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The main storyline of this series is Cloud9’s fall from grace and sub-.500 record in the second half of the regular season. FlyQuest are worth talking about, but the conversation is mostly about C9 and their ability to recapture their Spring championship form. Every opinion about this series is going to spring directly out of assessments of why C9 fell off, and whether that was a sign of real problems, or just a temporary blip.
I fall into the latter camp.
Win Conditions
Cloud9
- Get back on the horse
- Play with pace
Cloud9 need to wipe out their memories of the last six weeks and get back on their horse, playing their own style and pace with just as much confidence and swagger as they did from January through June.
FlyQuest
- Don’t be intimidated
- Land your counterpunches
Cloud9 were never the unbeatable giants they seemed to be during the Spring split. FlyQuest need to hype themselves up and go after the blood in the water—don’t let C9 come out and regain their confidence too easily. Be ready to respond to C9’s aggression with calculated counterplay. If you can throw them off their groove, you can beat them.
Prediction
C9 3-0
The rumours of Cloud9’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. They’re still the best team in the LCS, in my opinion. FlyQuest frankly failed to impress in a series against Evil Geniuses that should have been much more one-sided in their favour. I’m expecting a return to normalcy with some close team fights but, ultimately, a Cloud9 stomp.
Cloud9 Key Player and Path to Victory
Blaber is the frontman of the best Mid+Jungle duo in the LCS, and even up against a pretty good combo in Santorin and PowerOfEvil, he should be able to make his stamp on this series, especially with champions like Graves and Nidalee emerging as threats, which might lead FlyQuest to leave Blaber’s Olaf open when selecting their initial bans. Even a Jungler as good as Santorin won’t be able to shut this guy down; expect big things.
Taking a step back to assess the team as a whole, there’s a lot that could be said about Cloud9’s stumbling finish to the regular season, which saw them go 4-5 in the second half after opening the split 9-0. Was it a slump they need to break out of, a run of complacency, the exposure of some fatal flaw, or a symptom of a bad meta read and misdirected preparation?
I believe C9’s vulnerability always existed, and their losing streak was bound to happen at some point, as soon as their opponents realized they had a legitimate chance to win.
Any team that plays with as much pace, aggression, and reliance on player skill as C9 is going to be highly momentum-based, with the ability to go on epic win streaks. And when those streaks are in play, it makes opponents doubt their ability to compete, which perpetuates the streak.
Look at G2 Esports in 2019 and the incredible year they had. Their skill and confidence paired together to generate all kinds of stompy wins and an aura of invincibility, to the point that any in-game setbacks they experienced were quickly forgotten as long as they kept pressing and manufactured a comeback. Or apply a broader lens and look at the era of South Korean dominance from 2013 to 2017. Korea won five straight World Championships, and the prevailing opinion was that they were simply unbeatable. I remember speaking to a team staff member shortly after an international best-of-five against a Korean team, and being told in no uncertain terms that the Koreans were just too good and could never be beaten, implying that a Western team should just be proud to perform respectably in a Bo5 against them.
There was a mystique to Korean LoL for years, until the gap closed enough to pass the tipping point. There was a mystique to G2 Esports in 2019. And there was a mystique around Cloud9 in 2020 up until they lost to 100 Thieves on July 12. But I don’t believe C9 changed meaningfully in that game, or in the ensuing losses to Evil Geniuses, Immortals, Team Liquid, Golden Guardians, and TSM (with a win against FlyQuest shoved in the middle there—interesting!). I believe the confidence levels of the rest of LCS changed, and that led to stiffer competition and continued punishment of C9’s pre-existing vulnerability: specifically, their active trigger fingers and willingness to take “skill check” plays.
C9 played out their early games very well in the second half, with a 77.5 EGR in their first 9 games and a 67.8 EGR in their last 9 (still best in the LCS over that stretch). But their kill-to-death ratio plummeted from 2.85 to 1.00, which badly hurt their neutral objective control (dragon control dropped from 84% to 55%, Baron control dropped from 100% to 27%). C9 played with leads and fought just as aggressively, but they lost more fights than usual and that led to games narrowly slipping out of their hands, when a won fight might have snowballed to a quick victory.
With a week off to watch the first round of the playoffs and do a little soul-searching, I’m confident Cloud9 have been able to reset themselves, have prepared well for patch 10.16, and will hit the Rift as the same old C9 we’ve gotten used to this year, just without the same mystique.
FlyQuest Key Player and Path to Victory
As I wrote above, counterpunching and confidence are the keys for FlyQuest in this series, and that casts the spotlight on their Support, IgNar. For long stretches this year, IgNar has looked like at least the third-best Support in North America, if not the second. He finished as the third-team All-Pro Support, and probably should have finished higher (I voted him second-team). But Santorin and PowerOfEvil took more of the spotlight—I have nothing against them for that!—and IgNar’s contributions were somewhat overshadowed.
IgNar is best known for his aggressive playmaking, with great Leona and Thresh work, but his contributions to this team have come just as much from roaming and from peeling and defensive play to enable WildTurtle as a team fight carry. IgNar really can contribute in any style.
Against C9, IgNar should be called on to serve that peeling, reactionary role. Thresh, Morgana, and even Braum would fit well for this series. FLY don’t have to worry about creating skirmishes and team fights; C9 will be more than happy to bring the fight to them. What FLY need is protection for WildTurtle, both during the laning phase and in team fights, so that he can take steps backwards and punish any mistakes in C9’s execution.
FLY aren’t going to out-pace or out-play-make C9. They shouldn’t try. But they can demand perfection, and exploit C9’s errors.
It doesn’t feel good to rely on your opponents to make mistakes. Ideally, a team should always strive to be the ones pulling the trigger and forcing the other team to react. But sometimes patience and reactivity are the right play, and this series is one of those times.