In what was one of the most anticipated matches of the entire Mid-Season Showdown, Cloud9 won the quarterfinals, knocking Team Liquid out of the upperbracket. After months of trash talk between players of both teams and a previously eagerly anticipated finals at Lock-In, C9 secures their spot in the finals.
C9 scored a decisive victory in the first game as they successfully and subsequently executed aggressive plays, allowing them to have a dominant control of the entire game from beginning to end. Although veteran TL jungler, Santorin, attempted to take advantage of the early game by trying to achieve early ganks as Hecaraim, he ultimately was outshined by C9’s jungler, Blaber. Blaber took advantage of the jungle Nidalee/top Renekton combo to consistently tower dive TL’s Alphari. This allowed Blaber to secure a rift herald for C9 and the snowball began to roll. After Santorin’s first early game ganks, he really wasn’t seen again, and C9 was able to consistently pressure the top side and swiftly make their way towards victory. TL began getting lazy in the later phases of the game as they realized they were doomed, beginning to get caught and allowing C9 to steamroll on them even further.
However, game 2 was not as smooth for C9. TL, brushing themselves off from the last game, played a significantly slower game, attempting to creep into a position where they controlled the map. They sought to deny early game leads for C9, and their champion picks reflected that strategy as they opted for effective peel champions such as Tahm Kench, Senna, Seraphine, and Gangplank. C9 was not able to find any stable footing in any of the team fights which caused C9 to either lose key fights or have to give up major objectives. This resulted in TL being able to confidently walk into C9’s base and close out game 2.
TL attempted to do the same in game 3 but failed. In game 3, TL attempted to funnel as much gold as possible into their mid laner, Jenson. They set up multiple early game ganks for Jensen and attempted to shut down Perkz as much as possible. It was looking good for TL, as their control began to slowly seep into C9’s jungle until they countered by focus ganking Jensen. TL was not able to do much with Jensen down, allowing C9 to try and regain their footing. Then in the most important team fight of the game, as both teams stepped up to contest the second infernal drake, TL lost. TL’s success in that team fight was heavily dependent on Jensen and Alphari being able to burst down C9 Zven, however neither had enough damage to finish the job. This resulted in TL’s ADC, Tatitical, having to sacrifice backline positioning to finish on Zven. However, as TL lost positioning trying to kill Zven, they also lost the team fight, handing over a quadrakill to Perkz. Due to C9’s superior scaling composition, C9 was able to take back control of the map and objectives, and win the game.
In game 4, C9 won by the time they locked in their champions. In the post match interview, Sven had stated that their ability to win games against TL would be incredibly pick dependent and he couldn’t be more right. TL had that same early game momentum, like they did in the previous 2 games, however they couldn’t properly transition their leads into any favorable team fights. C9’s picks, that consisted of Ashe, Sion, and Braum, had too much crowd control for TL to force into. Despite that, TL still attempted to do so, resulting in TL losing key team fights and ultimately losing the game.
After TSM had knocked out 100 Thieves in the lower bracket quarter finals, Team Liquid will have to compete with TSM next weekend at a shot for redemption. The winner of that match will face C9 in the grand finals of the Mid-Season Showdown.
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