On Saturday, June 1, the League Championship Series begins again with the start of its Summer Split. After a surprising early exit from last splits playoffs in the semis, Cloud9 are definitely looking to rebound from that grave mistake into a much more motivated Summer Split to go to Worlds. Here’s an in-depth look at the first two opponents for Cloud9 at the start of Summer Split.
June 1st: Cloud9 vs flyquest
The first opponent for Cloud9 in none other than FlyQuest. FlyQuest finished last split with a 10-9 record before heading into playoffs, but unfortunately lost a close series against the Golden Guardians in a five game series. FlyQuest were pegged to finish around the middle of the pack before last split, citing the talent of the roster. They have good players, but the question was whether or not they could mesh well and be consistent when taking command of the game. Some games last split displayed the importance of being able to hold a lead against teams surging against them.
FlyQuest did make a change to the Support role during the offseason, bringing in Kim “WADID” Bae-in from Rogue Warriors. Wadid is coming off a win-less split with Rogue (to be fair, anyone else would’ve been in the same position) and is looking to rebound tremendously on FlyQuest. FlyQuest’s environment and morale as a team is a perfect fit for Wadid and a good place to start that rebound, he will also (presumably unless announced otherwise) split time with JayJ.
Match-Up To Watch: Bot Lanes
The match-up to be looking at here (especially with the new Pro View) in this game are the two Bot Lanes of Cloud9 and FlyQuest. Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam are looking to have better synergy as a duo and maintain the control they have had against opposing bot duos. They are either going to face a Jason “WildTurtle” Tran/Wadid bot-lane that hasn’t had much time together and little to no synergy, or a WildTurtle/Juan “JayJ” Guibert bot-lane that is around the middle of the pack but also inconsistent.
The goal for the Cloud9 bot-lane is to establish a lead early on and keep an eye on potential WildTurtle engages that could be either a good thing for FlyQuest or a costly mistake that will benefit Cloud9. It will also be essential to keep up the great vision game that they’ve been doing well on.
June 2nd: Cloud9 vs Clutch Gaming
The next opponent of the Summer Split for Cloud9 is Clutch Gaming. Last split, Clutch Gaming had a decent start but then went down the well and were very mediocre and inconsistent as a squad. They are looking to rebound tremendously from last split to this split and prove to the LCS community that they can be competitive.
The only change made to the main roster was to officially give Cody “Cody Sun” Sun the starting ADC role on the team. It’s a good move from Clutch signalling that they are looking to establish future success, and the way to do it is to give more exposure to young talent. Cody Sun will be looking to make sure the decision was the right one for Clutch to make.
Cloud9 should not take this game lightly and realize that Clutch can put up a good fight, so the style of establishing firm leads and taking necessary objectives before Clutch has a chance to even respond should be the game-plan for the Cloud9 squad.
Match-up to watch: Licorice vs huni
The match-up to be watching in this game is the top-lane match-up of Eric “Licorice” Ritchie and Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon. For Licorice, he had a pretty down split this spring despite a successful 2018, He”ll look to not only reclaim the attention but also step-up his play and show the community that he’s the same Licorice that was so dominant last year.
It is a similar tale for Huni, in the sense of having a decent season but was trending up and down a lot which is a sign of inconsistencies. The success of this team will mostly depend on how Huni performs and if he can keep up the team-oriented style that allows Clutch to take as many advantages as they can. He’s known for being an aggressive Top Laner that is looking to establish control.
The goal for Licorice in this game is to be wise to Huni’s hyper aggressive style and firmly keep him in place, not allowing him to assist his team and make him useless in the grand scheme of things.
Conclusion: cloud9 will 2-0 week 1.
Cloud9 will be looking to start off on the right foot and redeem themselves after last split’s semifinals match. It should be an interesting game between them and FlyQuest, but Cloud9 will take the game around 33 minutes. And it should be relatively easy against Clutch, but they should still come into that game with respect for Clutch as they can just steal this game from Cloud9 as mentioned earlier. As long as the team respects their opponent (not too much) but also do what’s necessary like taking important objectives and establishing firm control, Cloud9 fans should not worry.
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