Oxy vents about the effect of playoff pressure and C9's "inexcusable" mistakes : "We can't change, we can't do different things just because it's the playoffs"

Over the last one and a half years, it feels like Cloud9 has been stuck in the middle. The team has earned the moniker of “regular season merchants” from the VALORANT community due to their penchant for strong performances in the group stage, only to falter and fail in the playoffs.

Playoff pain points

It’s been three stages in a row of first round playoff exits for C9, and it's become a disappointing trend for their fans and for the players. The team’s superstar duelist Francis "OXY" Hoang, for example, is equally as frustrated about C9’s playoff woes, and was pretty vocal about his discontent after their loss against Evil Geniuses in the VALORANT Champions Tour 2025 - Americas Stage 1 lower bracket.

“I feel like my game was very, very disappointing,” Oxy lamented in a post-game interview. “To be honest, it was not even close to what we play like in the regular season or anything in general like that. We just made so many misplays. Our calls were basic. I don't know what it was. Ninety percent of it was probably nerves because of playoffs. Everything just overwhelmed us, I guess.”

During their match vs. EG, C9 made several costly errors throughout the series, including rounds where it shouldn’t have been close, such as 5v3s, 2v4s, eco rounds, and solid post-plants. They would also make calls mid-round that were very uncharacteristic of them, leading to early deaths and losses. These stumbles would end up deflating their confidence, and add onto the overwhelming pressure that kept causing inexplicable lapses in communication and judgement that they never saw during the regular season.

Inexcusable mistakes

Oxy confessed that there was an unexplainable change that happened to C9 going from group stage games to the postseason. The regular season apparently doesn’t put pressure on the roster, and as a result, they can perform at their best. But when the season shifts to the playoffs, they start to make “inexcusable mistakes that shouldn’t happen at all,” and suddenly every game feels “chaotic” and “50/50.”

When we get into playoff situations, we can't change, we can't do different things just because it's playoffs. When we play against different teams, we need to focus on just doing us like do playing how we usually play.

Top teams across VALORANT esports must ensure that they don’t get complacent when they find success so that other teams aren’t able to catch up when it matters most. As such, C9 must find a way to develop some consistency that they can carry through the regular season into the playoffs. Oxy hopes that they can hone in and keep communication clear, especially when the pressure is getting to them, so that they can deal with the problems together. Now, they have a few months to regroup and find a gameplan to follow when the second stage begins in July.

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