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.
