Week 8 of the LCS is almost here, and with it comes the final stretch of the season. Only a few games are left, and most teams are either trying to fight their way into playoffs or solidify their spot in it.
C9 is one of those teams that’s already in the playoff hunt and trying to solidify their position. However, they’ve performed very inconsistently lately with their drafting and the way they play as a team. This week they face FlyQuest and Team Liquid. It’s important for C9 to find success in these matches to end the season around the top of the standings.
saturday: cloud9 vs flyquest
The first opponent for C9 on Saturday is FlyQuest. The last time these two teams met was Day 1 of the split when C9 recorded a decisive victory.
Since then, C9 have gone up and down a bit, but remain around the top of the standings. Meanwhile, FlyQuest had a small resurgence going but have been going downwards lately, and currently sit at 4 -10.
While FlyQuest may not look like a hot team right now, that doesn’t mean they don’t have positives going for them as a team. One of the positives for FlyQuest has been their recent addition to the team: Kim “Wadid” Bae-in.
Wadid has been showcasing his mechanical prowess and aggressive roaming on support champions like Yuumi and Tahm Kench. In terms of personality, he has most definitely uplifted FlyQuest’s environment despite the rocky Summer Split. Wadid will most definitely make his presence felt not only in the team’s environment but also on Summoners Rift.
Omran “V1per” Shoura has been one of the reasons for FlyQuest winning the few games they have. He has been one of the better North American talents and has been consistently a winning piece for the team with his ability to fill whatever role FlyQuest needs.
While FlyQuest doesn’t look so hot as a team, C9 has recently shown questionable team play and drafts that they sometimes can’t pilot correctly. If FlyQuest can come up with a plan that forces C9 onto the same situation they found themselves in against CLG, C9 could struggle against the lower ranked team.
matchup to watch: nisqy vs pobelter
The match-up to focus on for this game is in the Mid Lane with Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer vs Eugene “Pobelter” Park.
Despite the inconsistency theme around the team, Nisqy is still making positive strides as a player for the team. He has the most average kills of any mid with 3.9, top 2 in KDA with 6.2 and top 4 in damage to champions per minute with 491.
For Pobelter, he has been around the middle of the pack. He shares 28.1% of FlyQuest’s damage, top 5 in solo kills with 2 per game and averages 389 damage per minute.
Nisqy has a solid champion pool at his disposal, including champions like Veigar, Irelia and Yasuo. Pobelter usually sticks to the meta champions, but can dip into something more obscure if necessary for the team.
sunday: cloud9 vs team liquid
This is without a doubt one of the toughest games left for the C9 squad. Despite the fact that C9 grabbed the win against them last time, it won’t be as easy this time around. Team Liquid will look to improve from their mistakes from that game and perform much better in this rematch.
The keys for C9 are simple yet effective ways for them to take over this game: Draft a Bot Lane that goes even, get Mid and Top ahead of their opponents and improve the consistency of team-fights and macro that they were once praised for doing so well.
With Eric “Licorice” Ritchie easing his way back into the lineup after being out with a wrist injury, he will look to not only win his match up against Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong but also once again become one of the key pieces of this team.
matchup to watch: sneaky/zeyzal vs doublelift/corejj
With the recent discussion of C9’s bot lane of Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi and Tristan “Zeyzal” Stidam, this is lane is a must-watch on Sunday.
The goal of Sneaky and Zeyzal in this game is to not only improve their performance as a Bot Lane duo but also develop a better consistency and improve the synergy between the two. This game is a tough test for them to show that they can handle the likes of Yiliang “Peter” “Doublelift” Peng and Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in.
conclusion: develop consistency
It’s hard to tell if C9 will end up pulling a 2-0, 1-1 or a 0-2 this week due to the fact that it seems rather difficult to see which C9 team shows up. C9 should follow the plan above about consistency in team fights. Consistency in drafts that are not hard to execute, and consistency in overall macro as a team with important objectives in mind.
It will be interesting to see how this week goes. But C9 will definitely have to shore up on the issues that have been nagging them for this split.
You can like The Game Haus on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles!
For more from Richard make sure to follow him on Twitter!