Cloud9 have completed an upset by defeating Evil Geniuses in the League of Legends Championship Series upper bracket semifinals. After being pushed to Game 5 by Counter Logic Gaming earlier in the playoffs, few counted C9 as the favorites against EG, the reigning LCS champs.
C9 didn’t just beat EG, however —they did so convincingly. Outside of a close Game 4 loss, C9 looked to be consistently one step ahead of EG through the best of five playoff match.
“I would say we kinda stomped them today,” Robert “Blaber” Huang, C9’s jungler, said in an interview. “I felt like we were in control for most of the game.”
C9 beat EG 3-1
Blaber put a lot of emphasis on C9’s drafts. He said that the current LCS meta is about who can draft and execute better on a 5v5 team fight comp. With that in mind, the strategy coming into the final game revolved around one draft adaptation.
“Our plan for Game 4 was pretty simple: ban Seraphine, collect the dub,” Blaber said.
Blaber said that he fully believed C9 were going to win today. He spoke about C9’s elevated performance in high pressure matches. With the exception of their bot laner Kim “Berserker” Min-cheol, C9 boasts a roster full of veterans.
“I think that in these situations, we are a lot better,” Blaber said. “I don’t know if it was because it was a qualification game that we played well or not, but I think we in general play worse in scrims than we do on stage. So it’s a lot harder for teams to judge us.”
All that said, Blaber wasn’t prepared for the series to go so smoothly for them.
“I didn’t expect it to be so easy today,” he said.
C9 qualify for Worlds
Not only are C9 heading to the LCS upper bracket final, they have also qualified for Worlds 2022 in North America.
“It means a lot to us, our organization C9, the fans,” Blaber said. “They want to be able to cheer their favorite team in NA. It’s just really cool in general.”
Even while his eyes are still on the LCS trophy, Blaber said that it’s a load off his mind to have qualified for Worlds.
“I’ve been feeling definitely stressed about this playoffs and stuff like that,” he said. “So I’m really, really happy we were able to qualify for Worlds today. I feel a little bit of relief now that we’ve done it.”
LETS FUCKING GOOO! Cya guys in Chicago and worlds I’m so happy 😭
— C9 Blaber (@blaber) August 28, 2022
To win the LCS trophy, C9 will still have to get past strong teams like 100 Thieves. C9 and 100T will meet at 4 p.m. ET on Sept. 3. The winner will advance directly into the grand final.
“I think it’s gonna be really close between us and [100T] as well,” Blaber said. “Hopefully we don’t get stomped, right? Last time we played [100T], we got stomped in Spring.”
In any case, Blaber is happy with how far his team has come over the course of the Summer split. He said that the team has improved a lot and gotten a “good grasp” on how they want to play.
Said Blaber: “In regular season, we haven’t been playing too good this year, but I’m really happy that we stepped up in these playoffs and helped Berzerker get to his first Worlds as well.”
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