Cloud9's Sudden Release of Chap and Vivid Adds To Their Troubling Track Record in Fortnite

Cloud9 for many is one of the most recognizable names within esports and the gaming scene.

With prominent teams in League of Legends and CS:GO the organization has come under backfire over the weekend.

The sudden releases of two of the most well known, and respected players within the Fortnite competitive scene, has sparked comments on the organization's previous practices with Fortnite players. 

Dropping

Ryan 'Chap' Chaplo and Noah 'Vivid' Wright are without a doubt two of the biggest names that have emerged within the Fortnite scene.

The two were apart of the original Team Liquid roster, which quickly grew in popularity during the beginning of Fortnite esports.

Chap bolsters over 700,000 Twitter followers and is one of the most consistent streamers in regards to Fortnite players. Averaging anywhere from 2000-4000 viewers every night, Chap's signing to Cloud9 was touted as one of the best in quite some time. 

These two players were suddenly released from the organization and their contracts on the first of January, with Vivid going to different measures as he has seemingly retired from competitive play.

FREE AGENT... LOL

— Chap (@ChapFN)

January 2, 2021

FortniteRead: https://t.co/uLk5SmxO6V

— Vivido (@VividFN)

January 2, 2021

Backlash 

This was only the beginning of personalities within the Fortnite scene speaking up regarding Cloud9's troubling past in Fortnite.

Some notable ones include former Cloud9 players Blind, Criz, and Hysteria who all commented on the recent news.

I had the same thing happen, multiple year deal with C9 ended after 3 months with no cause/reason. At some point their constant screwing over of players will catch up to them. It's so insanely unfair to players to be offered 3 years of stability and have it taken for no reason. https://t.co/ouQdisBwNS

— Jacob Reiser (@JacobHysteria)

January 2, 2021

Definitely saw C9 do some shady stuff in my time there.

— Blind (@blind)

January 2, 2021

Member that time Cloud9 signed 2 Fortnite teams, but they didn't tell either one about the other one until after they signed for 3 years? I member

— Criz (@CrizFN)

January 2, 2021

Then, content creator Thump spoke up against Cloud9 and CEO Jack Etienne on the official Cloud9 Sub-Reddit after Jack noted the following: 

These drops may appear random but thee were carefully considered decisions: These players were released after falling short across a range of metrics including but not limited to competitive performance. We wish them the best in the future.

Thump noted the following: 

You going to comment on you guys offering chap twice the money to sign w/you guys over FaZe to get him to sign with you? Then dropping him randomly 3 months later not only fucking him out of the contract that YOU AS THE ORG OWNER AND LEADER had to agree to.. but also ruining his opportunity to join FaZe. You have a history of repeating this pattern. I tweeted it out 3 months ago that everyone who joins cloud9 either gets washed or gets cut after 3 months. What about what you did to Jaomock? Criz? b0ss? Bandito? The shady shit blind said you did? I can literally get 10 former C9 pros to come out about how shitty you are to your talent. The funny thing is.. how badly you treat your players only got out because Chap and Vivid have huge followings. You’ve kept this secret for so long. Learn how to scout talent.. it’s pretty obvious across multiple titles you cannot do that properly. Stop w/your shit 3 month contracts and cutting people. You’ve addressed nothing at all but typical PR bullshit. Apologize to chap for pulling the rug out from under him after you DOUBLED the salary he was offered by FaZe just to get him to sign. You should be absolutely embarrassed by how you have ran your org and how you’ve treated your players.

As of writing, the other three players signed to Cloud9 during the re-entry into Fortnite, 'Avery', 'Nosh', and 'Fryst' are all still contracted to the team for the time being.

We reached out to a former, Cloud9 player Christian "Criz" Rizk for a comment on his team within the team.

Criz noted: 

I posted the contract length and what not in my replies, but not telling us there was another team already signed was a huge one. Even in the COntract itself, it says “Number of players on starting roster:4”, so we had 0 clue through the contract, or speaking with the person handling our signing there was another team already there. We signed a 750 a month contract at 25%, and I keep seeing people say it could of been a “business” decision, but we cost relatively nothing at the time.

We were sold the idea that they would grow us exponentially, promote our socials etc, which never happened, and any time we asked about it we were just lead on to the answer of “later”. We also only signed because we thought we were going to be the only team, and we would get a lot of promotion being the only sole C9 Fortnite team. We signed for 3 years and basically got cut inna few months with 0 explanation, and they even cut certain people 1 by 1, without telling the others about why, or that it even happened.

There’s a LOT more things I can describe and talk about but it’s too much to type, but those are just a few of the major issues. There will be a video either I will post or I will be in someone’s video talking about all the things that happened inna few days most likely because there’s too much to just not bring to light.

We are sure more news about Cloud9 and other practises they have displayed within the Fortnite community will come to light in the following days.

Be sure to check out the following video from Esports Talk detailing some of the news!