Team Liquid had everything on the line yesterday—and Cloud9 weren’t holding anything back.
C9 support Vulcan broke down his team’s motives for giving Liquid their best effort in an interview with Korizon’s Ashley Kang earlier today. Despite the match not meaning anything to the 17-1 C9, the League of Legends team put their best foot forward and eliminated Liquid from playoff contention.
“For all the other teams, they look at us and they’re like ‘OK, that’s a free loss,’” Vulcan said. “And if we don’t try hard… vs. TL then I don’t think it’s fair to the other teams. I think that’s questionable integrity, so we decided to give it our all for the fairness of it and also the grudge match.”
The dominant C9 squad debated “playing for fun,” but ultimately decided against it since the game was do-or-die for Liquid. And while their integrity is commendable, C9 also had less altruistic reasons for giving Liquid 100 percent. Liquid defeated C9 in the 2019 LCS Finals—and now C9 got their payback.
The match was certainly well-fought, with the lead jumping back and forth between the two teams. But a high-IQ backdoor by Vulcan and AD carry Zven helped the team win and ruined Liquid’s dream of a playoff berth.
This was a dissatisfying season for the defending LCS champions, who won the last four splits and had built a powerhouse roster in the offseason. But between new jungler Broxah’s visa issues and the benching of star ADC Doublelift, the tumultuous season ultimately ended in disappointing fashion.
While Liquid look to bounce back next split, C9 are looking to win it all. The 2020 LCS Spring Split playoffs begin on Saturday, April 4.
Published: Mar 30, 2020 02:27 pm