TI13 Cloud9 team profile: How to Tame the Beasts

The blue and white colours of Cloud 9 will be on display at The International for the first time since 2017.

Cloud9 returned to the Dota 2 scene in July of this year by picking up the already qualified for The International 2024 roster of Entity, which means that the North American organisation will be represented this year by a line-up that earned its place at the most important tournament of the year through the Western European closed qualifiers.

Entity, now Cloud9, have posed a real threat in the WEU region for the past two years. In the previous seasons, they snatched Major qualifier slots from the bigger teams and claimed one of WEU qualifier slots for TI11 and TI12. However, the last two TIs ended in the same 9-12th place, which eventually led to roster changes. The mid and offlane dynamics were changed with the addition of Volodymyr "No[o]ne-" Minenko and Dmitry "DM" Dorokhin. But even so, the 2024 competitive season didn’t start right for the newly shuffled squad. The line-up missed on qualifying for the first four big tournaments of the year, so another swap was due.

Everything seemed to have changed for the better when Filipe "Astini" Astini was welcomed in the coaching seat.

Cloud9 roster

Alimzhan “Watson” Islambekov
Volodymyr “No[o]ne” Minenko
Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin
Vladislav “Kataomi`” Semenov
Dzmitry “Fishman” Palishchuk
coach: Filipe Astini

Astini is a more well-known face in the South and North American scene. He developed as a coach through SA, while last year he was behind nouns’ big surprise at TI12.

Astini is someone who has been married to Dota for 20 years now. He started as a professional player in Warcraft III, transitioned to Dota Allstars in 2004, and after hanging the mouse as a pro player, he stayed extremely active behind the scenes in South America and put the base of many of the region’s successful rosters. He is someone with a strong winner’s mentality and he never shies away from challenges and hard work.

His arrival at the former Entity line-up brought immediate results, as he got to work with some of the most gifted players in the scene.

“It’s hard to learn something when you win most of your scrims in 15 minutes,” Astini commented in a team vlog after qualifying for TI13 with Entity, emphasizing that his work is quite easy since he has extremely good players.

Soon after Astini settled in, the now Cloud9 roster went on claiming the championship title at FISSURE Universe: Episode 2 and took down the likes of OG and Tundra to claim a ticket to Riyadh Maters, and then to The International 2024 from the upper bracket rounds.

“Expect that everyone will work their 100% and pour their soul into it. Every decision we make the entire year is thinking about how to perform better at TI,” coach Astini said in a recent interview with Blast.tv adding that “this does not guarantee any result, but what I learnt is the harder you work, the better your results will usually be.”

There is no doubt that the Cloud9 players are working hard. Watson is the first player to reach the 14K MMR milestone and he’s been in the first place on EU leaderboards for almost the entire year. He is a meta trend setter, who more often than not finds ways to surprise even the most experienced adversaries. Way ahead of TI13, he was already rocking on Mirana, Lina or Windrannger in the carry position. At the same time, he has a wide hero pool that enables the flex potential with the support duo and with the offlane if necessary. Despite his young age, Watson is a complete carry who knows how to play an early, high tempo, full aggression game plan, but also for a late game, farming oriented scenario.

Cloud9’s most successful hero pairings before TI13

What Entity lacked the most was in-game discipline and mental fortitude. In some aspects, that was addressed with the addition of No[o]ne- and to some extent even DM.

A change in attitude

Besides being one of the best mid laners in the scene, No[o]ne brings with him a ton of experience. He’s been a part of the glory days roster of Virtus.pro and he knows what pressure means. For the past few years, No[o]ne tried to move away from EEU Dota and learn as much as possible from some of the very best. He spent almost the entire previous season with Old G, playing alongside the two-time TI champions Ceb, Topson, and even N0tail at the beginning of that project. He then moved to Southeast Asia and attended TI12 under the SMG banner. Returned now to Europe, No[o]ne- looks like one of the most important puzzle pieces that the team needed.

Although the team has competed in Western Europe for the entire time, the Cloud9 roster is entirely EEU, which is one of the regions that always suffered from emotional bursts that would eventually have a bad impact on results.

According to Astini, one of the priorities after joining Cloud9 was to provide the players with psychological support. Hopefully, in the few weeks since the organization took them under its wings, the mental aspect has also improved and we will get to see Cloud9 making a grand return onto The International stage.