A Guide to the LCS Season

With Team Liquid and C9 and Clutch Gaming off to worlds, let’s see who they have left behind.

Optic: As I predicted, the success the Green Wall had at the summer was partially thanks to an easy early schedule and that you would fall off later in the split. Oh, you finally made the playoffs! It took you only a year and a half to do so. What do you want a dang metal? You have to beat CLG to make it to the gauntlet, yeah that ain’t happening. If it weren’t for a lackluster spring, you could have competed in the gauntlet. By the way this your franchise slot is getting bought by Immortals. Have a nice day!

100T: I admit, the turnaround your organization made in the middle of the summer was impressive. But the damage has already been done. The ineptitude at the start of the summer was too much to hurdle over to make a playoff push. They also tripped over all the alarms in the spring split causing this heist to fizzle out and. The thieves were apprehended by the watchers of the Green Wall and were sentenced to an offseasons worth of jail time. Fortunately, there’s a lot to be optimistic about, Ryu looks like he’s here to stay and if you can keep your roster fairly in one piece. And with PapaSmithy’s guidance, I see a future playoff contender next spring.

Echo Fox: https://media3.giphy.com/media/9zA9uLCuGqScM/giphy.gif

That building is the Echo Fox organization collapsing and a summary of their season. The less said about it the better. Shareholders, Raizada in particular, capitalized on Twin Galaxie’s collapse to drain Echo Fox of resources and screwed over Rick Fox at every corner possible like the loan sharks they are. While I won’t go in-depth about this and while there are 2 stories to every argument, Echo Fox didn’t deserve this. The internal strife within the organization hung over the team’s head like a storm cloud and they hopelessly spun the tires to a 4-14 record. With the organization fully liquidizing, the players will have a future uncertain of whether they can even get a job.

Golden Guardians: Like Boxer’s legs, Froggen’s productivity was siphoned to the last drop by the Guardians until the mid laner could carry no more. All of that hard work only to be sent to the slaughterhouse. What a shame. This squad was very inconsistent as one week they would wipe the floor with C9 and another week go 0-2 against mid-tier competition. You guys never really settled on a Bot lane despite having a nice run with Huhi. It would also help if you made the playoffs in either split and instead you have another offseason of what-ifs.

Flyquest: In order to understand Flyquest’s collapse we need to time travel back to the end of Spring; You finished 4th in the playoffs and looked to improve in the Summer. Instead, they pulled off a disappearing act that is only rivaled by turnstile offensive lines, I’m looking at you Erik Flowers. Obviously they had no momentum to work with going into the gauntlet. Santorin looked like he was alternating between being a ward-bot like he was on TSM and a carry when he was in Europe. Pobelter reverted to his overextending ways constantly getting caught out in key situations. Conglaturation Flyquest your team wasted V1per’s debut year, though I would call him a successful project as he showed he could be more than a 1 trick.

CLG: (RIP my prediction) Let me get this straight; after a mediocre spring you have a surge in the summer, beat down your nemesis (TSM) to the ground and made the playoffs for the first time since 2017. All of that only to play second fiddle to Cloud 9. You barely got 3rd place in a reverse sweep and had to reveal some strategies you otherwise wouldn’t reveal. The Clutch hype train was just too powerful and you rolled over and died. Game 4 was the cherry on top as you had the world in the palms of your hands. Only to throw it away looking for kills when a game 5 was all but in the bag. Just wow. I would give that a 15 on the Cleveland scale. That’s more heartbreaking than Jensen not pressing R. Have a nice day.

TSM: We’ve been through this story before. You guys look super scary in the spring and then flounder aimlessly in the summer. You are gift-wrapped a top spot in the gauntlet and are literally one game away from returning to worlds. Only to get reverse swept and miss Worlds for the second time in a row. I have several questions. Why did you keep on chucking Spica into the fire? He didn’t even play a single regular-season game and you have Grig and Akaadian; 2 solid junglers who played those regular-season games. Why did you keep letting Vulcan pick Kench? Sure Huni and Cody Sun drew some bans but at least try picking it away from him. It’s like they didn’t learn a thing from their previous match against them. By God you guys are pathetic.

Did that hurt it should. Your teams failed because you constantly tripped over yourself towards the finish or achieved too little too late. For the teams that are not liquidating. This will be a painful offseason to ponder. Bjergsen, Froggen, and CLG are stuck in League purgatory. Truly a punishment worse than Roman torture.