FlyQuest vs Cloud9 is one of the marquee matchups in professional League of Legends this week. While it doesn’t directly qualify a team to MSI, it does punch their ticket not only to the Esports World Cup but also to the LTA North Split 2 finals. This is a highly anticipated matchup between the two clear-cut best teams in the league.
Starting with Cloud9, they passed the pressure test with flying colors. They trounced long-time rivals Team Liquid, securing themselves a spot in the finals weekend. For FlyQuest, they are looking to replicate what they did to C9 in their last meeting during the regular season, a dominant sweep by the boys in green.
There are the most interesting storylines going into this matchup.
Image Credit: Riot Games
The all-pro votes have always been a divisive topic amongst the North American community. There hasn’t been a single split where the fans have not been complaining about the final results. This time it’s no different with the results of the first-team all pro with Bwipo taking first-team, and Thanatos in the second-team.
Perhaps Bwipo’s performance against Thanatos was enough to sway the votes? We will never know. What we do expect is that these two top laners are going to throw hammer and tongs at one another. In their regular-season best-of-three series, Bwipo completely nullified the Korean star, leaving C9 without one of their star players.
Thanatos returned to form in their next series, dispatching of an NA legend in Impact without really breaking a sweat. It’ll be interesting to see what Thanatos has been cooking up to handle Bwipo. He’s been handling him well all year, but Bwipo’s change in strategy, introducing niche picks like Volibear, completely threw off C9, who were also having an uncharacteristically bad series.
This is an opportunity for Cloud9 to return to the finals for the first time since 2023. Last season, C9 had their record of attending the finals every year broken after failing to qualify for the LCS finals in both the spring and summer split. So a win here would show the tides are starting to slowly turn again in C9’s favor, who have been the top North American team since the turn of the decade.
In the playoffs, C9 has struggled to live up to the expectations set by themselves and the fanbase. And while winning has not always been an option, attending international events is a minimum for the fan base. It’s a lot harder to achieve this year. With First Stand and MSI only having one representative from the LTA North. Therefore, C9 must do what they have not done since spring 2023: win it all.
FlyQuest is considered the favorite for this one, and for good reason. It wasn’t just a bad day at the office for C9 in their last meeting, it was a FlyQuest that came in with a game plan and executed it to perfection. C9 will have needed to cook something up in preparation, or they could find themselves in the lower bracket for championship weekend.
I think these two teams will meet again in the finals, it’s just a case of who gets there first. FlyQuest did look rocky against Shopify, and while they did 3-0 them, it wasn’t smooth sailing. I genuinely believe that C9 had a very bad day at the office and will come into this one more prepared than they were before.
It was cited that there was perhaps some overconfidence in the C9 camp, which is why they looked far more locked in and focused for the Team Liquid match. And while FLY could just have easily 3-0’d TL, I think C9 can definitely prove why they have been beating FlyQuest all year. But it’s going to be close, these two teams are poised for another best-of-five for the championship, which is why in their first bout, I am going to go with a Cloud9 3-1 victory.
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