Ex-Overwatch Pro Urges Marvel Rivals Gamers to Drop C9 Phrase

Marvel Rivals has managed to reawaken the same vibrant energy that Overwatch had during its golden days—comically quirky hero interactions, epic plays that make you gasp, and inevitably, those disastrous errors that can cost a whole match. The well-known Overwatch “C9” meme has found its way back, and one of the esports veterans linked to its origin wishes it would quietly fade away.

Lucas “Mendo” Håkansson, an ex-professional player, took to X (previously known as Twitter) lamenting the resurgence, “MARVEL RIVALS’ BOOMING POPULARITY MEANS A TON OF NEW PLAYERS ARE LEARNING WHAT A ‘C9’ [IS] AND THAT I CREATED IT. LET ME MOVE ON PLEASE.”

Back in 2017, Håkansson was part of Cloud9’s Overwatch team and helped cement the term in gaming lingo. The meme snapped into existence during Overwatch Apex Season 2 when his team spectacularly forgot to contest the objective, losing the round despite winning the battle. In a notorious repeat move, they overlooked the objective three more times, triggering a flood of “C9 LUL” comments on Twitch. Particularly memorable was when Håkansson got sidetracked by using Soldier: 76’s ultimate instead of focusing on the point—a moment cemented as a collective team blunder.

Nowadays, a “C9” reference will likely pop up in chat when Overwatch players are so preoccupied with racking up kills that they neglect the objective. And it’s taking root in Marvel Rivals as well, especially since payloads in the game continue moving based off which team last touched them, making C9 instances surprisingly frequent. This is a common pitfall of team-based games, where players often wrongly count on their teammates to manage the objective. But in a professional setting, it’s even more mortifying when nobody steps up—and everyone drops the ball.

While there’s still discussion on platforms like Reddit about the true criteria (does it count if stepping onto the point is too risky?), Marvel Rivals illustrates that as long as objectives exist, so will the infamous C9 moments.