Welcome to the 2019 Summer Playoffs
This regular season has been a different beast and the summer had its own ups and downs. New teams rose and old contenders fell though one thing hasn’t changed, Liquid is the evil empire and need to be domestically stopped. Disney continues to ruin classic movies with terrible live-action counterparts. Let’s bring out the Gladiators and have them fight to the death.
CLG: Conglaturation your team has finally achieved its potential and your fanbase can finally come out of hiding. You got robbed of a playoff bye thanks to C9, but, your squad is young and hungry with veterans for mentorship and loaded with talent. PowerOFEvil always has an ace up his sleeve and is always a threat to carry games. The key here is that everyone is performing rather than just one guy. However, there is still a sense of volatility within the team, the Optic you beat in Week 9 is not the Optic you will face in the playoffs.
Clutch Gaming: Thanks to your tiebreaker advantage you were able to sneak into the playoffs with a win over the Guardians. This team is the epitome of boom or bust. Either they get an early lead that they also either throw or closeout brutally with; or get choked out and suffocated. Teams like that are dangerous to handle in the playoffs as you never know what you’re going to get.
TSM: From 2-0 in the finals and looking like the scariest team in the League to floundering around at 4th place this split. I can easily see this team checking out of the playoffs early if they’re not careful with CG. One of their biggest problems this split was to find an identity. It’s several choices like whether to commit giving resources to BrokenBlade and always tossing up to extend their lead with more kills or methodical macro. This has resulted in occasional indecisiveness in crucial moments or closing games. The squad is still talented and if they can settle into a reliable style they could go the distance.
Optic: The Green Wall has stood strong from the mid split slump and you survived tie breakers. Your reward, facing a white-hot CLG team with finals aspirations. If they’re going to win, it’s through the draft as Optic has been as creative with their picks as the Guardians. The main difference is that they are more practical with their creativity. Once onto the Rift, they need to play around Dhokla as he was a threat that needed to be kept in check even with gold leads of over 5k. Arrow is looking to replicate his spring 2017 and has thrived on chaos. They know their limits and rarely overextend.
C9: The Boys in Blue finally enter playoffs as an established favorite aside from Liquid to win. Unlike last year they don’t rely on momentum to win and have a more stable roster more suited at handling adversity. This team almost always wants to strike early to run away with a lead. Unlike CG, they don’t live and die by the early game and have an equally large reputation of clutching out wins from the chum of the waters. They have had a habit of roster swapping and playing down to lesser competition throughout the split. It’s playoffs though so you shouldn’t be experimenting at this point.
Team Liquid: TL being the favorites to win. Wow never saw that coming. After a post-MSI slump, TL got their mojo back to reassert their place as the premier LCS team. They are the evil empire and need to be stopped domestically. Only to put our hopes in them come Worlds. They never buckle under pressure and close games cleaner than any other team in the League. As always, Doublelift is the firepower on the battleship that destroys the opposite craft. Like last split, the supporting cast has also carried its weight and have even carried themselves with Impact being the brick wall he is.
Predictions This playoff is interesting, but, also very top-heavy. Call me boring but I'll take C9 vs TL any day of the week. An upset is happening in the 2nd round, isn't it...
