After Cloud9 lost their in-game leader Maikil “Golden” Selim to injury again, it was clearly time for them to search for another viable option. According to HLTV reports, the team will be trialing Gage “Infinite” Green as their fifth member.
Infinite to trial for Cloud9 in place of Golden – Report https://t.co/rEIgAtM2iG
— HLTVorg (@HLTVorg) December 27, 2018
It has been a tough few months for Golden, who has been suffering from a medical condition related to his heart. He would be forced to miss multiple events, including a part of BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen and the entirety of the ECS Season Six Finals and BLAST Pro Series Lisbon. In his place, the team would field head coach Soham “valens” Chowdhury, as well as Ismail “refrezh” Ali. In that time, Golden had to stay in Sweden for medical treatment.
Tough Times for Cloud9
Meanwhile, all this time spent without Golden is affecting the rest of the lineup in a bad way. The team has had some pretty lackluster performances ever since the London Major, and haven’t been able to get some good playing time with their new roster. The North American mainstay has had some huge roster shifts over the past few months, with multiple players leaving for greener pastures.
The team retooled near the end of the year by picking up multiple European players like former Fnatic star Robin “flusha” Rönnquist and French rifler Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey. The only two players remaining from their Boston Major winning lineup are Timothy “autimatic” Ta and Will “RUSH” Wierzba. However, they weren’t able to get meaningful practice with their in-game leader. Not having consistent leadership will always be bad for a team, especially for a team who has lost so much in one year.
Another face in the crowd?
For many Cloud9 fans, Infinite is just another stand-in that may not make a difference. The team has already gone through so many stand-ins this year, from Pujan “FNS” Mehta, Martin “STYKO” Styk, to Coach Valens. None of them made much of a difference, and so hope is low for Infinite as his impact to the game. Infinite was recently benched and subsequently released from his contract with Spacestation Gaming, an American esports organization.
Additionally, he was recently in a scandal in which someone heard him scream a racial slur toward his teammate at the Minor. Infinite would end up tweeting out an apology to his fans and to Cloud9, stating, “It was immature and awful for me to use that word in any manner and I regret saying it. I will not forget about this as it reminds me of who I don’t want to be. I wanted to apologize to all of the people I have affected by this and especially to everyone from Cloud9”.
We will need to wait and see if this event will affect Cloud9’s acquisition of him moving forward. As for his effect on Cloud9, we aren’t holding our breaths as he wasn’t the best player on Spacestation. However, like the many other times, fans of the organization will need to expect the worst, but hope for the best. We wish Cloud9 and Infinite the best of luck in their future endeavors, whether he joins the team or not.
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