Michael Grzesiek (born June 2, 1994), better known as Shroud (formerly mEclipse), is a Canadian

streamer Streamer or streamers may refer to: * a person who streams online on an internet platform like twitch or youtube * Pennon, a small pointed flag * Streamer, a kind of confetti consisting of strips of paper or other material * Streamer, a common nam ...

YouTuber A YouTuber is an online personality and/or influencer who produces videos on the video-sharing platform YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006. Influence Influent ...

, professional

Valorant ''Valorant'' is a free-to-play first-person tactical hero shooter developed and published by Riot Games, for Windows. Teased under the codename ''Project A'' in October 2019, the game began a closed beta period with limited access on April 7 ...

player and former professional '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' player. , his

Twitch Twitch may refer to: Biology * Muscle contraction ** Convulsion, rapid and repeated muscle contraction and relaxation ** Fasciculation, a small, local, involuntary muscle contraction ** Myoclonic twitch, a jerk usually caused by sudden muscle con ...

channel has reached over 10 million followers, ranking as the seventh most-followed channel on the platform, and his

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

channel has over 6.82 million subscribers.

Early life

Grzesiek was born on June 2, 1994 in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, Ontario, and is of Polish descent.

Career

''Counter-Strike: Global Offensive''

Grzesiek started his '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' (''CS:GO'') career with several

ESEA ESEA may refer to: *East and Southeast Asia, a modern term for the Far East *In the UK, an alternative to British East and Southeast Asian (or BESEA) *Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a 1965 United States federal statute considered the most ...

teams, particularly Exertus eSports and Manajuma. He was soon signed by

compLexity Gaming Complexity Gaming, formerly stylized as compLexity, is an American esports franchise headquartered in Frisco, Texas. The franchise was founded in 2003 by Jason Lake and is co-owned by Lake, real estate investor John Goff, and Dallas Cowboys ow ...

as a stand-in, and later by

Cloud9 Cloud9 Esports, Inc., or simply Cloud9 (C9), is an American professional esports company based in Santa Monica, California. The company was originally founded as a professional ''League of Legends'' team by Jack and Paullie Etienne in May 2013 ...

in August 2014 when they acquired the roster of compLexity. He helped lead Cloud9 to a first-place finish at

ESL Pro League Season 4 ESL Pro League Season 4 (shortened as EPL Season 4) was a Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament run by ESL. It was the fourth season of the ESL Pro League, and had an overall prize pool of $750,000 . For the first time, the Finals took pla ...

in 2016. He stepped down from the starting roster in 2017 to move to full-time streaming for Cloud9.

Streaming and content creation

On April 18, 2018, Grzesiek left Cloud9 and officially retired from professional ''CS:GO''. On March 10, 2019, Grzesiek reached 100,000 Twitch subscribers, gaining another 14,000 the next day, making his subscriber count more than double streamer with the second most at the time—

TimTheTatman Timothy John Betar (born April 8, 1990), better known as TimTheTatman, is an American live streamer and internet personality on YouTube. Career Betar started streaming on Twitch in 2012 and has amassed over seven million followers since. Broadc ...

. He continued to stream full-time on Twitch until October 2019, when he announced his move from Twitch to Microsoft streaming platform Mixer. He would be broadcasting exclusively on Mixer, following the steps of fellow streamer Tyler "Ninja" Blevins, who announced a similar deal earlier that year. On June 22, 2020,

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announced that it would be shutting down Mixer and instead partner with

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. It was alleged that Grzesiek received an offer from Facebook that would have financially exceeded that of Mixer. Grzesiek 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 516,000 concurrent viewers.

''Valorant''

On July 8, 2022, Grzesiek signed with Sentinels as a player for their ''

'' team.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Shroud 1994 births Canadian esports players Canadian YouTubers Cloud9 (esports) players CompLexity Gaming players Counter-Strike players Gaming YouTubers Living people Sportspeople from Toronto Twitch (service) streamers YouTube channels launched in 2014 Canadian people of Polish descent The Game Awards winners Canadian male YouTubers Streamer Award winners