Shroud (gamer)

Michael Grzesiek (born June 2, 1994), better known by his online alias shroud (formerly mEclipse), is a Canadian streamer, YouTuber and former professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player.[4][5][6][7][8] He is known for playing first-person shooter and battle royale games such as Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds, Apex Legends, Escape from Tarkov, Valorant, and more. Grzesiek is often recognized as one of the best "aimers".[9] As of August 2020, his Twitch channel has reached over 7.7 million followers, ranking as the third most-followed channel on the platform,[10] and his YouTube channel has over 6.4 million subscribers.[3]

shroud
Michael Grzesiek
Personal information
Born (1994-06-02) June 2, 1994
Toronto, Ontario, Canada[1]
HometownMississauga, Ontario, Canada[1]
NationalityCanadian
Career information
GamesCS:GO, PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds
Career history
2013–2014Slow Motion
2014Exertus eSports
2014Manajuma
2014compLexity Gaming
2014–2018Cloud9
Career highlights and awards
Twitch information
Channel
Followers7.7 million[2]
Total views376 million[2]
Follower and view counts updated as of August 18, 2020.
YouTube information
Channel
Years active2014–present
Subscribers6.4 million[3]
Total views734 million[3]
100,000 subscribers 2017
1,000,000 subscribers 2018
Updated August 18, 2020

Career

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Grzesiek started his CS:GO career with several ESEA teams, particularly Exertus eSports and Manajuma. He was soon signed by compLexity Gaming as a stand-in, and later by Cloud9 in August 2014 when they acquired the roster of compLexity. He helped lead Cloud9 to a first place finish at ESL Pro League Season 4 in 2016 and a second place in ESL One Cologne 2017.[11] On August 16, 2017, it was announced that he and long-time teammate Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert would be stepping down from Cloud9's active roster.[12] On April 18, 2018, Grzesiek left Cloud9 and retired from professional CS:GO.[13]

Content creation

Since transitioning from a professional CS:GO player to a full-time streamer on the streaming platform Twitch, Grzesiek has maintained a diverse set of games. As of May 2020, he has streamed for over 7,500 hours on the platform, and has acquired over 375 million total views.[14] On March 10, 2019, he reached 100,000 Twitch subscribers—and gained another 14,000 the next day—making his subscriber count more than double the runner up streamer at the time: Timothy "TimTheTatman" Betar.[15] He continued to stream full-time on Twitch until October 2019. On October 24, 2019, Grzesiek officially announced his move from Twitch to Mixer and would be broadcasting exclusively on Microsoft's streaming platform, following the steps of fellow streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who announced a similar deal earlier that year. This decision surprised his fans, as he previously stated, "Hey man, Ninja's gone... It's all me, baby. Gotta take advantage."[16] He claimed, "I just thought it was the best move for my career."[17]

On June 22, 2020, Microsoft announced that it would be shutting down Mixer and instead partner with Facebook Gaming. It was alleged that Grzesiek received an offer from Facebook that would have financially exceeded that of Mixer. Grzesiek has since declined the offer, and received the remainder of the current contract payout. Grzesiek released a statement via his Twitter account saying, "[...] I love you guys and am figuring out my next steps."[18]

On August 11, 2020, Grzesiek announced that he would return to stream exclusively on Twitch.[19] His first stream back the following day peaked at over 516,000 concurrent viewers.[20][21][22]

Tournament results
Date Tournament Placement[11] Prize[11]
2015-06-22 ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 - North America 1st $18,000
2015-07-05 ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 - Finals 2nd $60,000
2015-11-15 iBUYPOWER Cup 1st $50,000
2016-06-25 Esports Championship Series Season 1 - Finals 5–6th $65,000
2016-07-21 ELEAGUE Season 1 5–8th $50,000
2016-09-18 DreamHack Open Bucharest 2016 2nd $20,000
2016-10-30 ESL Pro League Season 4 - Finals 1st $200,000
2017-06-11 Americas Minor Championship - Kraków 2017 1st $30,000
2017-06-25 Esports Championship Series Season 3 - Finals 3rd–4th $65,000
2017-07-09 ESL One: Cologne 2017 2nd $40,000

Awards and nominations
Year Award Category Result Ref.
2017 The Game Awards Trending Gamer Nominated [23]
2019 Esports Awards Streamer of the Year Nominated [24]
The Game Awards Content Creator of the Year Won [25]
gollark: "More capable"?
gollark: There isn't that much to configure.
gollark: Just install ngircd or miniircd or whatever?
gollark: So are various bad things.
gollark: CEASE PHP-based preprocessing of hypertext.

References
  1. HTC Gaming (March 3, 2016). HTC Origins | shroud (Video). Retrieved August 13, 2020 – via YouTube.
  2. "Shroud's Twitch Stats". Social Blade. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  3. "Shroud's YouTube Stats". Social Blade. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  4. "Shroud reveals LAN exploit involving crowd noise". Dot Esports. June 6, 2017. Retrieved March 12, 2018.
  5. Bishop, Sam. "Cloud9's Shroud says players can exploit crowd noise at LANs – Counter-Strike: Global Offensive". Gamereactor. Retrieved June 26, 2017.
  6. "JasonR: 'The CS:GO pro scene is a big bubble'". Dot Esports. June 20, 2017. Retrieved June 26, 2017.
  7. "The Thorin Treatment: Shroud will still try". Dot Esports. May 29, 2017. Retrieved June 23, 2017.
  8. Vitale, Anthony. "Cloud9 Decimate Expectations in London". RealSport. Retrieved June 26, 2017.
  9. "N0thing explains why shroud "is one of the best aimers of all time"". Dexerto. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
  10. "Top 50 Twitch Users by Followers". Social Blade. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  11. "shroud". Liquipedia. Retrieved November 12, 2018.
  12. "RUSH and tarik join Cloud9; n0thing and shroud benched". HLTV. Retrieved October 29, 2018.
  13. "Shroud officially retires from competitive CS:GO, leaves Cloud9". Dot Esports. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
  14. "TwitchTracker – Shroud". TwitchTracker. Retrieved May 19, 2020.
  15. "Shroud surpasses 100,000 Twitch subscribers". Dot Esports. March 10, 2019. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  16. "Twitch megastar Shroud is joining Ninja on Mixer as an exclusive streamer". The Verge. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
  17. "Shroud explains his decision to move to Mixer". Dot Esports. October 25, 2019. Retrieved March 6, 2020.
  18. "Microsoft just released top streamers Ninja and Shroud from their contracts as it shutters Mixer, after spending millions on exclusive deals with them". Business Insider. Retrieved June 23, 2020.
  19. Park, Gene (August 11, 2020). "Shroud is returning to Twitch". The Washington Post. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  20. Lee, Julia (August 12, 2020). "Even Shroud is shocked at his Twitch viewer count after returning". Polygon. Retrieved August 12, 2020.
  21. Esguerra, Tyler (August 12, 2020). "Shroud's first stream back on Twitch watched by over 500,000 viewers". Dot Esports. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
  22. Grzesiek, Michael [@shroud] (August 12, 2020). "I pictured an epic return... not quite like this though <3" (Tweet). Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved August 13, 2020 – via Twitter.
  23. Alexander, Julia (December 7, 2017). "The Game Awards crowns The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild best game of 2017". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 8, 2017. Retrieved December 7, 2017.
  24. Bethany Koepp, Meg (November 16, 2019). "Esports Awards 2019 results". Dexerto. Retrieved August 13, 2020.
  25. Goslin, Austen (December 13, 2019). "All the winners from The Game Awards 2019". Polygon. Archived from the original on December 13, 2019. Retrieved December 13, 2019.
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