SNEAKY'S JOURNEY TO THE TOP

Consistent is the word that's most used to describe Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi. But after a breakout performance at the 2014 World Championship, impressions of Sneaky are improving beyond just that.

"Before Worlds, I didn't really know about Sneaky. But at the World Championships, playing against C9, I actually lost to Sneaky quite a bit. I think he's a really good player." - Kim "Deft" Kyuk-kyu, ADC of Edward Gaming

Sneaky had this to say about Deft's praise: "I'm grateful [Deft] thinks highly of me… I do think I deserve to be in the top 8 list of AD's but I still need to keep improving. I can go farther with more work!"

Team owner and general manager Jack Etienne also raved about his star ADC. "Sneaky is one of the hardest-working players in the LCS... His consistently good play has been a key part of the team's success. On and off the Rift, Sneaky’s positive attitude and worth ethic has made him invaluable to the team."

It's true that Sneaky was the most consistent player on Cloud9 during 2014, but his playmaking ability on champions such as Lucian and Corki played a large part in Cloud9's success at Worlds. "I improved a lot in 2014 just by playing the game and reflecting on what happened after," Sneaky said. "After so many games of making mistakes it all starts to come together and you start minimizing everything to a point where it's hard for the enemy to capitalize on you."

Sneaky's impact was felt at Worlds when he outplayed most bot lanes and proceeded to carry that into teamfight success. He also dominated IEM San Jose and helped Cloud9 go undefeated at a tournament that featured both 2014 LCS Summer champions, Team SoloMid and Alliance.

In 2015, with new confidence and improved mechanical skill, Sneaky aims to meet fans' greater expectations. "I want to keep improving my plays around vision in 2015. Something I noticed from Samsung White during their amazing run was how much they played around their vision," he remembers. "They set up lines of wards and knew when the enemy didn't have vision to create kills all the time. Whereas in our games, we usually have relatively low kill counts."

While C9 and Sneaky learned valuable lessons at Worlds, the 2015 season now has their full attention. "I think how far we go at Worlds will be completely dependent on how we can do in the Spring Split," he states. "If we come in strong and end up winning that, then I think we can make it even farther [than Quarterfinals]. But if we don't win, there might be some trouble up ahead."

With Cloud9's opening performance in the pre-season, and Sneaky's dramatic improvement over the past six months, it looks like clear skies ahead for Cloud9.

#lcs #eu #lol