Last night after the inaugural match of the season for Cloud9 Blue, it was announced that Son “Xeta” Seon-he with head coach Yoon “Autumn” Eu-ddeum have departed from Cloud 9 blue and would be joining T1 and Rahul “Curry” Nemani would now fill in as the fifth for C9B instead of Xeta for the remaining matches in the VCT NA stage 2 challengers.
This sent shockwaves across the community as Xeta was an integral part of C9B since joining the team back in January of 2021 after a brief stint on C9 Korea valorant team along with coach autumn.
Tarik reacting to Xeta’s move:
He was part of their NA LCQ winning roster with Vanity, Leaf, Xeppa, and Mitch and had a solid run in the First Valorant Champions and are arguably one of the best if not the best NA teams in the current VCT season.
The move was a shock for most as the team chemistry of C9B was amazing and translated well on the server.
This was evident in the first VCT NA challengers as C9B was undefeated in the group stage winning against teams like the Guard, Xset, 100 thieves, Luminosity, and EG, falling to the youngsters of The Guard who then went on to win the whole event beating C9B and Optic 3-0 and Xeta was the key player in the success of C9B, who is arguably the best sova player in NA right now and a valuable initiator.
Though the reason behind the move is unclear It is speculated that T1, which is a South Korean super giant having a legendary LoL team, is eyeing an all-Korean valorant team and might contest next year in Korea.
Xeta however comfortable he was with C9B felt homesick and wished to play with a Korean team, at this point, there has been no official statement from either side as to why the move did happen, but on the outside, the roster move seems to be mutual and both parties seem to have separated with peace.
The gap left by Xeta in C9B is to be filled with Rahul “Curry” Nemani, a 19 y.o., who was part of T1 since January February 2021, the roster had many big names including CS legends Timothy “Autimatic” Ta who has now returned to CSGO, Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham who currently isn’t actively competing and Braxton “Brax” Pierce who has since moved to streaming under the T1 banner.
The latest version of T1 included Joshua “Steel” Nissan, Zander “thwifo” Kim, Rahul “Curry” Nemani, Josh “pwny” Vangorder, and a stand-in “dynamic” and failed to produce any significant results as a team.
The team is currently in the rebuilding phase and would be able to play for Valorant-sponsored events in 2023 as they don’t have enough points to qualify for NA LCQ.
The new iteration of Cloud9 Blue is set to make its debut this week against Optic Gaming who are arguably not just the best NA team but the best team in the world after winning Masters Reykjavík, this match would surely be a trial by fire for Curry and the new-look C9B. It would be interesting to see the role switch in C9B as Curry was a flex player on T1 whilst Xeta played a “SOVA MAIN”.
The roster move received a lot of backlashes and was frowned upon as there didn’t seem any major problems with the roster and the roster seemed to do well. Now the responsibility of proving the naysayers wrong falls upon Vanity the IGL for C9B and Curry to prove his worth. Only time would tell how the move pans out. For now, we wish the best to both parties moving forward.
