What are your thoughts?
I feel a little of both. Impact stepped up in a big way the last few weeks and overall I believe C9 has gotten slightly better, but I also think IMT choked under pressure.
The fact C9 got crushed by TSM makes me believe they have only increased in skill slightly and it's mostly because IMT choked under pressure.
I don't know about you but watching one of the big team fights, both teams played incredibly well.
100% opinion. I think looking at C9 and IMT as a whole is the answer.
Impact stepped up and it only took time for him to mesh with the team as he is a foreign player so it was only time before he became a carry for them and someone to play around. Huni once again showed that without 24/7 camps he will just fall apart and become useless.
Meteos really became a Leader for C9 and most of the kills that the carries got through out the season was because of him. Reignover I don't know what happened to him but he has just looked off for the past few weeks.
Jensen has now became the next STAR for NA. He does die more than most MID players but he dies trying to make plays while for Immortals Pobelter literally does nothing without help he sits mid sometimes roams but it accomplishes nothing most of the time. Pobelter is similar to Froggen but with less "flare" to his name.
Sneaky/Smoothie their not the best lane phase partners and Smoothie has his games where he does nothing in teamfights but it's much better than a support that can't play anything but mage healing champions that hide in the back and heals doesn't make plays nothing like Adrian. You could replace Adrian with some random person off the streets and you wouldn't tell the difference their playstyle. Sneaky also doesn't get caught out like Turtle does each game.
Overall C9 played as a team while for Immortals it was the whole team looking at Reignover for answers 24/7.
Personally, I think the problem with IMT is their coach. How could IMT have such poor drafts against C9. When IMT was winning, no one would question the drafting abilities of the coach but now that this team has choked in 2 playoff splits in a row; one has to start questioning how prepared was this coach against C9. Yes, I agree the players are at fault for not executing on the game plan but if you go into a game with an inferior draft - you have just setup the players for failure.
My 2 cents
I've watched Immortals for a while... and here's my take on Immortals as a team:
Immortals is a strong team by NALCS standards, if we're going to rank NALCS from 1-10 in terms of strength, I'd say Immortals is overall a 7.5. I would say C9 is a 7.5 as well(I'd put TSM as an ~8 or so right now). The reason why this is relevant?
Immortals has a problem. The way they play reminds me a bit of a schoolyard bully. They're a strong team who knows how to abuse weaker teams, but they don't know how to deal with being challenged. So if you match Immortals against almost ANY team weaker than them, even by a little, they'll make that team look like a complete joke most of the time. This makes them look a lot stronger than they actually are, realistically, since you see them absolutely clean the floor with a team, and then you see TSM have a slow, methodical game against that team... and it almost looks like Immortals was better.
But when you put them against a team that is equal to them or better... and they just seem to completely fall apart. They make silly strategic decisions, go aggressive at all the wrong times, and try to overpush advantages when they have them(and sometimes even think they have advantages when they don't). They just seem to play really disrespectfully all the time.
Don't get me wrong, I love watching Immortals because they have such exciting games... but I can't help but feel like they're never going to win the regional championship because they just can't handle being pushed or challenged.
Impact stepped up. No doubt about this. He schooled EVERY top laner, huni, Sepe, and Huantz. Sneaky and Smoothie stayed consistent Jensen fell down a bit outside of his one game vs Bjerg
Did the rest of them teams under perform? Not really. C9 just stepped it up in the pick's and bans.
