One of North America’s best Apex Legends squads has their new third member—and he comes with high pedigree. The team announced the signing of Aidan “rocker” Grodin today, completing their competitive squad ahead of the third year of the Apex Legends Global Series.
Rocker spent the last two years of ALGS play with NRG, where he formed one of the game’s most fearsome fragging duos with Nathan “nafen” Nguyen. Though the team won multiple tournaments in year one of ALGS and were one of North America’s most consistent teams during year two’s Pro League, their results in the playoffs and at international LANs fell short of the team’s expectations, leading to rocker and NRG mutually agreeing to part ways.
Now, rocker joins a C9 squad that are also looking to bounce back in ALGS and already come loaded with talent.
The duo of Zach Mazer and Paris “StayNaughty” Gouzoulis placed second in the 2021 NA ALGS Championship. The team sought to upgrade their squad for the following year of competition, replacing current OpTic member Logan “Knoqd” Layou with TSM’s Mac “Albralelie” Beckwith. While the new trio had some of the best mechanics in the world and an incredibly high ceiling, the team chemistry between Zach, Naughty, and Albralelie never fully clicked at times, and the team dynamics with Albralelie on Gibraltar felt like it hamstrung some of the TSM fragger’s best qualities.
Rocker, on the other hand, has been one of the best Gibraltars in North America over the past two years of ALGS play, while also having plenty of experience on other characters to be flexible enough to suit C9’s needs. He’s also known for his ability to function both as an IGL and as a dedicated support player for his squad. Multiple players trying to shot-call and butting heads during games was a semi-frequent issue for C9 last year, and the squad will hope that rocker’s addition helps iron out some of these intra-team squabbles.
At the most basic level, one of the strongest teams in the game just picked up one of the game’s best free agents. And while the move won’t come as a shock to many people paying attention to rocker and the other C9 players’ streams over the past month, all of North America is officially on notice.
