster that cost millions to assemble only earned around $40,000 in prize money and peaked at rank 19 worldwide.
Cloud9 and HenryG himself did not meet their lofty expectations. As a result, Cloud9 made the decision to put the entire Colossus project on the transfer list. With all players waiting for offers and all coaches having left, the only remaining part of Cloud9 CS:GO was HenryG. The organization has stated that it plans to return to the game. HenryG’s departure confirms that it will once again be an entirely new venture when the time comes.
