Our three North American teams have qualified to represent the LCS on the international stage. Congratulations to 100 Thieves, Cloud9, and Team Liquid. In a year where we saw LCS teams finally diverge in playstyle from each other during the regular season, it's interesting to have these three teams, all of which have differing ways of approaching the game.
Now all that's left is to find out who will win the LCS Championship.
Let's get it.
**Team Liquid**
After the second round of playoffs, Team Liquid looked untouchable by other LCS teams given their in-game execution and Santorin's return to the jungle position. Yet, they were pressured heavily by 100 Thieves this past weekend, especially in a few specific drafts from 100T alongside in-game mistakes from the members of Team Liquid themselves. (I'd argue that neither team looked at their best in this series — both made uncharacteristic mechanical errors.) As Tactical said in their post-match interview, it was fairly stressful when they allowed Game 3 to slip away from them but with so many veterans on their team, they were able to regroup and rebound well.
It's odd to think that Tactical is only in his second competitive year of LCS play when he almost seems like a veteran given the fact that he's already been through a few playoff bracket runs and a Worlds appearance. Tactical has quietly had a strong season and now a strong playoffs, en route to his second Worlds in just over a year of LCS competition. The way that we talk about him in the community and even on broadcast (yes, I'm calling myself out here) as if he's already a veteran reflects the pressure on his and Team Liquid's shoulders given their pedigree and expectations.
On the other end of the competitive tenure spectrum, Team Liquid has Santorin, whose first Worlds appearance was with TSM back in 2015. By his own admission, that team was not particularly good.
"I didn't feel very confident in my own play and it kind of felt like me going into Worlds, I wasn't going to perform that well," Santorin told me last year prior to Worlds. "I didn't feel like I was ready. It's not really the feeling that you want to have when you're going into the biggest tournament of the year. Sure I was happy that we made it, but in the back of my head I was like 'I'm probably going to suck.'" It made a world of difference to qualify with FlyQuest last year and, despite not making it out of Groups, he felt significantly better about his own performance. Going into this year with Team Liquid, especially alongside the Alphari acquisition, it seemed like Santorin and TL's year.
It's been a particularly rough season for Santorin due to his ongoing medical issues. He fully credits Team Liquid's staff in finding him the help he needed to mitigate his symptoms so he could return to the LCS, and later the Worlds, stage. His intuitive jungling and general experience as a jungler has already been a significant part of TL's current postseason success, and if TL win the LCS Championship, you can count on Santorin being a major part of it.
**100 Thieves**
Although I am a known Vayne defender, I haven't particularly loved the Vayne pick into Ziggs when I've seen it in China's LoL Pro League. In particular, when LNG Esports played it against Suning in the first round of playoffs, it was picked in the second round on blue side, giving Suning ample time to draft against it (which they didn't, really, but that's a story for another time). Vayne in general is a risky pick given her kit when compared to other AD carry choices.
100 Thieves made me a fan of the pick, not because of a potential Ziggs counter but because they picked it into a melee composition while also having another certain strong champion on their side (Irelia, which more LCS teams should consider since she only has a 37.5 percent pick/ban rate in the LCS Championship). They also, mercifully, saved Vayne for fourth pick once they had a better understanding of what TL were going to draft. That being said, it wasn't an assured victory by any means and it's a credit to 100 Thieves for capitalizing on Team Liquid's mistakes.
As I mentioned above, this match wasn't the best display of skill from either team — both teams are capable of more in terms of mechanics and execution, especially Team Liquid as evidenced by their series against Cloud9 and TSM — but it did offer a glimpse at a blueprint for beating Team Liquid which is to attack Santorin early. Many of TL's successes have come from the one-two punch of Santorin and Jensen, especially in their TSM series where they focused on the Sejuani-Lee Sin combination that we also saw this past weekend against 100 Thieves. Similar to Santorin for TL, Closer has been a massive part of 100 Thieves' success. He has the highest KDA and damage percentage of any jungler left in the tournament, but more importantly he's been contributing to 100 Thieves' strong early game with good objective control and coordinating with Abbedagge.
A stronger mid-jungle duo as the backbone of 100 Thieves is exactly what the mid-season acquisition of Abbedagge (and the addition of Reapered to the coaching staff) aimed to accomplish. Given their late-season slide it's easy to forget that this same team stormed through the first part of the split and always had Worlds and the LCS Championship in mind.
**Cloud9**
I keep returning to my initial pre-playoff read on Cloud9, which was that the sheer amount of talent on this team had such a high skill ceiling — especially with Fudge's individual improvement from early Spring to Summer — that they would look like the most dominant team in playoffs en route to a Finals appearance. This still hasn't happened, despite the team's lower bracket run to qualify for at least a Play-In spot, if not one of the LCS' top two Worlds seeds.
C9's tenacity, coupled with a few major mistakes from TSM, led to a shaky victory this past weekend, cementing them as the final team representing the LCS at Worlds this year. Yet their early game still looked remarkably shaky, even against TSM, who had never been known as a particularly proactive team. Of the three teams left, I'd still argue that C9 has the highest skill ceiling given their talent, but we haven't seen anything close to what this roster is capable of yet.
Lost in the shuffle of the memetic "Perkz Accountability," a Perkz-less G2 Esports failing to qualify for Worlds earlier that day, Blaber's slow recovery post-MSI and lack of early pressure, and Fudge hard-carrying some of Cloud9's matches earlier in the split was Zven's ongoing quest to return to the Worlds stage.
"If I didn't make it this year, it would have been four years without Worlds and three years before that of going to Worlds," Zven said after C9's victory over TSM. "So, it's really hard to not pop off at Worlds once you make it there. Emotionally, it really hurts when you don't make it so I think this year was really important that I make it there." Of all C9 players, Zven is typically the one who is mentioned the least when considering the strength of this roster, so for him to come out and have a strong performance in their TSM series to qualify for that World Championship spot was heartwarming.
Going into this past weekend's games, C9 was the only team to have not qualified for the World Championship. Coupled with their post-MSI struggles in the LCS, perhaps this was a weight on their shoulders that they will no longer carry going into their upcoming series against 100 Thieves. Either way, I know this roster is capable of being the best in the LCS and I want to see it — not as a fan of the team, but just someone who wants to see all three teams perform at their absolute best.
