Cloud9 has announced that analyst, coach, and streamer Nick ‘LS’ De Cesare will take up the mantle as head coach for its League of Legends team. The news follows the departure of current head coach Alfonso ‘mithy’ Rodríguez to join fellow former Cloud9 alumni Bok ‘Reapered’ Han-gyu as the assistant coach of LCS side 100 Thieves.
Discussing the move, LS admits that he had rejected several other coaching positions over the past couple of years. However, he says that slipping standards from LCK and LPL teams have encouraged him to step back into the pro scene, as it now looks “possible for Western teams to legitimately take games off, or upset, or beat them outright” – something he previously considered impossible.
According to LS, long-time friends and current Cloud9 incumbents Ibrahim ‘Fudge’ Allami and Max Waldo were major factors in the move, with the pair actively pushing for him to join up with the team in an official capacity.
After having had both Waldo and Marius ‘Veigar v2’ Aune recommended to him as coaching staff by LS, Cloud9 CEO Jack Etienne says that LS is “a really good judge of the type of coaching staff that we thought was viable. And because of that it gave me a good feeling that, if LS ever was to come and join us, he would be a really good fit for Cloud9.”
Welcome to the church – mass is on weekends. pic.twitter.com/Fyd1BEDoiL
— Cloud9 (@Cloud9) December 2, 2021
LS’ last coaching role was with the bbq Olivers in Challengers Korea, Korea’s second division, which ended at the end of the 2019 Summer Split. Since then, he has taken to streaming full-time, joining up with LoL behemoth T1 as a content creator last November amid rumours that he would become the team’s head coach.
With a new-look Cloud9 roster featuring LCK imports Park ‘Summit’ Woo-tae and Kim ‘Min-cheol’ Berserker, alongside the new support pivot of Jonah ‘Isles’ Rosario and Kim ‘Winsome’ Dong-keon, this completed Cloud9 coaching lineup has a lot of new pieces to work with heading into 2022.