Sources: Cloud9 sign Jensen as Fudge returns to top lane

Cloud9 have signed their former mid laner, Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen, to compete for the team in the League of Legends Championship Series for the summer split, sources told Upcomer on Friday. The team was in the market for a new mid laner after bringing Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami back to the top lane.

League of Legends insider Alejandro Gomis broke the news. Jensen most recently played for Team Liquid from 2018 to the end of the 2021 season, when the team replaced him with former TSM mid laner and coach Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg. Thought by many to be the best mid laner in LCS history, Bjergsen came out of retirement as a player and left TSM as part of the move. After losing his spot and failing to land with another team, Jensen took the spring split off entirely.

Cloud9, meanwhile, finished second during the 2022 spring split regular season with a 13-5 record before Evil Geniuses knocked them out of the spring playoffs in the second round with a 3-0 sweep. According to sources, this prompted the organization to consider changes to the majority of their roster, with top laner Park “Summit” Woo-tae and support Kim “Winsome” Dong-keon potentially departing the team as part of the shuffle.

Sources also said Cloud9 considered promoting their Academy mid laner, Jouhan “Copy” Pathmanathan, before going with Jensen. They also inquired about re-signing Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer before he ultimately joined MAD Lions in the League of Legends European Championship, as reported by Upcomer.

When Jensen played for Team Liquid, he contributed to the team’s post-franchising revival. After joining the team in November 2018, Team Liquid won back-to-back domestic titles in the spring and summer while finishing first during both regular seasons. However, the team started to stumble in 2020 and failed to win another LCS title despite numerous second-place finishes to teams like Cloud9 and 100 Thieves. At international events like the League of Legends World Championship, Team Liquid never finished better than 9-12th place during Jensen’s tenure on the team.

By joining Cloud9, Jensen will reunite with jungler Robert “Blaber” Huang. Both played together on Cloud9 in 2018 back when Blaber hadn’t fully developed.

Cloud9 have historically found more luck at Worlds and hold North America’s only semifinal appearance in the tournament. Jensen was with the team at that time, and C9 will hope to repeat the success they had in that stretch, which included making it to the quarterfinals of the world championship every year that Jensen was on the roster.