In the 2018 World Championship Quarter-finals, NA LCS representatives Cloud 9 made history by becoming the first American team to get to the Semi-final stage of the tournament. They defeated the LCK’s Afreeca Freecs 3-0 and in doing so, knocked the last Korean team from Worlds. This will be the first World Championship ever that does not have a Korean team in the Semi-finals (excluding season one as it wasn’t really a “World” championship).
The match itself was a victory in both strategy and execution. Afreeca consistently picked scaling comps, wheras C9 gave themselves an earlier power spike focusing on Lucian in the bot lane and giving Jensen assassin type mages. This strategy gave C9 a time limit, they needed to win advantages early on in order to stop Afreeca from scaling to a point of victory. C9 executed this strategy to perfection to beat Afreeca in 28, 30 and 36 minutes. While Jensen and Sneaky were the primary carries in the game, emergent star Liquorice somehow managed to steal the Baron buff by wandering into the pit and punching it to death.
Even if Cloud9 go no further in the tournament, they have had a truly meteoric year. Mere months ago they were sat in 10th place in the North American LCS. They had signed rookies and rejects from around the scene and kept chopping and changing their roster, even removing Sneaky and Jensen from the starting line-up.
It was criticised at the time but shows a great maturity in the coaching setup. By trying new things and giving new players with different play-styles time on stage, C9 developed strength in depth. In the NA LCS Summer Split final versus TSM, C9 swapped out Jensen and Blaber for Goldenglue and Svenskeren for games four and five of the series. Svenskeren knew that TSM were doing nothing early. They were making no proactive plays. He knew that he could pick a scaling, farming Jungler (Graves) safe in the knowledge he wouldn’t be punished and then dish out the damage in the team fights. Which he did. It is far easier to notice these things watching the game rather than playing, and be subbed in and then act on that knowledge.
Sports across the globe understand the value of substitutions. In training, it serves as excellent motivation for the starters to know that if they don’t perform there is a replacement waiting in the wings. In rugby for example, a coach may pick a Fly-Half who is creative and able to put runners into gaps with aggressive running and excellent passing skills. If it begins to rain however, and conditions get bad, a coach may swap him for a Fly-Half who is better at kicking, to play in the right areas of the field and build pressure.
Versus TSM, the ability to send in a different player with no tilt and no baggage from previous games, with messages from the coaches and their own observations, gave C9 more options. They couldn’t have gotten that without taking the time to give these new players experience, even if that means losing. Which it did. Lots.
It will be great to see Cloud9 in the semi-finals of Worlds 2018 and also excellent for global League of Legends to be guaranteed a non-Korean World Champion.
CodexCaster's Contribution 