LCS Playoffs: TSM Reverse Sweep C9 to Advance to LCS Finals

It’s a rivalry that has spanned over five years. Ever since Cloud9 entered into the LCS back in 2013, the team has gone on to face TSM in almost every single stage and season finals. 

Other than their first year in the LCS, Cloud9 has submitted to TSM in most of those head-to-head matchups. The powers shifted last year, however, with Cloud9 earning a trip to Worlds, and achieving North America’s highest finish at the biggest League of Legends event. 

This is simply one of the greatest rivalries in Esports history.

Sneaky Cheese

Plenty of League of Legends analysts and fans foresaw a tight series. Would we see the hyper-confident Cloud9 take the mainstage? Would TSM maintain their current trajectory of momentum? If the picks and bans from Game 1 didn’t clue you in, we don’t know what would.

The Taric and Sona cheesy duo-queue bottom lane came out swinging for Sneaky and Zeyzal in the first game of this intensely historied head-to-head. The meme team tossed a large wrench in the gears of the scary-looking TSM. 

In one of their shortest games of the year, Cloud9 would snowball on the off-meta composition to punish TSM for their consistency. 

Late to the Party

TSM just didn’t look like they were playing their normal style of League. With a more normalized draft and composition, this could eventually spell disaster for the historied franchise, who came into today with a whole ton of confidence and momentum. 

An early-game attempt on an important laning-heavy Drake was stolen away from TSM, all due to a simple pool from Morgana. This miscommunication and poor execution is a prime example of how things were going for Team Solomid on Saturday early on. 

The failed Svenskeren TSM experiment pays off for Cloud9 in the end, as the pick-up of the epic jungler turned things around in this series specifically. Leading the charge in Game 2, now clad in the blue cloud logo, Svenskeren dominated on the rift with Rek’Sai.

Walk The Plank

Now at match-point, the boys from Cloud9 didn’t stray too far away from their normal team composition, looking to close out the best-of-five series against TSM in blazing fast fashion. 

Picking the Gangplank in the top-lane again, Licorice continues to show exactly why he was chosen by the LCS constituents as the league’s best for his particular role. The GP picks always bring a groan and a scoff from the broadcasters, due to a weak laning phase. However, Licorice has proven to be one of the most aggressive GP players and shows off the heavy carry capacity of this champion. 

With the help of Bjergsen on the ever-scary Akali, and Zven’s Ezreal, TSM finally started punishing C9’s Sneaky for his aggression and won some team fights in the mid-game portion of Game 3. One full wipe, in particular, lifted TSM over C9 as they were able to use long death timers to climb into the C9 base and completely destroy it. 

Zed's Dead, Man

Hoping to push the series into Silver Scrapes, TSM entered the Game 4 draft with the desire to lock-in things like the Rek’Sai for Akaadian in the jungle, and Zoe for Bjerg in the mid-lane. Surprisingly, Cloud9 had a pretty quick answer for Zoe, picking Zed for Nisqy in mid. Zed, an old standard champion in professional League of Legends, hadn’t been seen in the LCS since Week 9 of the 2017 Spring Split. That’s two years sans shinobi. As a viable counter, however, it turned out to be a good pick for C9. 

At the 20-minute mark, Game 4 was almost all TSM in the kill feed. After a brief pause caused by a team communication equipment troubles, TSM would steal a Baron and a third Drake from Cloud9, turning the key in the ignition of their steamroller. 

Blare That Silver Scrapes

Game 5, the deciding trip to the rift, began with an interesting draft. On the side of TSM, hard-carries Vlad and Kindred were taken. While, on the Cloud9 side, Zoe in the mid, and Sivir for Sneaky were picked. With no clear strategy winners there, both teams headed into the game with their eyes set on St. Louis. The losers would go home, and the winner would play for the crown. 

The whole way through the first 30-minutes of Game 5 saw the slow burn of a chip battle that would ultimately swing in TSM’s favor with a couple of poor engage’s by C9’s Zayzel. Then, a proud defensive stance by Sneaky and Co would pull things back closer to even. In the end, the TSM composition with life-steal and death prevention would be too much for Cloud9 to pick apart, and they would lose out after going to Silver Scrapes. 

See You in St. Louis

With the hard-earned victory, TSM earned their right to play for the LCS 2019 Spring Split Championship next weekend live in St. Louis. 

After dropping the first two games, and completing a very solid reverse sweep, TSM continues to build their momentum through the playoffs. Coming into this series, the current TSM line-up looked unstoppable in the last few weeks of the split and the first round of the postseason. 

Cloud9 should leave the LCS Arena with their head held high today. The epically talented line-up will be back, and just as strong in the Summer Split. Only minor mistakes cost them some games in this series and there are a lot of plays to be proud of. The matchup was just too close to call, almost the whole way through, which means the loser should not feel too down.

Tomorrow, the head-to-head between Team Liquid and their chosen opponents in FlyQuest will duke it out on the rift in order to see who will be playing TSM in the Grand Finals next week. 

The finals between TSM and either Team Liquid or FlyQuest will be live from St. Louis next Saturday, April 13th, at approximately 1:00 PM Pacific Time.