TSM heads to MSI on back of thrilling win over C9

TSM reversed the reverse-sweep attempt from Cloud9 -- with their backs against the walls in the deciding fifth match, TSM found a clean ace to propel themselves to MSI.

The NA LCS Spring Final looked like it would be a convincing stomp for TSM -- the first two games didn’t even total an hour in game length. A 28 minute drubbing was followed by TSM’s fastest win of the split at 22 minutes. Contractz looked like he was having some rookie blues. Jensen was being outclassed by Bjergsen from the mid lane. And Hauntzer asserted himself as the best top laner in North America.

And then C9 woke up for game three. Contractz finally made an early impact on the game -- this allowed C9 to enter the mid and late game for once, which is where they’ve excelled all split. Anyone who has paid close attention this season has seen C9 falter in the early stages of games on numerous occasions. In some ways, it wasn’t entirely shocking that they stumbled out of the gates against a more stage-experienced TSM squad.

The brutality of it was shocking primarily because C9 had dismantled P1 so handily last week. But then Game 3 came, and C9 found their footing. Despite giving up first blood, they managed to not keel over and eventually reverse the tides of the game thanks to aggressive calls. A decisive fight near Baron at the end allowed them to close out the game for their first win of the series.

Sometimes, that’s all it takes to lift the nerves from a team. It’s easy to forget what it takes to win when you’re being bombarded by thousands of cheers and lights. The stadium is a much different atmosphere from the regular season LCS studio, and a win is a good reminder of comfort.

TSM looked visibly shaken after the third match -- almost like a boxer who’d finally eaten a counterpunch after delivering haymakers for the first few rounds. They looked dazed. And so they toppled to another big blow in Game 4 -- C9 returned the favor from the first two games and steamrolled TSM. They camped Bjergsen and killed him six times. He accounted for half of TSM’s deaths.

That is, suffice to say, a very unusual occurrence for the star mid laner. For reference, he only died seven times total in the other four games combined. Bjergsen said it didn’t phase him at all, though. Anyone else may have tilted or folded under pressure, but he said the game went out of his mind as soon as he stepped off the stage.

“I didn’t have any issue resetting [for Game 5],” says Bjergsen. “I died tried to defend the mid turret because we had no pressure anywhere on the map. We just needed to shift up the picks and bans so that I wouldn’t have pressure funneled onto me in mid, and I could get a champion that can make plays.”

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TSM, like their leader, managed to reset. Sometimes, a decider match means both teams play it safe. Sometimes they just sit back and wait for the other team to make a mistake. But that’s not the type of play that wins championships. And both C9 and TSM knew it -- Game 5 featured the kind of punch-for-punch action that fans expected when they saw the card for the Spring Finals.

TSM jungler Svenskeren said, “After Game 4, we talked and decided to not be passive. We didn’t want to sit back and just get shit on again.”

The teams took an eye for an eye for eye throughout the action-packed match. The long hyped matchup between the two Daninsh mid laners -- Jensen and Bjergsen -- ran at full steam as both players showed off their skills. Where Jensen would duck in and out of fights, Bjergsen would sit back and return fire. It was a tense duel between a would-be assassin and a mob-boss of sorts.

That’s not to say nothing was happening anywhere else on the map. Ray and Hauntzer for example constantly found themselves diving deep into enemy lines. Fights would sometimes stretch across half of the map if not more. Not a single player failed to show up for the decisive fifth match.

The game seemed to swing in Cloud9’s favor after they successfully took Baron around the 40 minute mark. TSM responded by posturing around the Elder Dragon and whittled it to half health to force C9 to acknowledge it wasn’t just a bait. It looked dire for TSM -- Elder Dragon is one of the toughest objectives to successfully dance around. Especially considering TSM -- with Camille and Lee at top and jungle -- didn’t have a true tank.

But C9 funneled into a TSM stranglehold, and a chain of crowd control abilities eliminated Jensen and Ray in succession before they had the opportunity to do anything. From there, TSM barreled down an already pushing bot lane to end the game. It was only moments before that C9 looked like they would complete the reverse sweep -- something their fans have grown a little accustomed to.

As it became clear TSM would end the game off the single fight, the Vancouver crowd crescendoed into a booming roaring. The TSM horde crawled out of their despair and turned the Pacific Coliseum into a thunderous dome of cheers.

It was a fitting conclusion to another dominant season for TSM. Now they head to Brazil for the Mid-Season Invitational, where they’ll once again represent North America. It’s another shot at redemption for TSM. But for tonight, at least, they’ll celebrate their organization’s 5th NA LCS Championship.