They have been playing like garbage this entire split and Rift Rivals was below mediocre. They have had 0 roster changes l, so what's going on? They split between Impact and Ray more often but that's literally the only change. Can that be affecting their team that much?
I don't think they can comprehend how the mid and late game can be so punishing.
You can see in their interviews, they always seems shocked how the enemy team were able to do X from just one death.
Who knows honestly, Ever since 2014 and the original C9 squad split it seems C9 grabs talent after talent with so much fire power at the helm but still aren't in that S+ tier like TSM has for so many splits(even when TSM are 6th place they still beat C9 in Playoffs and make it to Finals, while C9 has pretty good splits but fail in Finals or gets eliminated in first round to say TSM)
Players having issues plain and simple - Contractz has been falling off for some reason, he had a decent start to the split but hasn't regained his form since. Sneaky isn't a "hyper" carry that some people believe or think he is, so this meta just isn't something that he's strong at and if he's not/ same goes for Smoothie as the support.
Jensen has been good as far as KDA and Kills but who cares when you're losing, Impact/Ray I have no idea who they should start now since both aren't really that good so far this split.
I joked that C9 are becoming LMQ but it seems that I'm right for once.
Honestly, I just think they're slumping, hopfully they can make play-offs and turn this shit around.
Using sickness as a loose point to my claim as that factor affects a team more by how much their opponents allow them, this split feels like a meta in which C9 is struggling to thrive in. Roster changes or not, there do exist some teams that look immaculate in one game style but not in another; MVP in the LCK being a direct (and worse off) counterpart.
Only pulling the games pre RR due to said sickness from the start, yeah C9 has been exposed more being inferior to the competitive meta and what kind of team fight and execution based capabilities are needed. Role for role, minus mid lane, there just exists better team synergy in other teams such as CLG and especially NV as two teams.
Long story short, I just think they lack mechanics towards team fighting this summer, and as such they're kind of running games without an identity.
Their Macro play has fallen apart, I don't necessarily think that they've gotten worse but that other teams have gotten better and they refuse to grow. They just rely to much on bodying people. At their high point they were a scrappy team who won by just murdering other teams with strong pick comps or teamfight comps. They seem to jump from style to style every split and seem baffled that other teams can compete with them who aren't TSM. It's sad to watch because they are all great individual players they just refuse to work on their lategame macro or they make high risk calls because in the past they could just swing around superior mechanics and a gold lead. Ray and Impact have gotten flack for underperforming but i think they're doing amazing things c9 just is giving them the old "Dyrus" treatment where they are hung out to dry on an island. When c9 crushed in playoffs last year it was mainly due to Impact playing like a man possesed and solo-killing people while evading every skill shot when the enemy ganked him, now he and Ray are given a fair amount of respect by the enemy team and you can't really fault them when C9 may go up there after a super leash to nab a FB but it has more to do with that being the path then playing around top. After that they kinda leave them out to dry and focus all their vision around mid. Sneaky is also playing kind of complacently, he takes risks that while typically safe could be punished and this game especially at that level of play is all about risk management/reduction. I think all of the players are great they just need to wake the fuck up and take the game seriously and stop waiting for the win to fall in their lap.
When an entire team is struggling, you look to the person responsible for pulling the team together. And this is the press release we should see immediately after the end of this split:
"Coach Reapered is relieved of his team responsibilities effective immediately and is no longer part of the Cloud 9 organization. We thank him for his service and wish him all the best in his future endeavors."
followed closely by:
"Impact is relieved of his team responsibilities effective immediately and is no longer part of the Cloud 9 organization. We thank him for his service and wish him all the best in his future endeavors."
Only then will the hostage situation be over. Only then will the cloud hanging over Cloud 9 be lifted. I love this team - I despise this coaching mess.
C9 is one of those teams that just always seems to have like one or two players underperforming. They seem to take turns. Sneaky looked bad in game two getting caught multiple times. Conrtactz didn't look great in that series either. When they are firing on all cylinders they are a strong team like when they took down TSM but it seems like those games are far and few and often times they seem to have a couple of people not playing well.
If they could find some consistency they'd be a great team they just can't seem to find that across their roster.
