Cloud9’s infamous C9 meme transcends Overwatch as LCS team loses to devious backdoor

Cloud9’s infamous C9 meme has transcended competitive Overwatch as the org’s LCS team just lost their most recent match to a backdoor against NRG. 

During the pre-Overwatch League days of the game, Cloud9’s NA roster cemented itself in Overwatch history with a term named after the org. Not exactly the most endearing term, however, as it came after making multiple mistakes in their Apex Season 2 campaign.

To ‘C9’ is when a team, or player, forgets the objective. This often occurs when players instead prioritize kills or winning a fight, ultimately at the cost of losing the map or even the series. 

And in Overwatch, Cloud9 is forever immortalized into the scene thanks to that meme. However, during week 6 of the 2023 LCS Summer Split, it seems the org could not shake off the meme as their LCS team committed the same exact mistake as their early Overwatch team did. 

In their match against NRG, despite being on the losing end of the game, Cloud9 was still holding on after a close team fight in their base. And if they wanted to make their comeback, they would need to get as many objectives as possible.

That’s exactly what they did by attempting to take the Drake, which started a fight in the river. Cloud9 would go on to win the fight, and even successfully take the Drake, however, they were completely oblivious to NRG’s Palafox’s backdoor. 

The rest of NRG did their job by distracting all of Cloud9’s remaining members as Palafox easily took down both turrets and the Nexus in one fell swoop, all while Cloud9’s players only realized when it was too late.

Oddly enough, the problem has happened in their various esports teams. From their old NA Rainbow Six Siege roster chasing kills and leaving the objective, to their CSGO team defaulting for such a long time it slows them down. 

As NRG’s social media manager puts it, “The spirit of C9 truly transcends games.” Luckily, this fate has not befallen their Valorant roster just yet.