Shroud, the “King of Reddit” | Streamer profile & Settings

Shroud is a household name in the world of esports and streaming. The “King of Reddit” once dominated the Twitch streaming charts and follower counts. He was one of the most prolific streamers on the platform before moving exclusively to Mixer in 2019, where he continued with similar acclaim. Since Mixer shut down, Shroud has continued elsewhere getting up to 516,000 concurrent viewers back on Twitch.

Shroud is a former CSGO pro and one of the most notable content creators. He’s had a career that covers most areas of esports and gaming. The player is also making a return to pro-level gaming since leading CS: GO. Taking on Valorant is going to be tricky, but Shroud’s shown he has the skills.

With a return on the horizon, how exactly did Shroud get here? And can the player make a return to competitive-level gaming?

Shroud Returns to Esports – 2022 Updates

Shroud got his start in esports, but more recently he’s become better known as a content creator. Even as a former EPL Champion, Shroud’s 10 million Twitch followers have definitely overshadowed past achievements to newer fans. However, in 2022 Shroud is making a big return to competitive gaming.

Shroud’s been playing various games as a content creator. However, a few have stood out. The game Valorant has become the game most players watch him for lately. The title has a lot in common with CSGO, so it’s a natural fit for Shroud,

With quite a few years playing as a streamer, not a pro though, does Shroud have what it takes to jump back in?

Shroud in Valorant

Shroud is coming into Valorant off a few years as a content creator. This is a big return to esports for the player. He isn’t the only former pro to make the switch. Plenty of others from games like overwatch and CSGO have returned to esports for Valorant, which also makes it one of the most competitive games around at the moment. Shroud is joining up with a team for Valorant.

Shroud is going to be part of Sentinels for Valorant. This is a team with plenty of high-profile players, but Shroud might be on another level. He’s joining an already pretty well-ranking team. It does seem like he still has the skills though.

In games preparing for his big comeback, Shroud shows no signs of getting rusty. He still has lightning-fast aim and great reflexes in the game. Pulling off triple wallbangs in games during his prep time for joining the new squad.

Shroud in Valorant looks set to be an exciting part of the game. His time as a content creator and CS GO player was no less entertaining though. This is how Shroud got to where he is now.

The Making of Shroud

Michael Grzesiek was born June 2, 1994 in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. His earliest encounter with PC gaming was enabled by his father Thomas, a prolific gamer in his own right. On several occasions, Shroud has recalled a youth filled with LAN parties. Growing up in this gamer-supportive environment did wonders for Shroud and his later career in esports.

By 2011, Michael was playing World of Warcraft and various other titles. WoW gameplay is a far cry from the “quickflick” god of FPS we know today. The player has even maintained that moving to more competitive games wasn’t his entire. He’s said that he was “forced” to try out CS:GO during the beta period in early 2012 . That might have ended up being the most profitable peer pressure ever.

The classic Counter-Strike 1.6 helped established esports as a competitive discipline, and its remake quickly became Mike’s favorite pastime. By 2013 he was already playing competitively and streaming the game on a regular basis.

Around this time his CS:GO team and his “gamer name” aligned. His handle up until then had been Eclipse. For some reason, the team he played with was oddly also named Eclipse. To cut down on the understandable confusion and establish his unique brand he came up with Shroud. That’s a synonym for Eclipse, but most probably just think of it as his name now.

“King of Reddit” and Cloud9 Shroud

Playing CS:GO brought in the viewers and his skill promptly earned him the title “King of Reddit”. Almost every time Shroud streamed, Reddit’s /r/GlobalOffensive subreddit had a clip up with teammates yelling “Hi, Reddit” and “King of Reddit”, creating the meme and a legendary status with the community.

Shroud’s talents didn’t go unnoticed by the big boys in esports either. After some time streaming and playing with semi-professional teams, he was offered a spot with Complexity Gaming. They were one of the most established Counter-Strike teams in North America. The roster was then picked up by Cloud9 and in the years that followed reestablished the North American Counter-Strike scene.

Together with teammates Tyler “Skadoodle” Latham and Jordan “N0thing” Gilbert, the Cloud9 squad went on to compete at the highest level of competitive CS:GO.

Achievements in CSGO and Retirement

Shroud’s achievements as a content creator are pretty well known, but playing in CSGO he made plenty of headlines with the Cloud9 squad too. Between signing to the team and retirement, these are some of Shroud’s biggest achievements in CSGO;

Americas Minor Championship 2017 1^st Place
ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals – 1^st Place
DreamHack Open Bucharest 2016 2^nd Place
iBUYPOWER Cup 1^st Place
ESL ESEA Pro League Season 1 – 2^nd Place

Shroud definitely had a lot to be proud of in CSGO and the player routinely hit high numbers streaming outside of pro games. However, it couldn’t last forever.

On August 15, 2017 it was announced that Shroud and N0thing would step down from the active roster to give way for new talent. Several months later (April 18^th, 2018) Shroud left the Cloud9 organization entirely to pursue his passion as an independent full-time streamer.

The Battle Royale era and beyond

Close to his retirement from professional CS:GO, Shroud started investing more and more time into the up-and-coming title PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG). This turned out to be perfect timing. The Battle Royale genre was entering its stage of huge growth and popularity.

The genre and Shroud’s FPS prowess aligned at just the right time in his career. He skyrocketed to the top of the Twitch charts. The importance of Shroud’s persona and influence can be seen in-game titles such as Fortnite, Apex Legends or Escape from Tarkov who have either directly partnered or benefited from the presence of Shroud on their servers.

Meanwhile, unburdened by the pressures of competitive play and practice, Mike could allow himself to play titles he is passionate about like World of Warcraft or the Assassin’s Creed series, and still attract his now loyal audience to his stream.

His peak Twitch viewership hit a new record of 212,955 on February 12th, 2019. It was estimated at the time that 2019 would net him something in the ballpark of $5.2 million USD from streaming, partnerships, and merchandise.

Shroud Heads to Mixer

With such great results on Twitch, Shroud was a hot property. In 2019, the streamer announced he would be moving to Mixer full-time. At this point in his career, Shroud had the top spot for Twitch subscribers, with more than double the streamer below him. His exclusivity deal with Mixer followed Ninja’s move to the platform.

Shroud’s Twitch earnings did reach around $80,000 per month in 2019 but the hugely popular streamer moved exclusive to Mixer in October 2019. It can be guessed that Mixer offered something better than this just to show up on the platform.

At Mixer, viewing numbers were lower. This was the case for Ninja too. For both streamers though, the exclusivity deals for not being on Twitch were enough to even out the difference. When Mixer shut down in 2020, Shroud was left with a few choices.

Return to Twitch

In June 2020 it was announced that Mixer would shutter and on June 22, the top streamer tweeted:

“I appreciate the Mixer community and everything I’ve been able to do on the platform. I love you guys and am figuring out my next steps.”

With Mixer shut down, Shroud received an offer from Facebook gaming looking to secure him instead. Like at Mixer, this would have meant lower viewers but a much bigger paycheck from a platform willing to buy exclusive rights to him. This time though, shroud declined and moved back to Twitch.

On his first stream back, he hit a new all-time high for viewers. Over 516,000 concurrent viewers attended his inaugural stream. Shroud still pulls in huge numbers like this regularly.

Shroud’s setup and streaming

Shroud’s Twitch earnings did reach around $80,000 per month in 2019 but the hugely popular streamer moved exclusively to Mixer in October 2019. In June 2020 it was announced that Mixer would shutter and on June 22, the top streamer tweeted:

“I appreciate the Mixer community and everything I’ve been able to do on the platform. I love you guys and am figuring out my next steps.”

Shroud’s net worth is estimated to be between $8-12 million and his popularity endures.

While the esports community still speculates where Shroud will make his new streaming home next, his fame in playing and streaming Valorant, CS:GO, and PUBG continues.

Shroud’s streaming settings and configurations are, as you would imagine, of the highest spec. He’s sponsored by a number of key brands including Logitech.

Shroud’s streaming setup is estimated to be worth around $6,000-$7,000. His gaming PC runs an Intel I9-9980XE processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080Ti graphics card. He has a Gigabyte X299 Designare EX motherboard and 128GB of Corsair Vengeance RGP Pro RAM sitting in an Acer Predator Orion 9000 case.

His Logitech deal likely results in his tools of the trade being a wireless Logitech G Pro Ghost gaming mouse, and mechanical keyboard. He has a Logitech G Pro X headset but he doesn’t use the microphone, choosing instead a Shure SM7B microphone. He also has an HD Pro C920 webcam and uses a Herman Miller Aeron office chair instead of one of the usually popular gaming chairs.

Shroud’s Valorant settings/setup

With Valorant quickly becoming esports latest great hit and Shroud’s proven gaming prowess, his Valorant settings are of interest to many players.

For this game, he uses custom graphics settings with material, texture, and detail quality on high. This does result in a more demanding game, but Shroud’s setup can easily handle this and the high FPS he needs.

His UI quality is set to low with distortion, vignette, and shadows turned off. He also disables V-sync.

For Shroud’s Valorant mouse settings he puts:

DPI at 450, EDPI at 351,
Polling Rate at 1000Hz,
Game Sensitivity at 0.78,
Windows Sensitivity at 6,
Zoom/Scope Sensitivity at 1.

He uses mouse wheel down to jump.

On the keyboard, he uses F to use, and X to use his ultimate ability.

Shroud’s Valorant crosshair settings are:

Colour: Cyan, with Outlines and Center dot turned off,
Inner lines at 1/8/2/3,
Outer lines at 0/0/0/0,
Movement/Firing error turned off.

Shroud’s CS:GO settings/setup

As Shroud played competitive CS:GO, Shroud’s CS:GO setup is much viewed. He might not be the most current player, but the settings he used for CSGO are still exactly of how to optimally setup the game.

He uses full resolution with scaling “Stretched” and Vsync turned off.

His field of view is usually at 68.

He uses a crosshair style of 4 with a size of 3.5, thickness of 1.5, and a gap of -2.

For his mouse in CS:GO play Shroud uses:

DPI of 400, EDPI of 1000,
Polling Rate at 1000Hz,
Game Sensitivity of 2.5,
Windows Sensitivity of 6,
Zoom/Scope Sensitivity at 1.

He uses WASD keybinds with mouse scrolling for jump and CTRL for crouch.

He also uses R for Reload, E to use, G to drop, and a combination of numbers and characters for his ten equipment slots.

Shroud adds keybind shortcuts to enable him to quickly purchase certain weapons and grenades.

Shroud’s PUBG settings/setup

PUBG is one of Shroud’s most-streamed and most-watched streamed titles.

Shroud’s often emulated PUBG settings include having graphics optionslike foliage, shadows, and effects turned to “very low,” but he likes to keep his textures settings at “high.”

He has his view distance “very low” and his field of view at 102.

He’s known to run with full resolution settings and brightness at 81.

For his mouse he runs:

DPI at 450, Polling Rate at 500Hz,
General, Vehicle and Targeting Sensitivity at 55,
Scope Sensitivity between 47 and 60.

For Shroud’s PUBG keybinds, he uses the WASD setup but with LEFT ALT for walking, B for prone, the scroll wheel click for autorun, and C and V to peek left and right.

A thumb button on his mouse takes him to freelook, Q changes fire modes, and he uses SHIFT and number keys for healing and other items.

He uses M to toggle his camera and E for his map.

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