Cloud9 has officially locked in their LCS roster for 2023. And, considering they won the Summer 2022 Finals with their roster, it’s no surprise that the team is (mostly) the same as last year.
This off-season has been one of the most hectic we’ve seen in League of Legends competitive history. Not even talking about everything happening in the LCK, LEC, and LPL, the LCS alone has seen a number of full roster rebuilds and exciting imports if early reports come to fruition.
Cloud9 stands out for holding onto most of its roster. They went from 5th place in the regular season to sweeping the Finals with ease, making their roster one of the most improved LCS teams from 2022.
If they continue on that trajectory of improvement, they could stay on the top of the LCS with a team that’s largely the same as it was before.
Cloud9 lock in their 2023 LCS roster with Diplex
On the surface, Cloud9’s roster looks like it’s basically the same. Ibrahim ‘Fudge’ Allami, Robert ‘Blaber’ Huang, Kim ‘Berserker’ Min-cheol, and Jesper ‘Zven’ Svenningsen have all held onto their starting spots, and this team has a very similar outward appearance to what it was in Summer 2022.
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Dimitri ‘Diplex’ Ponomarev is the big change, with his playstyle being much different from Jensen’s. Jensen is a player known for playing late-game scaling control mages like Viktor and Orianna, whereas Diplex’s playstyle is almost the polar opposite according to C9 CEO Jack Etienne’s description of the player in their announcement video.
“He’s a melee specialist, incredibly good at teamfighting. The reason our team got excited about Diplex is that he’s a highly mechanical player with a ton of potential.”
The defending champions are backIntroducing the 2023 Cloud9 LCS and Challenger Rosters pic.twitter.com/XLWikivKg1
— Cloud9 League of Legends (@C9LoL) November 24, 2022
Meanwhile, Cloud9 have signed Alfonso ‘Mithy’ Rodríguez as their head coach. He was with Cloud9 for a year before moving to 100 Thieves for their 2022 season and has now returned to C9 as their head coach for 2023.
While Cloud9 did manage to win the LCS Finals in Summer 2022, their performance at Worlds 2022 was less than stellar with only a single win under their belt through the event. Fans will be expecting them to reach similar heights again but they’ll have to improve upon their peak last year if they want a chance at international glory.