LTA North Split 2 Playoffs: Cloud9 vs Team Liquid – Is the Spawn Buff Real?

LoL Esports

May 23, 2025

Jordan Marney

Cloud9 vs Team Liquid is the marquee matchup for the first round of the LTA North Split 2 playoffs. This is a historic matchup between two orgs, both looking to represent the region on home soil at the 2025 Mid-Season Invitational. For Cloud9, this is an opportunity to prove they can go up that extra gear in the playoffs. While for TL, this is an opportunity to go back-to-back for the first time since 2019. On top of that, their head coach, Spawn, is back in the country, so fans will get the chance to see if the Spawn buff is real or not.

Let’s walk through some of the biggest storylines heading into the LTA North Split 2 playoffs matchup between Cloud9 and Team Liquid.

The Spawn Buff

One of the bigger storylines for Team Liquid surrounds their head coach, who decided to coach the squad remotely during the regular season matches, and then will attend for playoffs. During the times that Spawn has been coaching remotely, Team Liquid has looked significantly worse, with both regular seasons for Split 1 and 2 looking shaky on the side of the defending champions.

Image via Riot Games

But with Spawn returning last week, we saw a Team Liquid side trounce Shopify Rebellion to lock in the third seed heading into the playoffs. Granted, in some ways, the series had little to play for, considering FlyQuest or C9 was always going to select Shopify, it was a statement series from TL, and the heads of many have started to turn.

The Spawn buff is what many call it, where Team Liquid underperforms for most of the split without their main coach, and as soon as he arrives, the team has an arrogance about them again and kicks it into high gear. It was definitely evident in Split 1 playoffs, with TL looking shaky all split, even being the only NA team to drop a map to the LTA South, only for Spawn to return and TL would go on to comfortably win the split. We will have to see if the Spawn buff pays out for TL in these playoffs.

Cloud9 Overcoming their Playoff Woes

In recent times, Cloud9 has failed to live up to the heights set by the organization and its fans. C9 has not made it to an international event since 2023, and has not won a championship since the Spring Split of that year. No one has questioned the ability of C9. They are a strong team with good ideas, and are more than capable of beating these top teams.

We have even seen it this split, C9 dispatched of FlyQuest and Team Liquid. However, their final regular season best-of-three against FlyQuest has started to see the doubters creep back in for this Cloud9 vs Team Liquid match. Cloud9 got trounced, there is no nicer word to say it, FlyQuest put down a huge statement that they are the number one team heading into these playoffs, and not them.

It will be interesting to see how Cloud9 can bounce back. Because even though it was one best-of-three, there were signs of what FlyQuest is going to do to them in the playoffs, and also gave other teams, like Team Liquid, for example, a picture-perfect blueprint on how to shut down this C9 team. As pros from both FlyQuest and Team Liquid have alluded to, Cloud9 is a stock-standard team, and if you can shut them out, they have no answer.

It’s now on Cloud9 to find a gear that has not been seen in quite some time. Perhaps it’s unfair to link the previous failures to a new roster, but the opportunities to attend an international event aren’t expanding even with more events, to attend the MSI, they will have to win it all.

Who will start for Team Liquid?

Fans were excited to see the debut of Yuuji, a player who should already be in the LTA, but was not due to factors outside of his control. But now, the NACL jungler has arrived, and he looked very impressive in his debut series against Shopify.

Now the question remains, who will start in the jungle against Cloud9 this weekend? On one hand, Team Liquid did look like a team that has a new lease on life. Whether that was down to Yuuji, or the return of Spawn, or the fact this series had little weight on it, those answers will eventually be revealed.

UmTi has had his struggles this season, but he is a veteran who has been there and done it with Team Liquid when the squad has needed him most. On top of that, Yuuji has played a total of two games in tier one competition, and starting him would see him go up against one of the best junglers the region has had in Blaber.

That is no joke, so it’ll be interesting to see how Team Liquid plays it. Because player development is important, and one great series does not mean Yuuji gets to skip these steps towards being a top player. Another point to make is, if they start UmTi, and it goes wrong, do you really want to put your rookie jungler in a do or die situation. Perhaps because it’s in the upper bracket they may feel inclined to, but a bad performance could knock his confidence.

Conclusion

Despite their problems, Cloud9 should still be the favorite for this series even after their FlyQuest defeat. As a total package, C9 has looked the much better team this split, even defeating TL 2-0 just a couple of weeks ago. I also believe in the Spawn buff, though. I equate what TL has been going through as a substitute teacher moment. This is to put no disrespect towards the assistant coaches, but not having your main disciplinarian in person makes a bigger difference than some would realise.

I think this is going to go the five games, which would be interesting for Cloud9 because they have stuck to what has worked for them this entire split and haven’t branched out too much. That being said, if C9 is to break this playoff duck, it starts with this series. So I am going Cloud9 3-2.