If you watched the NA LCS Final, then you’re probably reacting to the result like most people have been: shocked. For one, no one expected Team Liquid to have that dominant of a run and no one expected them to sweep Cloud9, one of the best teams in the world right now.
That being said, throughout the three games they played, several highlight plays and moments were captured and it’s only right to share them back. The World Championship will be starting soon and what better way to start hyping yourself up for the action than by recapping some of the best moments from the NA LCS final? Let’s get started!
Usually when it comes to a matchup such as Team Liquid versus Cloud9, there’s a level of competitiveness that can only be found in specific matches and people were expecting this competitiveness to show since Doublelift was going to be playing against Sneaky, an all-time great who had mastered as many champions as Doublelift had.
However, in the 2018 NA LCS Summer Split final, it was an all-Doublelift performance with Doublelift showing off left and right how strong he could be on his champions. In game one, he played a flawless Kai’sa that had little to no error in the points where he was expected to take over and control.
In game two, his Kai’sa was one of two parts that led to Team Liquid taking a fast 2-0 break versus the team and in game three, Doublelift’s Ashe posed to be too much of a threat for Sneaky’s Ezreal. It seemed as if Cloud9 went in thinking that the key to taking down Team Liquid was taking down Doublelift.
That isn’t necessarily wrong but when it came to taking him down, they failed to time and time again. In game one, they had a composition build specifically for holding down Doublelift and bursting him without much counter-play yet Doublelift somehow managed to make it past and not only did he make it past, he destroyed them later on.
In game two, they built yet another team composition looking to prioritize taking down Doublelift since they had Lee Sin to gank early-game and a Malzahar mid to lock down Doublelift’s Kai’sa in case he got too close.
Yet despite this, Doublelift was still the man on top. Doublelift came into the Summer Split looking to prove that he’s still one of the best on the scene but he didn’t achieve that. He didn’t show audiences that he’s still one of the best. He showed that he was the best.
Usually, whenever Team Liquid and Cloud9 play each other, the matches can go to five sets and these are the matches that are written down in the history books.
However, this year, it wasn’t the case. Team Liquid brought out a dominating 3-0 victory that helped secure them a ticket to the World Championship and it wasn’t any coincidence either. Team Liquid played one of the cleanest performances they’ve played in years and it can be proven just by a few reasons.
If you believe in the fact that better jungler wins, then Xmithie’s performance certainly backed that claim up. He left no breathing room for both Cloud9’s Blaber and Svenskeren who they substituted in, hoping to take down the experienced veteran.
Xmithie exerted early-game jungle pressure to virtually every lane and forced Cloud9’s Blaber in game one to pressure ganks he normally wouldn’t go for. This led to Cloud9 not getting the lead they wanted and eventually gave Team Liquid the one team fight they needed to completely end the game.
Whenever Blaber or Svenskeren slipped up, they made sure to punish it through stealing objectives or going for rotations. That being said, Xmithie played an extremely crisp game that had no errors in it and this proved to be a cornerstone to the victory.
Cloud9 definitely had their shots at winning. Don’t get me wrong. In fact, Cloud9 didn’t play as well as they had been playing before but when they went into the Regional tournament, they played out of their minds.
That being said, one of the main fundamentals as to why they weren’t able to secure any victories against Team Liquid was because they weren’t playing diversified picks. In both game one and two, Sneaky picked Twitch for AD Carry when the champion was obviously not working versus Doublelift’s Kai’sa.
Jensen pulled out Malzahar twice in a row and even though the first time worked fairly well for him, the second time was drastic as Pobelter mixed things up and brought out an Irelia mid pick which completely destroyed Jensen’s chances of winning lane.
However, if you look at Team Liquid’s picks, they were extremely spread out and in a good way too. Xmithie went from playing an extremely early-game oriented Olaf to playing an all-game Sejuani that would coincide with getting picks alongside Pobelter’s Irelia.
Furthermore, talking about Pobelter, he didn’t give Jensen any breathing space. He went from a Ryze pick in game one to an Irelia pick in game two. Not only did this completely switch up the game plan for Team Liquid, it forced Cloud9 to reconsolidate their picks and because they didn’t, this led to Cloud9 blinking first.
Cloud9 has the firepower and potential to take Team Liquid to five games and even take them down at times but in the final, they didn’t show any of that. In fact, they played a linear game while Team Liquid was running circle’s around them.
In game one, they tried to fight fire with fire and then in game two, they tried to use fire yet again even though Team Liquid had switched their game up and started using something else. There’s no doubt about it. Team Liquid’s arsenal destroyed theirs in every way possible.
There are very few teams who can boast of having a World Champion on their team but Team Liquid is one of them and Impact hasn’t let the team down so far. In all three games, while his stats didn’t show it, he put up a fight that he hasn’t put up since the 2013 World Championship.
In the first two games of the NA LCS finals, Team Liquid oriented their champions around an engaging-based team and Impact’s Sion was leading the charge. Every single team fight they won was because of Impact and Cloud9’s Licorice couldn’t keep up.
There were several moments where Impact’s Sion would charge in, taking Cloud9’s entire roster by surprise and before they could react, Doublelift and Pobelter would do their job and clean up the rest of the crew.
That being said, Team Liquid’s Impact was one of the biggest reasons as to why they were able to completely sweep Cloud9. If he can keep up the performance he showed in the NA LCS finals, Team Liquid might have a shot at the World Championship.
I’m not lying when I say that Team Liquid and Cloud9 have some of the best players in the North American region. Team Liquid’s entire roster has qualified for the World Championship at least once in their lifetime as a professional League of Legends player and Cloud9’s team is composed of top-world individuals.
However, this time, Team Liquid completely outmatched Cloud9. Before Doublelift arrived on the team, Cloud9 and Team Liquid went head-to-head but now, Cloud9 hasn’t stood a chance at making sure that they can take on the team lane to lane.
In every single lane, Team Liquid had the better mechanics, better game-knowledge, and better pressure. These three things have combined to make Team Liquid a team that completely destroyed Cloud9’s roster.
Despite talking about Impact beforehand, when it came to the lane, Impact completely destroyed Licorice. Licorice tried his best to counter-pick Impact, picking a Gangplank in game one to counter Impact’s Sion.
However, Sion completely took over the lane. While Impact garnered one kill and eight assists, Licorice only acquired one kill and two assists, a huge difference between the former and latter. In game one, Licorice tried to mix things up by bringing Ornn to the table, another natural counter to Sion.
Yet again, Impact’s Sion garnered three kills and thirteen assists while Licorice acquired zero kills, five deaths, and six assists. In the final game, Licorice brought out his signature Cho’gath pick to try to take down Impact but Impact out-performed Licorice for the third time.
The entire series, there was no competition between Impact and Licorice. It was an entirely one-sided fight with Impact calling the shots the entire time, thus leading to what made Impact such a big threat in the final stages of the game.
In the 2015 Season, Xmithie proved to be a vital pick for Counter-Logic Gaming as he had the experience and game knowledge needed to make sure that his team could snowball and take the lead without much opposition from the opposing side.
He made sure to do this through extensive counter-jungling and invades that would pressure his opponents to make bad decisions if they didn’t have a strong enough mental game and this proved to be vital against Xmithie.
In the first game versus Team Liquid, Cloud9 put in their rookie, Blaber, to try to mix things up since Xmithie has had experience playing versus Svenskeren. However, it didn’t work and Xmithie quickly destroyed the player by utilizing the early-game potential from his Olaf.
In the second game, Cloud9 put in their star jungler, Svenskeren, to try to get a shot at coming back into the match but it was to no avail. Despite having Svenskeren secure Lee Sin, an iconic jungler he has used time and time again to win matches, the sturdy consistency that Xmithie put up in game two resulted in Svenskeren putting up one of the weakest performances he has ever seen.
Cloud9 knew that the jungle was a key component to Team Liquid winning anything at all and they tried to punish Xmithie with what they thought would be a strong playstyle but Xmithie proved to be too good of a player and in the end, outplayed both their star jungler and their rookie to assert his spot as one of the best junglers in North American history.
This is a matchup that rarely ever disappoints and in this year’s final match, it certainly didn’t. However, it was Jensen that played more passive than before and it cost the game for Cloud9. He didn’t pull out a signature Ekko pick or a strong burst mage such as Syndra who he’s mastered.
Instead, he went for a Malzahar that power-farmed from the backline while looking to take down Doublelift in team fights. Meanwhile, not only did Pobelter exert more pressure on the map, he exerted more pressure on the mid lane as a whole, ganking and fighting whenever necessary while Jensen was barely catching up to any of the action.
Pobelter out-performed Jensen this time by being more active around the map and maybe if Jensen had played the exact same playstyle, things would’ve gone differently. But the past is in the past and nothing can be changed now. One thing is for certain, though. If Jensen had been more active, the final could’ve easily gone towards Cloud9.
Doublelift’s playstyle in this year’s finals was one that we haven’t seen before. He wasn’t going for the solo-kills and he definitely wasn’t making any early-game roams but he still managed to get ahead and because this year’s bot lane face off was a starting contest. But Cloud9 blinked first.
Both AD Carries had little to no kills throughout the first fifteen minutes but Doublelift’s consistent CS and poking left no breathing space for Cloud9’s Sneaky, especially when it came to the mid game where team fights were more evident.
Furthermore, the synergy behind Doublelift and Olleh was very apparent. They weren’t moving as two units. They were moving as one while Cloud9’s Sneaky and Zeyzal struggled to synergize at times throughout the match.
Don’t get me wrong. Zeyzal has been a very prominent figure inside the Cloud9 roster and has been making plays left and right but this year, it seemed like he was out of it for the NA LCS finals. He wasn’t going for the plays he usually wanted to go for and sometimes, he was too late when it came to follow Sneaky’s actions.
When a support and AD Carry can’t synergize as well as they’re supposed to, then things can definitely go off course and it did for Sneaky and Zeyzal. At his best, Sneaky can take Doublelift down one-on-one but he didn’t have the resources or potential to do so this year and it might’ve been one of the biggest reasons as to why they were cost the game.
The 2018 World Championship is approaching and this is when the real betting starts to flow through the community. This is when the best of the best from every region come together to play the best League of Legends that they can possibly play.
This is whenever the betting community is in full swing and this is the perfect time to make sure that you can profit off of the right teams. That being said, is Team Liquid a team that can be a potential betting prospect?
They completely sweeped Cloud9 off their feet and faced little to no opposition from other teams that they faced. In the playoffs, they lost only one game throughout the series and during the Regular Season, they placed first.
It’s also worth noting that they have possibly the most stacked roster in the Western world of League of Legends to this date with all five of their players having attended the World Championships once in their career.
They definitely have the experience factor but they have also been showing phenomenal performances left and right and this could be extremely beneficial when it comes to performing well at the World Championship.
It seems as if, every year, the North American teams flop at the World Championship but Team Liquid hasn’t shown anything that would hinder a strong performance. They did well at the Mid-Season Invitational and they didn’t slip up during the NA LCS. If this is the performance they show during the World Championship, then it could very well be North America’s year.
This year’s final was one that was full of excitement and highlights to be remembered for the coming years. However, one thing that surprised everyone was how quickly Team Liquid took down Cloud9. Everyone was expecting a five-setter but Team Liquid finished business without any problem.
The reason behind this is that they outmatched and outplayed Cloud9 on virtually every level possible. Cloud9 wasn’t able to keep up the pace that they were exerting and this has given hope to North American fans that Team Liquid could be a strong performer for the 2018 World Championship.
Could this be North America’s year? That’s the question everyone is asking. Team Liquid could be the one to help them secure a trophy and if you need to look for proof, just look back at their past performances. It says more than enough.
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