Is Shroud the father of aiming in the Gaming Industry?

E-Sports

May 24, 2021

Shroud, a.k.a Michael Grzesiek, is a 26 years old Canadian streamer, YouTuber and former professional Counter-Strike : Global Offensive player.

He is known for playing first-person shooter and battle royale games such as Counter-Strike : Global Offensive, PUBG, Apex Legends, Valorant and many more.

Shroud’s Playstyle

Shroud is often recognised as one of the best aimers. As he says that the fact that he is known for his aim is wrong. He goes on by saying that he is not known for his aim but for his ability to adapt to any game which eventually enhances his aim naturally. Key points to notice in his gameplay are his confidence in himself, precision, accuracy, game sense and mindset. He is so confident with his gameplay that he dominates in almost every game he plays. His precision and accuracy are absolutely heavenly.

Due to his immense experience in this field, he knows exactly where to place his crosshair and start shooting. He knows to tag his enemy well firstly then after confirming, finishing them off quickly as soon as possible. As seen in his gameplay, he doesn’t give much time to his enemies to hit him. He is lightning quick in his distribution and finishes off his enemies real quick. As for game sense, it is a thing which comes with experience of playing a specific game for a long time. Same happened with Shroud as well. But his adaptability is visibly far greater than what normal players have. His adaptability combined with his knowledge of the game brings havoc in the opposition’s heart. He has a fine knowledge about every game he plays, it’s mechanisms etc.

While playing any game, Shroud starts with the base or default sensitivity then gradually sets it up to his own comfort. His mindset while playing any game is pretty quiet types. While playing any game very seriously he doesn’t show much of any expressions and has a high level of concentration which helps him to plan out his next move really quickly. His mindset is one of the reasons of his fast actions. His setup is also one the of the reasons of his overpowered playstyle. His gear mainly contains products of Logitech.

He also mentioned once in one his streams that his one of the most favourite mice he used was the Logitech G9. However, he once said that better hardware doesn’t make one a better gamer. It just makes the path of being a better gamer much easier. Otherwise the main factor is one’s skills.

Shroud’s Pro Career

Shroud didn’t had much of a “pro” career in his life in any of the games he played except for Counter-Strike : Global Offensive. But his reign in that field too was quite short. He started his career with several ESEA teams, particularly Exertus eSports and Manajuma. He was then signed by compLexity Gaming as a stand-in. Then in August 2014 he was signed by Cloud9 who acquired the roster of compLexity Gaming.

In 2016, he along with his team at Cloud9, finished at first-place in ESL Pro League Season 4 and a second-place in ESL One Cologne 2017. On August 16, 2017 it was announced that he and his long time teammate Jordan “n0thing” Gilbert would be stepping down from the active roster of Cloud9. On April 18, 2018 Shroud left Cloud9 and retired from professional Counter-Strike Global Offensive. After Counter-Strike Global Offensive he didn’t attempt to start another pro career in any of the games he played after Counter-Strike Global Offensive.

Shroud as a Content Creator

Since the transitioning from professional Counter-Strike Global Offensive to streaming on Twitch, Shroud has maintained a diverse set of games. As of March 2021, he has streamed for over 9,100 hours on the platform, and has acquired over 455 million total views. 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. 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.

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. On August 11, 2020, Grzesiek announced that he would return to stream exclusively on Twitch. His first stream back the following day peaked at over 510,000 plus concurrent viewers.