Shroud (gamer)

Michael Grzesiek (born June 2, 1994), better known as shroud (formerly mEclipse), is a Canadian streamer, YouTuber and former professional "" player. He is known for playing first-person shooter and battle royale games such as "Counter-Strike: Global Offensive", "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds", "Apex Legends", "Escape from Tarkov", "Valorant", and more"." Grzesiek is often recognized as one of the best "aimers".
, his Twitch channel has reached over 9 million followers, ranking as the third most-followed channel on the platform, and his YouTube channel has over 6.77 million subscribers.
Career.
"Counter-Strike: Global Offensive".
Grzesiek started his "" ("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 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 in 2016 and a second place in ESL One Cologne 2017. On August 16, 2017, it was announced that he and long-time teammate Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert would be stepping down from Cloud9's active roster. On April 18, 2018, Grzesiek left Cloud9 and retired from professional "CS:GO".
Streaming and content creation.
Since transitioning from a professional "CS:GO" player to a full-time streamer on the streaming platform Twitch, Grzesiek 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. This decision surprised his fans, as he previously stated, "Hey man, Ninja's gone... It's all me, baby. Gotta take advantage." He claimed, "I just thought it was the best move for my career."
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. Grzesiek released a statement via his Twitter account saying, "[...] I love you guys and am figuring out my next steps."
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.