In Part 1 of our tale in the life and times of Michael "shroud" Grzesiek, we talked about his early career and personal life. Now, it is time to take a deep dive into the competitive side of his interesting career, so stick around for some competitive gaming!
Which games did shroud compete in?
As you already know, shroud is a guy that enjoys playing FPS titles. This is why you can see him play PUBG, CS:GO, Apex Legends, Fortnite, and Call of Duty Black Ops 4: Blackout.
Keep in mind that he did not compete professionally in all of these, though. This is why we will only talk about the titles he actually played at the highest level. Let’s get straight into it:
CS:GO
Back in the day, ESEA was the most popular platform for up-and-coming CS:GO, players. Shroud competed for various lower-level teams before joining Complexity Gaming. However, he was only a stand-in there. It did not take him long to showcase his skills and there were others highly interested in signing him.
In late 2014, he signed the papers and finally joined the most popular North American esports organization, Cloud9. He stuck around for over 3 years.
Despite being a god-like aimer, hewas never quite able to cement himself as one of the best players that touched this game. He was considered similar to Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom, with flashy frags and insane movement. But under the stress of a tournament?
Even though Michael grabbed a lot of second-place finishes, he lifted the Tier 1 LAN tournament trophy only once. Here are his most notable results:
- DreamHack Austin 2016 - 3rd
- DreamHack ZOWIE Open Bucharest 2016 - 2nd
- ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals - 1st
- ECS Season 3 Finals - 3rd
- ESL One Cologne 2017 - 2nd
Keep in mind that the CS:GO professional scene was not that popular back in the day and we only had a couple of events to look forward to. After ESL One Cologne 2017, shroud and Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert benched themselves. On April 18th, 2020, shroud left Cloud9 and retired from CS:GO.
PUBG
There is no denying that shroud is one of the most popular Twitch streamers. Once he started playing PUBG, a lot of people followed his footsteps. From our perspective, Michael is the main reason why PUBG became so popular, with over 3 million concurrent players during a 24-hour period.
When it comes to competing in esports, PlayerUnkown’s BattleGrounds is not doing that good hence why shroud only competed at a couple of events:
- PUBG Twitch Rivals(Duo) - 1st
- PUBG Global Invitational 2018 - Charity Showdown - 8th
- Broadcaster Royale - 56th
It is also important to mention that Michael’s raw aim and individual skill in PUBG was unreal. There are over 100 YouTube videos representing his highlights. Here is a taste of what he's capable of:
VALORANT
By far the most talked-about esports title is Valorant and it is logical that the FPS fanatic will look to get his hands on this game as soon as possible.
It did not take long before we have seen the first Valorant tournaments being played. The 100 Thieves Invitational was among the first events to go live. Shroud gathered a solid team around himself and eventually, they won the event by defeating both TimTheTatman and summit1g, accomplished players and streamers of their own.
All in all, Michael will definitely go down as one of the best raw aimers that ever touched mouse and a keyboard. It was sad to see him retire from CS:GO as we believe that this is the most skill-based FPS title available. It would be interesting to see him compete against some of the top prospects CS:GO has to offer.
If you found shroud's story interesting and like learning about other esports pros, check out our other entries in our Life and times series about the best and brightest in competitive gaming:
READ MORE:
- The life and times of s1mple – Part 1
- The life and times of device – Part 1
- The life and times of ana – Part 1
Tune in next week for another exciting story and as always, keep an eye on EarlyGame for more news and stories about CS:GO, esports and the world of gaming.
