Tag Archives: Cloud9

Analysis and Opinion

TSM Academy vs. Cloud9 Academy, LCS Academy Finals Preview

It’s a North American League of Legends tale as old as time: TSM versus Cloud9, the original fan favourites against the team that stole their crown as NA’s best. As the LCS squads prepare to fight for a World Championship spot on Saturday, their Academy teams will put an Academy Championship on the line the day before. Both matchups have the potential to be close, and hotly contested, but I’ll leave my LCS preview for tomorrow; today, let’s look into the Academy series that will cap off an excellent year of tier 2 North American competition.

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Win Conditions

TSM Academy

  • Neutralize the early game
  • Draft for team fights and let Lost and Treatz go to work

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Analysis and Opinion

Cloud9 vs. Evil Geniuses, LCS Summer Lower Bracket Preview

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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

  • Take some deep breaths
  • Play the early game

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

  • Attack Blaber
  • Draft reactive scaling picks (e.g. Shen and Gangplank)

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

Prediction

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Analysis and Opinion

Cloud9 vs. FlyQuest, LCS Summer Semifinals Preview

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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

Continue reading Cloud9 vs. FlyQuest, LCS Summer Semifinals Preview →