Cloud9's coach felt "fine" with the results at the Major, but the team's expectations were much higher before 2025, when rankings will become the deciding factor.

Cloud9 were eliminated from the Opening round of the Perfect World Shanghai Major with a 1-3 record on Wednesday, capping off a disappointing second half of the season.

The Russian team had difficulty competing online after adding members Kaisar "⁠ICY⁠" Faiznurov, Nikita "⁠HeavyGod⁠" Martynenko, and Timofey "⁠interz⁠" Yakushin in the summer. According to Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov, this happens because the team members come from "different schools", forcing them to go all out during this Major cycle.

Things finally started to improve at RMR, as Cloud9 overcame many weaker teams to qualify for the Major. However, their journey ended early after losing closely to Liquid, paiN and Complexity in the first round.

For a team still trying to adapt to the new roster, qualifying for the Major is an achievement, coach Groove admitted.

"We have achieved the minimum, which is winning tickets to the Major," he shared with HLTV after Cloud9 was eliminated. "If compared to winning tickets from our region, I think this is a good result considering that strong teams like Astralis, Eternal Fire cannot participate in this Major. When there are only 14 spots, that is reasonable. I'm not happy, but I feel okay with the result."

However, Cloud9's expectations at the Major are still much higher. Having a good result to end the year is important, before invitations to major LAN tournaments depend entirely on Valve rankings from 2025. Currently, Cloud9 is in 35th place on the table world rankings after their Major campaign ended.

"I don't think this ranking is enough to get an invitation," admitted Groove. "That's why our main goal is to get to the playoffs. That will mean we have invites to some LANs. I'm not sure about next year, we'll see, but for sure we I will have to participate in the qualifying round."

The number of qualifiers will be very small next year, when most tournaments will use a private invitation structure. The first of the three largest organizations, ESL, BLAST and PGL, with qualifying spots yet to be determined, will not take place before March at BLAST Open Lisbon.

That means Cloud9 will have to wait another four months for a chance to return to the top tier of teams and will likely have to rely on online matches — not an easy prospect for a team that's only really thriving. when playing on the LAN field at RMR.