CS2 pundit apologizes, declares nafany ‘not the problem’ behind Cloud9’s struggles

CS2 broadcast analyst Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg has officially put an end to his feud with Cloud9’s former in-game leader Vladislav “nafany” Gorshkov on Oct. 16.

Nafany was heavily criticized by Mauisnake in desk segments and social media while he was still calling the shots for Cloud9 this year. The North American pundit disliked nafany’s strategies and saw him as the main problem in C9’s then CS:GO roster. The organization, though, continued having awful results after replacing nafany and Timur “buster” Tulepov with former NAVI duo electroNic and Perfecto in July.

C9 hasn’t achieved anything meaningful with electroNic and Perfecto thus far and is on the brink of an early elimination from IEM Sydney, the first big CS2 tournament, after a loss to Fnatic on Oct. 16. As the first day of the Australian competition wrapped, Mauisnake issued a formal apology to nafany, putting an end to months of drama.

“Given the recent results of BetBoom [nafany’s current team] and Cloud9, it has come to my attention that what I so disliked of Cloud9 was not entirely nafany’s doing,” Mauisnake wrote. “I apologize for synthesizing the frustrations I had with the calling style of the team onto a single player, onto nafany. This was unmistakably not the case.”

While C9 is due to face an elimination match versus Lynn Vision at IEM Sydney on the second day of the tournament, nafany’s BetBoom already secured a spot in the playoffs of the $250,000 event following an upset against Vitality in the opener and a 2-0 victory against GamerLegion in the round after.

This is already an outstanding result for BetBoom as the roster was assembled in July and is packed with young players who have not proven themselves in the tier-one scene yet.\

Now that Mauisnake has apologized to nafany, we can expect him to target other C9 players should they not turn things around at the beginning of CS2‘s cycle.