Cloud9 finished its rebound from last place to a League of Legends World Championship bert by sweeping Team SoloMid in the final North American League Championship Regional Qualifier on Sunday in Los Angeles.
Both Cloud9 and TSM had a tough time during the Summer Split, though the pair quickly climbed the standings in the second half of the season before falling short in the playoffs. Despite its playoff finals setback, though, Cloud9 played like a renewed team on Sunday against one of the most storied teams in NA LCS history.
Cloud9, which ended TSM's run of seven straight world championship appearances, now has the longest active streak of consecutive world championship appearances with six.
In Game 1, TSM put up a valiant effort as it made all of the early plays to take a lead in gold. TSM stayed proactive in the mid game but struggled to maintain control in the late game. Some risky calls by TSM to turret dive late backfired, and Cloud9's damage dealers stayed safe in the back to pick up kills and swing momentum in their team's favor. After a few more successful skirmishes, Cloud9 had all it needed to knock down the Nexus and take a series lead.
Cloud9's momentum carried over to Game 2 as jungler Robert "Blaber" Huang popped off on Nocturne with an early double kill. As soon as Blaber and mid laner Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen's Galio hit Level 6, anyone who overextended was deleted by the Paranoia and Hero's Entrance combo.
While Cloud9's first Baron power play of Game 2 wasn't very productive, its second exposed two inhibitors and knocked down one. TSM's defense managed to put a stop to Cloud9's push around the 38-minute mark, but that didn't buy nearly enough time for the team recover. Cloud9 still had plenty of map pressure with two lanes of super minions marching into TSM's base, which gave Cloud9 priority over Elder Dragon. C9 grabbed the buff and scored an ace before knocking down its second Nexus.
With a trip to Worlds on the line, Cloud9 played at a slow and steady pace, methodically rotating around the map knocking down turrets and building its gold lead. While TSM managed to win a few skirmishes scattered throughout the contest, it was all Cloud9 when it came to map pressure and objective control late. After securing its second Baron of Game 3, Cloud9 was able to bulldoze through TSM and its Nexus to secure the series sweep.
Cloud9 showed that it was an extremely flexible pick throughout its late Summer Split run. The team switched up its playstyles as well as players.Top laner Eric "Licorice" Ritchie exemplified that flexibility throughout this best-of-five series by taking a typical jungle pick, Hecarim, into lane as a counter pick to Aatrox. The picked worked to the tune of a 4/2/12 KDA (kills/deaths/assists) performance in Game 2 and served the same purpose in Game 3.
For the first time in franchise history, Team SoloMid will miss a world championship. Cloud9, meanwhile, is off to South Korea for the play-in stage, which begins Oct. 1.