Cloud9 currently has the sole possession of first place in the LCS after 2 weeks. There’s been a lot of hype around this team; good and bad. Many lurkers are trying to discredit them for their accomplishments thus far. But let’s start from the beginning of the season: Who thought that Cloud9 would have started 4 – 0? We can safely say Cloud9 is exceeding everyone’s expectations. Most figured there would be synergy issues with the new bot lane and jungler. Instead of trying to disprove Cloud9’s accomplishments, like ghosts aren’t real (they are), we should look ahead and see who their biggest threat is currently.

We first need to address the elephant in the room and acknowledge that it is a big feat to beat Team Liquid regardless of circumstances. This is the main reason to discredit but if you’re going to hold Team Liquid to a high standard you can’t just trash them when they have a backup jungler. If we are truly talking about backup junglers then you better include Blaber in the mix since Svenskeren was main jungler last season while Blaber was on Academy. (It’s still comparable!) Team Liquid played their best and their jungler wasn’t the issue. The main issue, as anyone could see, was the draft completely favored Cloud9. Team Liquid couldn’t get past the Veigar’s cage to do anything. Veigar alone prevented anything Team Liquid from doing anything except die.

The rest of the games were respectable besides the Immortals game since Immortals pulled their 2 wins out of their ass. If someone is winning ugly, Immortals in your guy. That playstyle isn’t sustainable. As for the rest of the games they speak for themselves. Some early game issues followed up with very strong mid/late game play. The early game is where teams can beat Cloud9.

There have been plenty mistakes in the early game where teams could really capitalize on them. Noticeable mistakes include Licorice extending too far and getting caught out and Blaber being too aggressive. Neither of the issues are exactly game breaking but early mistakes can lead to snowballs for teams if played right. The Licorice issue extends throughout the game as he is splitpushing most of the time. The Blaber issue is minimal as he has been making the correct plays most of the time but his aggressiveness can be exploited.

One thing teams need to respect is the roaming and rotations around objectives. Cloud9 has really improved on this aspect of the game. A prime example of this is against 100 Thieves at around the 31 minute mark as Licorice gets caught out (like I said earlier) but lived long enough for the rest of the team to come and collapse. It was a futile play for 100 Thieves as Licorice had Guardian Angel. Licorice ended up surviving long enough before GA popped wh the team arrived. These rotations are a huge aspect to Cloud9’s game this season thus far. Can any team beat them?

Zven was told he wasn’t perfect on TSM but Cloud9 told him he’s perfect in his own way.

The answer is yes. Cloud9 is good but they aren’t perfect by any means (except for Zven). The best team to have a chance a beating Cloud9 first this year is FlyQuest. They did beat DIG but it’s not the reason why. Santorin will be the gamechanger whether FlyQuest beats Cloud9 or not. We’ve yet to see a jungler be able to punish Blaber which is a huge gamechanger in this meta. Not only that, we’ve seen Licorice have issues getting camped during the laning phase a struggle a bit. Licorice has handled it pretty well considering the circumstances of being camped but the early game is where teams can make a run against Cloud9. FlyQuest also have a more than competent midlaner that can also give Nisqy a run for his money. PowerOfEvil is right up there with Nisqy playing well this year.