“Once a Pro, Now a Voice: An Overwatch Veteran Pleads to Leave the C9 Meme Behind”

It is no longer significant which competitive athletic activity is trending at the moment; no one needs to focus on that particular point. The former Overwatch professional who unintentionally created the term “C9” for notably dull goal abandonments is urging Marvel Competitors players to move past it.

C9 stands for Cloud9, an esports organization that manages teams across various games. In 2019, Cloud9 participated in a flawed professional Overwatch match during which the entire team vacated the objective to engage in a fight with their rivals in the dying moments of the game—leaving the objective unprotected and ultimately losing the match. They repeated this multiple times, and since then, abandoning a winnable objective to unnecessarily engage in combat has been referred to as pulling a C9 within Overwatch communities.

Lucas ‘Mendo’ Håkansson was one of Cloud9’s Overwatch players during that period, and the rise of Marvel Competitors means a new audience is discovering all of this. “MARVEL RIVALS’ RAPIDLY INCREASING POPULARITY MEANS A LOT OF NEW PLAYERS ARE LEARNING WHAT A ‘C9’ [IS] AND THAT I CREATED IT,” Mendo stated on Twitter (via Polygon). “LET ME MOVE ON, PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.”

Cloud9’s official account responded, claiming “forever in history.” Mendo confirmed that “this is our legacy.”

Marvel Competitors is, undoubtedly, thriving. The hero shooter launched as one of the most significant games in Steam history, and player counts have only increased since the start of Season 1—this doesn’t even account for console players. Whether it can succeed in overshadowing Overwatch’s legacy in the long run remains to be seen.