Cloud9 should be heading to the Mid-Season Invitational held in Iceland in order to represent North America after defeating Team Liquid. The team has been hard at work honing their skills in order to take on the best of the best and possibly bring glory back with them. After the impressive 3-2 series win over Team Liquid, they have been chosen as the North American representatives. We all have our fingers crossed for them and hope that they can bring the trophy back to North America in impressive fashion.
After a previous 3-1 win against Team Liquid, who were relegated to the lower bracket while Cloud9 waited to see who they would face in the finals. Cloud9 has maintained their dominance in the LCS, placing first in Spring after finishing second in the first-ever Lock-In Tournament, a series in which they were once again pitted against Team Liquid.
This is also the first split in which the team brought in rookie top laner Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami from their academy team, as well as Luka “Perkz” Perkovi from the LEC and G2 Esports for a $5 million buyout to their midlane.
Cloud9 has won the Spring finals before, having done so last year as well. This year, however, the squad should be even more excited because they can attend MSI after last year's tournament was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The games themselves were very back-and-forth, with no one game being truly a step in one direction or another. The games lasted at least 40 minutes on average, with Cloud9 normally leading by a few kills after 15 minutes, thanks to their aggressive jungler Blaber. Their strategy seemed to be to camp top early in the game and take out Alphari as soon as possible, not just to give Fudge an advantage, but also because Alphari is normally Team Liquid's win condition and carry.
The final game started with a Cloud9 lane swap, with Vulcan and Zven moving to the top lane to assist Blaber in stealing TL's blue buff, and Alphari was instantly eyed by Cloud9's ADC and support. The move was only intended as a temporary laning strategy, and they turned back after the game's first five minutes. Despite the beginning of the game looking decent for TL, the midgame was very favorable for Cloud9, with a battle at Drake giving them the ace. Cloud9 won the series in 27 minutes after several team fights and a total of 20 kills.
The Bottom Line
Cloud9 has been on an impressive run of form recently, really showing their class in their matches. They definitely seem as if they are on the path of winning the MSI and bringing glory back to North America. Only time can tell if they are ready to take on some of the world's best teams; however, you would be forgiven for having faith in them to go ahead and win it all. The team seems to be in some of the best forms of their careers, and we look forward to seeing them dominate the MSI tournament.
