Last weekend on April 11th, Cloud9 defeated Team Liquid in the Mid-Season Showdown Grand Finals, officially crowning themselves the champions of 2021 LCS Spring Split. C9’s win will earn them the North American representative spot at the Mid Season Invitational (MSI), where they will face off against the best professional teams from around the world.
For anyone who has paid attention to C9’s (Cloud9) and TL’s (Team Liquid) prior games throughout the run of the Mid-Season Showdown would be able to quickly identify the weaknesses and strengths of both teams. C9 is a team that utilizes their communication and draft to make aggressive early game plays, building early game leads and attempting to ride those leads to victory. TL on the other hand, although weak against early game focused teams, are brilliant at finding weaknesses or opportunities to strike back in the mid to late game. Both the strengths and weaknesses of both teams were on full display in the grand finals.
C9 gained early game leads, all 5 games. As stated above, this was achieved through C9’s superior communication and draft picks. TL’s top, Alphari, was caught off guard all 5 games in the early game, allowing C9 Blaber and Fudge to grab easy first bloods on Alphari. This allowed C9 top laner, Fudge, to become fed which was instrumental in C9’s most successful games as Fudge played pivotal roles as a both an engager and tank in all the team fights he was present in.
However, despite C9’s victory, TL’s won games highlighted the weaknesses that C9 still needs to work on; their problem throwing early game leads. TL made it apparent that they had improved significantly since their last encounter with C9 at the start of the Showdown, putting up more of a fight than last time. They sought to punish C9 for any mistakes they made, and aimed to capitalize on those mistakes. That’s exactly what they did in match 1 and 3 as C9 gained early game leads, but lost it due to scuffed fights which allowed TL to turn the game around in their favor. In these fights, TL support, CoreJJ, showed great initiative. Undoubtedly, he was the key player of most of these fights matching the same level of engage and tanky-ness as Fudge, making up for what Alphari couldn’t offer in certain situations.
TL, however, did not have their star jungler Santorin for the Grand Finals and it was questioned as to whether or not their substitute, Armano, would be able to rival his jungler counterpart. Yet, NA Spring Split MVP, Blaber was able to prove game after game that he was the superior jungler. Blaber had the definite advantage in all early games compared to Armano as well as better objective control.
The same could be said for both mid-laners. TL’s mid laner, Jensen’s had his reputation at stake as a veteran NA mid laner, due to Perkz arrival from the LEC (European region). Perkz was able to prove he was the better mid laner as he outperformed Jensen in damage, gold, and kill participation.
What ultimately revealed the difference between the two teams overall was the tie breaking game that ended in a C9 victory. In game 5, C9 played a near-perfect game, flawlessly executing what C9 always aims to do. They were able to successfully transition their early game leads into a clear-cut victory. This victory was greatly due to the draft picks of C9 which showed NA audiences Perkz’ Sylas. Perkz was able to completely dominate, utilizing Sylas’ ultimate to steal key ultimates in pivotal fights.
Despite what could be argued as C9’s strongest performance of the entire season, TL’s two wins in the finals exposed C9’s weaknesses as a team overall and makes it strikingly clear what they need to improve on, especially with MSI approaching. For sake of NA, let’s hope this roster brings a much needed victory for the NA LCS in League of Legends history.
The Beat @APU 