In a short clip posted to Twitter, Cloud9 head coach Matthew ‘mCe’ Elmore said that Jaccob ‘yay’ Whiteaker is the team’s current IGL. After their match against 100 Thieves, yay confirmed the announcement was a joke.
With the initial announcement of Cloud9’s new roster for the 2023 season, many assumed Anthony ‘vanity’ Malaspina would continue to IGL for the team. For the offseason, and potentially moving forward, Cloud9 head coach mCe said that might not be the case in a joke video posted online.
“The IGL situation isn’t quiet what you would expect,” mCe said in a video posted on Cloud9’s Twitter.
He said on top of vanity coming in with years of IGL experience, the team’s new addition Jordan ‘Zellsis’ Montemurro also has calling experience. He also said yay spent the past two years under the wing of one of the best IGLs when he played with Pujan ‘FNS’ Mehta on OpTic Gaming.
To address our IGL rumours pic.twitter.com/9RgkBL5bCq
— Cloud9 VALORANT (@C9VAL) December 11, 2022
“yay told us, ‘Hey, I want to try [to IGL]. I learned alot under FNS and Chet ‘Chet’ Singh. I think I can be really good at this,’ and so we decided to give it a shot,” mCe said in the prank announcement.
yay to lead Cloud9 at Red Bull Home Ground and potentially beyond
The Cloud9 head coach further said that vanity and Zellsis would be secondary callers and the team is going to see how vanity can perform as a fragger without IGL responsibilities.
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mCe claimed that yay as the Cloud9 IGL has been working out well and he is interested in seeing how his level of play and calling ability will continue to improve into the future. Cloud9 posted the troll announcement ahead of their match against KRÜ Esports on Dec. 11.
yay clarified the announcement was a joke after losing the grand final match against 100 Thieves 3-0.
“IGL stuff was a troll boys,” he said on Twitter.
igl stuff was a troll boys had a bad tournament and made a ton of mistakes0-3 vs @100Thieves will learn from it for next VCT
— yay (@yay) December 11, 2022
Before the event began, mCe told Dexerto that he is using this event to see what his team needs to work on and improve at before the Valorant Champions Tour circuit begins in February in Brazil in the LOCK//IN tournament.
[Dexerto previously reported the joke announcement as a fact. We apologize for this error.]