Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov has left Cloud9's starting lineup

The team has announced that Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov has left Cloud9's starting lineup and is ready for transfer. The sudden change in plans occurs a little more than a week after Cloud9's elimination from the IEM Sydney group stage, when they defeated Lynn Vision but lost to Complexity and Fnatic.

The Australian tournament was a sharp contrast from sh1ro's normally remarkable consistency and influence in late-rounds, which won him the title of the third-best player of 2022. It was also his lowest-rated individual tournament since DreamHack Open Seville 2019. During the coronavirus pandemic in 2021, he rose to prominence with online tournament victories in IEM Katowice, EPIC League CIS, IEM Summer, BLAST Premier Spring Final, and IEM Fall CIS. He played alongside Abay "HObbit" Khassenov and Sergey "Ax1Le" Rykhtorov for more than three years in Gambit Youngsters, Gambit, and Cloud9.