This year’s edition of the League of Legends World Championship will have a very notable absence after Cloud9’s gleaming attendance record at the big show was shattered by 100 Thieves in one of the biggest LCS upsets of the 2024 calendar year.
For over 10 years, C9 has flown NA’s flag at the pinnacle League event, but despite a near-perfect Summer Split, there’ll be no C9 redemption arc in Europe this year. Instead, it’ll be 100 Thieves who represent the LCS after a 3-1 victory on Sept. 1 that featured standout performances from Lim “Quid” Hyeon-seung and Frank “Tomo” Lam.
The two teams split the opening matches of the series but 100T never looked back after dropping game two, finishing C9 off in under an hour to secure the organization’s first Worlds appearance since 2022. “I feel like we out-macro’d them in every game, even the loss,” Quid said following 100T’s victory, while Sniper said he couldn’t wait to take on T1’s Zeus on the big stage. “Hey, I mean Zeus bro, T1 Zeus? You’re on my watch!”
100T found themselves at death’s door midway through the summer split after four straight series losses, but the squad closed out the regular split with wins over Shopify and Immortals—both of which failed to qualify for the playoffs. As such, many wrote off 100T before the playoffs even began, and despite sweeping Dignitas in the upper bracket, the team’s heavy loss to Liquid had pundits writing them off for good.
But, after a five-match thriller against Dignitas that came down to a single Baron fight, 100T was back. Support star Eyla mentioned the mid-season work behind the scenes got them into the playoffs, and by employing the same strategies after the Liquid loss, 100T found a way to bounce back. “We had a very big slump in the middle [but] we worked our asses off, we were trying to figure everything out and I think it came to fruition today,” he said.
As for C9, the heavyweights will be doing some soul-searching this offseason as they put together what went wrong. Coach Mithy and veteran top laner Fudge were farewelled before Summer began after they failed to reach the LCS Spring final and thus, the Mid-Season Invitational. Now, without a shot at Worlds for only the second time in the org’s existence, it’s tough to see this iteration of C9 lasting through to 2025’s reworked LCS format and league structure.
100 Thieves takes on FlyQuest next Saturday, with the winner appearing on Championship Sunday against Liquid in an attempt to spoil their undefeated Summer Split.
Published: Sep 1, 2024 09:09 pm