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Events & Standings
6 thoughts after MSS Finals
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For such a busy weekend, the success of the LCS Finals came down to answering one specific qualifier: was it entertaining? After a nail-biting LEC series between MAD Lions and Rogue that came down to the fifth and final match — along with a banger of an LPL Finals qualification series between EDward Gaming and FunPlus Phoenix — Cloud9 and Team Liquid had a lot to live up to. And despite the TL jungle substitution and a few live event hiccups, this series exceeded expectations. In a match where most, including myself, expected a quick 3-0 or a fairly lopsided 3-1, TL fought C9 to the bitter end and a Tristana-Sion laneswap.
Let's get it.
(All quotes are from the broadcast or the post-final press conference.)
*1. Vulcanalia (part two)*
Coming out of this LCS Finals series, there were multiple players who could have earned player of the series. While Perkz came away with that award, I wanted to give a special shout-out to Vulcan and how consistent he's been not only in these playoff best-of-fives but for the entirety of the Spring Split. A few weeks ago in this column, I cited Vulcan as one of the players who could easily step into the spotlight and take over the playoff discussion. After seeing how well every individual on C9 performed, especially in the finals, it's both fortunate and a shame that Vulcan was once again overshadowed by his own teammates (albeit in the best way possible).
*2. Zven's trophy*
When I think of indoor, pandemic-times celebrations, Cloud9's 2020 Spring victory comes to mind above all others. The team was visibly ecstatic, and coming off of the heels of G2's hilarious but casual indoor trophy presentation in the 2020 LEC Spring Final, the enthusiasm of C9 was infectious, especially when the trophy hit the ceiling and broke. Still, coupled with the fact that C9 was unable to go to an MSI tournament last year, there was something lost.
This year, Zven sprinting down from the player booth to the trophy only to realize that the rest of his team wasn't behind him was equally hilarious and his happiness and relief more infectious.
"They were just too slow. Nothing I can do," Zven said. "I was very excited. This whole series was a lot of adrenaline and winning Game 4 and then 5 was kind of a stomp in a way but was so hype. It's been a long time since we've played onstage so I dunno, I feel like I finally got out of the cage and I had too much energy to hold it back."
*3. The however-many-million-dollar bubble*
The moment Perkz locked in Zoe in the Game 4 draft, all of us in the analyst green room remarked that this was a game where Cloud9 was placing the burden of responsibility on Perkz. This was Perkz's moment to shine.
Team Liquid's draft was generally stronger and, more importantly, easier to execute. Zoe, who was then followed by Gragas on the C9 side, meant a more volatile mid lane and an increased degree of difficulty in C9's overall composition (not to mention better scaling on the side of TL as well). It wasn't over in draft per se, but there was a significantly larger amount of pressure on C9 to ensure that Perkz was consistently hitting Zoe bubbles while Fudge and Vulcan, on Gragas and Alistar respectively, were splitting up TL members and separating the fights into controlled skirmishes where C9's damage dealers could pick TL members off.
Not only did C9 execute on this win condition surprisingly well, but Perkz hit the miracle bubble to turn the tide of the game, keeping TL from scaling beyond C9's control. This is why you sign Perkz to a team among many other intangibles.
While at the 2019 World Championship, I caught up with Perkz's two coaches at the time, Grabbz and Duffman. They gave Perkz so much credit for getting the team in shape immediately prior to Worlds and throughout it. Perkz, they said, was a player whose greatness would never be able to be measured by his (admittedly excellent) in-game performances because his true value was so much more than that.
Yes, he hit the Zoe bubble, but he's also had an immeasurable influence on how communication and coordination have only increased on C9 throughout Spring.
*4. I can't die I'm all in*
"I will never play safe with my playstyle."
These were the first words spoken by LCS 2021 Spring MVP Blaber in the post-final press conference. In the first few days of the Lock In tournament, many fans were concerned with Perkz and Blaber's lack of synergy. They wondered whether Nisqy had been a better option for Blaber, given how much he typically sacrificed from his lane to help Blaber around the map.
These worries were proven wrong as early as the Lock-In Final. A few weeks into the regular season split and Blaber was already being spoken of as an MVP candidate.
"After playing in the Lock In tournament a big weakness of mine was that I didn't communicate well with my teammates to help me around top lane," Fudge said on his improvements throughout this spring. "During the entire split we worked really well to improve on me and Blaber specifically."
Even in Blaber's impressive 2020 season, there were weaknesses in his early pathing and particularly his communication with his lanes. These have improved with time, experience, a more carry-oriented jungle meta, and (presumably) the addition of Perkz. Now when Blaber makes visible mistakes, it's typically in ending up a bit too ahead of his teammates in mid-game skirmishes, giving over unnecessary advantages. This will have to be shored up prior to MSI, but I appreciate Blaber's commitment to being aggressive and proactive — something that most of this C9 team seems to embody.
*5. Today is a new game, with no mistakes in it*
As I walked onstage for the final analyst desk segment on Sunday, I waved hello to Cloud9 CEO Jack Etienne, who immediately asked me with what was presumably a grin behind his mask, whether I still thought that Fudge was ninth out of all LCS top laners.
You know what? I'll own that L.
I think too few people own their losses when it comes to analysis of players or teams, either doubling down on what increasingly becomes an incorrect point or swiftly moving on to something else that they end up having judged more accurately when it comes to the end result. It's okay to be wrong and in this particular case (as it is with any instance where a player performs well and above expectations) I'm happy to be wrong. I also can't wait to see how Fudge continues to improve against tougher top-jungle-mid trios like Damwon's Khan-Canyon-Showmaker top side.
With this Mid-Season Showdown victory, Fudge continues an interesting run of attending every regional finals he's had the ability to qualify for — both in Oceania's now-defunct OPL and in North America's LCS and Academy — and is currently on a four-series title streak. At 2019 Worlds, Fudge and Mammoth did not make it out of their group (Clutch Gaming, Unicorns of Love) so this upcoming MSI group with Damwon, Infinity Esports, and DetonatioN FocusMe gives Fudge an opportunity to surpass his previous international performance.
*6. Ahead on our way*
No sooner has confetti or pyrotechnics dust settled on a domestic finals stage than questions of international competition begin to pop up in fandom and the community. This particular Cloud9 team (minus Perkz) has been dealing with these questions since last year, when their remarkably dominant spring led to fans immediately saying they should just send them to Worlds already. Yet, 2020 C9 didn't attend the Mid-Season Invitational because there wasn't one last year, and they didn't attend Worlds because they bombed out of summer playoffs. This victory not only gave them a stage outside of their homes on which to celebrate, but the ticket to an international event that seems long overdue for four of the five C9 members.
For the LCS, and by extension Cloud9, that question from the community is now framed as, "Just how badly are we going to get rolled by other regions at the Mid-Season Invitational?"
So let's talk about that and also how we talk about North America in general.
It's widely accepted that North America's LCS is the weakest of the four major League of Legends regions. If you haven't accepted this, you really should. However, this doesn't mean that we should always couch our language and completely write off a team that has proven individual talent on international stages. More importantly, C9 have shown the wherewithal to improve dramatically not only over the split as a whole, but even in smaller slices of time like their progress from the beginning of the Lock-In tournament to the Lock-In Finals: another five-game series against Team Liquid that, at that point in time, went in TL's favor.
"The goal is to win MSI and to win every single game in a tournament we play," Perkz said. "Even though Damwon looks quite strong right now, I believe that the teams that are going to be playing there are going to give us all good practice. And we're going to get maybe some reality checks regarding some stuff and then we can improve from there. I think we are improving in every best-of series. We are quite good at adapting."
Is C9 a favorite to win MSI? No. Should they be? No. Does that mean that we should count them out wholly and completely?
Also no.
C9 have a lot of hurdles to overcome. They'll be coming from a region that has been a patch behind in their playoffs, where they won't have as much macro practice, and where they have been getting away with things that teams like Damwon or MAD Lions will punish them for. No group of people are more aware of this than the players of C9 and their coaching staff. However, I posit that one of the more interesting narratives going into this year's MSI will be whether C9 can improve in time to contend with the best of the best from other regions. I'm excited to see what happens and how they approach this challenge, especially given their improvement over this past split.
Just two years ago, in a series that people only remember for G2 Esports' victory, Team Liquid was in an MSI finals. Even with attributing that to the collapse of Invictus Gaming — which tangentially calls the widely-accepted results-based talk into question — there's no saying that a similar path won't be available to a team with the talent of 2021 C9. That is, as they say, why we play the game.
