Oracle's Elixir

Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses, LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview

Tim Sevenhuysen

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I definitely didn’t expect to be writing a Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses preview today. I’m still a little in shock at not only the fact that Cloud9 lost to FlyQuest, but the way the lost.

Hopefully C9 recover from that shock more quickly than I do, because they have a series to prep for, and they’d better not take it lightly if they want to maintain a shot at reaching Worlds.

Win Conditions

Cloud9

I can’t imagine how tilted the entire Cloud9 roster and staff are feeling after yesterday. They need to breathe some fresh air and pull out the early game-oriented strategies that they’ve hopefully put at least some practice into during the past couple of weeks, because that’s where they’ve found their success all year.

Evil Geniuses

FlyQuest just lobbed an alley-oop pass to Evil Geniuses, so EG need to jump up and slam it home with momentum.

Prediction

C9 3-0

What is love? Baby don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me no more.

Cloud9 Key Player and Path to Victory

I’m writing this preview on the morning after the Cloud9 vs. FlyQuest series, and time has cooled my temper a bit, but watching the series yesterday legitimately put me in an awful mood for the rest of the day. Cloud9 came out with misguided prep that failed to highlight their identity and strengths, they badly fumbled their vision game, they face-checked bushes and extended in side lanes—in part because of their poor vision control—and they were soundly bounced into the Lower Bracket as a result.

With their bullheaded insistence playing Ezreal Yuumi, C9 failed to create any priority in the bottom lane, and with Blaber being attacked at level 1 every game, Nisqy couldn’t shove his lane as safely and roam nearly as much as he typically would. C9 had neither the tools nor the tempo to play the skirmishing, aggressive style that is their forte, though they still tried at times, and were shut down by FlyQuest’s stronger reactive tools and good defensive postures.

As a side note, Nisqy’s weak showing was largely a symptom of Blaber getting shut down, so don’t get carried away with any criticisms of the C9 Mid laner. The Blaber + Nisqy duo relies on Blaber being in control and applying pressure, which creates opportunities for Nisqy to move with him through the river. Those opportunities didn’t materialize very much, but that wasn’t directly Nisqy’s fault in this series. Credit goes to FlyQuest, and especially to IgNar, for their level 1 strategies that put Blaber and the rest Cloud9 on the back foot almost every game. Goldenglue and Svenskeren are not a PowerOfEvil/Santorin-level duo, so Nisqy (and Blaber) should hopefully be more comfortable this time around.

My thoughts about C9 feel pretty scattered, since I’m still reeling a bit from yesterday, but as far as beating Evil Geniuses goes, they really just need to not suck. Don’t spend too much time worrying about the way EG want to play, or what kinds of counter-strategies might attack them the best; just play your own game—the good version, not the Ezreal+Yuumi version—and don’t suck.

Evil Geniuses Key Player and Path to Victory

Svenskeren lost the breakup with Cloud9; that has long since been demonstrated by C9’s Spring title and Blaber’s instant ascent to 1st All-Pro teams and superstar status. Now Svenskeren has a chance—nay, an imperative—to exact some revenge on his understudy by receiving the aforementioned alley-oop pass from Santorin.

It’s going to be a real challenge for Svenskeren to manage Blaber in the laning phase. Blaber had by the best early-game stats of any player in the LCS in the regular season, and Svenskeren’s early-game stats were pretty bad. He has turned it around in the playoffs, though, posting a +473 GXD10 over the first two series as he faced off against Santorin and Contractz.

To help Svenskeren out, EG should definitely consider bringing out some aggressive, FlyQuest-style level 1 plays. They saw, like we did, how poorly Blaber handled the pressure, especially in game 1. I’m not sure Zeyzal can do what IgNar did, but it’s certainly worth a shot.

I want to see Svenskeren pick something that can match Blaber’s early pathing with vision control and counterganks, and then disengage/counterengage in skirmishes and team fights. Sett would work; Graves is obviously the premier Jungler on this patch and would fit as well. Blaber and the rest of C9 are going to pull the trigger on fights. EG can punish if they put themselves in strong positions on the map, such as managing their tempo right and arriving first to objectives, and if they equip themselves with the right team fighting tools.

EG’s stock has risen significantly for me in the past week, after playing FlyQuest close and crushing 100 Thieves. And Cloud9 are far more vulnerable now than they were before their first series. Don’t take my 3-0 prediction to mean that EG have no chance to win; just like for the C9 vs. FLY series, I’m saying 3-0 because I think that is the most likely specific outcome, but if EG can take one game, especially the first game, then all bets are off and anything could happen.