Photo Credit: Rift Herald
The conclusion of the Labor Day weekend also decided the last two attendees to the League of Legends 2016 World Championships. From the North American LCS, Cloud9 emerged victorious, and across the Atlantic, Splyce were the final European LCS representatives.
Cloud9 Repeats Last Year
Last year, Cloud9 made a miracle run from the bottom of the gauntlet to qualify for Worlds. This year, their prospects were much better due to their first round bye, but they still had to get through two strong teams to make it to Worlds. Their first opponent was Team Envy and Cloud9 blitzed through them with ease, winning the series 3-0. In particular, Cloud9’s top laner, Impact, and jungler, Meteos, had strong performances in all three of the games.
Immortals were the heavy favorites to win the match against Cloud9 due to their impeccable regular season performances in both the Spring and Summer splits. They have already been denied a first place this season so they were hungry for the remaining Worlds spot. The first two games were a wash for Cloud9 as they had little trouble winning both just over the 30 minute mark. The first game was slightly closer in the beginning of the match, but a few team fights in the favor of Cloud9 quickly ended the game. The second game was Cloud9 holding the advantage throughout. However, Immortals managed to dominate Cloud9 in Game 3 after an early team fight gave Immortals a huge advantage that they never gave up. Cloud9 bounced back strong, almost completely shutting Immortals out of the last game, giving up only a total of 4 kills throughout to qualify for Worlds.
Splyce Squeak Through
Photo Credit: Youtube
In an exciting five game series, Splyce edged out Unicorns of Love to grab the final European LCS spot at Worlds. Splyce started off strong by winning the first game in decisive fashion. UOL quickly answered back in one of the lowest kill games of the gauntlet, winning 7-1 in kills. Game 3 was the major deciding game. By 30 minutes, UOL held well over a 6k gold lead and pushed it to 10k by 47 minutes. However, Splyce won a team fight and grabbed the Elder Dragon and Baron to push the game into their favor and eventually win the match. Game 3 ended at just over 1 hr with both teams having 112.3K gold, truly a close match. UOL cleaned up Game 4 relatively easily to take the match into the final, decider game. Splyce were ahead slightly in the early part of Game 5 and blew open their lead to 10k by 30 minutes. However several misjudged team fights allowed UOL to close the gold gap and even grab a Baron to begin the counter-push. At the end, Splyce finished off the Unicorns with an ace to win the match and qualify for Worlds.