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

YouTuber A YouTuber is a content creator and social media influencer who uploads or creates videos on the online video-sharing website YouTube, typically posting to their personal YouTube channel. The term was first used in the English language in 2006 ...

, former professional

Valorant ''Valorant'' is a 2020 First-person shooter, first-person tactical shooter, tactical hero shooter video game developed and published by Riot Games. A free-to-play game, ''Valorant'' takes inspiration from the ''Counter-Strike'' series, borrow ...

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 c ...

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

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel has over 6.79 million subscribers.

Career

''Counter-Strike: Global Offensive''

Grzesiek started his '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'' (''CS:GO'') career with several ESEA teams, particularly Exertus eSports and Manajuma. He was soon signed by compLexity Gaming 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 compLexity's roster. 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 pl ...

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 YouTube personality. Career Betar started streaming on Twitch (service), Twitch in 2012 and has amassed over seven million followers sinc ...

. 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. At

The Game Awards 2019 The Game Awards 2019 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2019. The event was produced and hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of The Game Awards, and was held to an invited audience at the Microsoft Theater in Los ...

won Content Creator of the Year. On June 22, 2020,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

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

Facebook Gaming Facebook Gaming is Facebook's gaming-focused live streaming service. Facebook launched it officially on June 1, 2018 as a tab on the Facebook app and a standalone app. The service became successful in Southeast Asia and has produced internet ce ...

. 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. At the inaugural edition of

The Streamer Awards The Streamer Awards is an annual awards show dedicated to live streamers. It was founded in 2022 by Twitch streamer QTCinderella to award and celebrate other streamers, primarily in the Twitch community. Nominees are selected via an online vo ...

in 2022, Grzesiek won Gamer of the Year and was nominated for Best FPS streamer. At the February 2024 Streamer Awards, he was nominated for Gamer of the Year. At the December 2024 Streamer Awards, Grzesiek won the Legacy Award and was nominated for Best FPS Streamer.

''Valorant''

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

'' team for the North American Last Chance Qualifier for the

2022 Valorant Champions The 2022 Valorant Champions was an esports tournament for the video game ''Valorant''. This was the second edition of the ''Valorant'' Champions, the crowning event of the ''Valorant'' Champions Tour (VCT) for the 2022 ''Valorant'' competitive ...

tournament. His opening match against The Guard, a 2-1 loss, had over 600,000 peak viewers, setting the record for a non-international level match that was only surpassed in March 2024. In the lower bracket, they eliminated

Shopify Rebellion Shopify Rebellion is a Canadian esports organization founded in February 2021 by e-commerce company Shopify, with active rosters in ''Apex Legends'', ''Dota 2'', ''Guilty Gear Strive'', ''Halo (series), Halo'', ''League of Legends'', ''Rainbow Si ...

and were eliminated by

100 Thieves 100 Thieves, LLC (abbreviated 100T) is an American lifestyle brand and Esports, gaming organization based in Los Angeles, California, founded in 2017 by Nadeshot, Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag. The organization competes in several video games, includ ...

, who defeated The Guard in the LCQ finals.

Game development

In 2022 Grzesiek partnered with Mountaintop Studios with an initial investment to create 'Spectre Divide' as Lead Advisor and Investor. On February 25, 2025 the first season of the video game released and while the all-time peak on Steam was 26,232 players, the studio chose to shutdown the game due to "performance" and it will end on April 12, 2025. CEO of Mountaintop Studios, Nate Mitchell stated "most of the funds of the video game was spent on getting the console release done for Season 1, the budget was consumed earlier than they forecasted."

Personal life

Born in

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

with

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

heritage, he has been living in the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

for several years. In 2021 he purchased a $9.4 million house in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

where he currently lives with his girlfriend, Hannah Kennedy, aka Bnans.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

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