After today, there’s only three more weeks of play left in the NA LCS for teams to qualify for the playoffs. For the past couple of weeks, Cloud9 have held firmly onto last place with terrible game after terrible game, accompanied by confusing roster changes.
This weekend, though, they went undefeated with two wins and no losses—and since TSM and CLG both went 0-2, C9 are now tied with them for fifth place. Making up a four-game deficit is a huge deal, and for such an abysmal C9 roster, it’s nothing short of a miracle. Still, now that they’re tied for fifth, their chances of making playoffs have grown from slim to a reachable possibility.
In order to make it into the playoffs, though, they might have to kick out CLG or TSM. If any of these three teams don’t end up making it, it’ll be considered a massive upset.
In their final game of the day against Echo Fox and former teammate Andy “Smoothie” Ta, the early game started out just as poorly as most of C9’s games this split. Echo Fox’s bot lane picked up several early-game kills and Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett’s Rengar snowballed into a big lead by the time the mid game rolled around.
After a misstep toward the late game that allowed C9’s mid laner Nicolaj Jensen to land a massive Orianna ultimate on Smoothie and Lawrence “Lost” Hui, C9 picked up a quick Baron and shrunk the gold lead. Eventually, they struck even, bursted down a couple of towers, and Echo Fox’s lead was gone with the wind.
If C9 can continue their miracle run, they’ll have a chance to make playoffs—and, eventually, maybe even Worlds.
