That noise you hear is the roar of North American CS:GO fans all over the world as they board the Cloud9 hype train. After acquiring Tarik "tarik" Celik and Will "RUSH" Wierzba from OpTic Gaming in August, this team has been on the up and up again in a big way. They've been rising at an alarming rate over the last few weeks, and that continued at IEM Oakland with a 2-0 first day of group play.
While Cloud9 didn't do so hot in the ESL Pro League, missing the playoffs after finishing in eighth place, they've been torching the North American region of the ECS. With just two weeks left in the season, they're sitting in the top spot with a 12-2 record. They didn't stop there, however. They took home the top spot at DreamHack Denver at the end of October and then won iBUYPOWER Masters 2017 just this past weekend.
With their focus now on IEM Oakland, the team clearly was on top of their game early in the group stage. They opened with a 16-9 win over TheMongolz and then closed their short day with a big 16-6 win over Astralis. The win against Mongolz was nice and all, but their domination of Astralis was certainly the pinnacle of the day.
This team could spiral out of control on Day 2 and still miss the playoffs, sure. But under the guide of tarik, this team has looked like a new and improved beast. Everything they do in game looks so much more crisp than what we've seen from them in the past, and they look to have no plans of stopping.
Speaking of Day 2, however, Cloud9 has a big obstacle ahead. They've got Ninjas in Pyjamas, Team EnVyUs, and SK Gaming coming up on Wednesday. This will likely be one of the biggest tests that the team has faced since their inception. It's time to see what this team is made of.
