Do you guys think so too? I really think C9 has gotten more popular because 2015-2016 they did amazing reverse wins. Then they outperformed every NA team in worlds nearly every year. Now they are also outperforming every team in NA
First game of LCS this split had C9 over TSM in votes.
The only ones that stepped up at worlds were the Koreans. It was their show. You were either a Korean team. Or you were Korean team bait.
C9 has been more consistent and just a smarter organization if we're looking across their overall "investments". Not only have they been able to bring in better talent (barring bjerg/bio, is there really any TSM-only player you could consider "elite" ), but they've made the areas in which they acquired the talent better. Teams like Echo Fox, misfits (at least for spring, with EU banning sister teams entirely in summer), and CLG (who despite not making challenger still have a gaming house for their all-rookie team CLG-black) are looking at what C9 did with Contractz and are using it as a way to potentially bring talent onto their main rosters, while also raising the talent level of challenger itself.
TSM is, ugh. Looking at LoL exclusively (none of the cs:go stuff, even though I could go on a giant rant about the whole sean gares situation), they seem to be reliant on other peoples' talent more than anything. Hauntzer/Sven were looked at as good but not great players prior to joining them, their ADC's (first turtle, then dl, now back to turtle) were considered above-average quality but with somewhat nasty downsides (turtle seemingly peaking in 2015, and DL known for having forgiven-like attitude problems), even their new support was considered a bottom-tier talent before joining them (many people likened him to a "lesser man's Stunt while he was in challenger). Bjerg has essentially become their entire franchise, the LoL equivalent of Tom Brady. The fact they haven't been able to develop any quality talent is eventually going to bite them in the ass, as Bjerg can't play LoL forever and without him they'd sorta be a glorified challenger team.
TSM or C9?
The thing about TSM when they get on the international stage is they play too passive and reactionary and they also seem to just copy paste what Korea does which is never a good sign as all it does is gives Korea a way to counter it as they already "wrote the book" on the meta so of course they know how to counter it.
Look at CLG at MSI and Worlds this past year what was their phrase " Respect all - Fear none" TSM on the other hand respects their opponents too much to the point where they act scared.
2014 Worlds vs Royal the first game TSM didn't do anything against them and just lost the game easily. The second game they actually beat Royal by not being reactionary but engaging and being aggressive.
Same thing vs SSW that same Worlds games 1 and 2 TSM played too scared got triple buffed and just lost but once they had nothing to lose in game 3 they invaded and got a double kill and eventually the win.
This past year vs SSG they were the aggressor and won easily but after that game they became too passive and lost most of the games after finishing 3-3 overall.
Cloud 9 The main thing that always separated TSM and C9 is the players on both teams and the way the play together.
C9 Hai would make TP plays or TF Ults to help get his teammates ahead or himself as well as just being a great shotcaller while Bjergsen rarely helps his team.
Look at 2014 Summer/ 2015 Season, he barely helped anyone but himself, he got all the ganks, gold, cs, roams, etc.
Bjergsen would have 350 cs and Dyrus would have 190 and Bjergsen would go clear like 5 waves near the second tower on his side of the map while Amazing/Santorin would be warding on that side, while Dyrus would need to go to the enemy side 2 tower to get 2-3 cs, dies but no objectives would be up so the calls were either lazy, dumb or selfish.
Turtle or D-Lift ?
I like both players but both are different.
D-Lift will have free kills right in front of him but he focuses on CS instead too much. Cs> 2 kills D-Lift strategy.
He also needs so much gold but his production just wasn't that great compared to other ADC's across the world. Like he would get 30-40% of the teams gold CLG/TSM overall but his DMG would be much lower and his DMG per min as well.
His positioning is actually worse than Turtle's in teamfights at least Turtle gets caught out most of the time in dark areas but he actually positions himself in teamfights much better in my opinion than D-Lift.
The only time I saw D-Lift position himself in big games was against C9 in the Finals with the Lucain other than that he would be too aggressive trying to hard carry at times that wouldn't need him to do so but he would get swatted and get blown up.
Turtle actually carried TSM in the Playoffs back in 2014 Summer/ Worlds.
Turtle was against Uzi and Imp/Mata and would actually have CS leads on both and didn't die randomly in lane against them at Worlds.
Turtle knows whats going on and can hear the chat in the grapevine, he knows fans aren't happy with him so why would perform well when he doesn't get any support from "fans". It was all Turtle's fault back in 2015, was it - NO! but he got roasted, blamed, benched and eventually got kicked off the team like garbage.
So it's in the back of his mind " If I don't perform I will get the 2015 treatment again". Also look at some of the Hauntzer kills this split, he would flash at points that wasn't needed to pick up a kill with Turtle being right there. So overall it's not Turtle's fault and never was just HIS fault.
Overall if a player needs to step up on TSM it would be Bjergsen. Way back in 2013 when he was on NIP he would get all the gold and still didn't win too many games, he would get to playoffs and be given the NFL Bengals treatment of being eliminated in the first round each year. Now on TSM he still gets most of the gold/cs/ganks etc but they keep the same style at all international stages where it's predictable and achieves nothing.
I highly doubt that. Even when C9 was completely dominating NA and had something like a 12-0 head to head record against TSM they still weren't nearly as popular.
How do they outperform 2015-2016 when they did not win a single split (2015-2016)was cloud 10-0 at worlds 2015 ( so did not outperform). honestly looked bad in worlds 2016, but group B was an easy group (excluding the fact that SKT was for sure the number 1 team in the group) leaving an easy 2nd place and then getting stomped in the quarter finals. I like both teams, but NA sucks and internstionally overall so that cannot be the reason. I mean C9 always beats TSM in their first game of the spring split common mate everyone knows that;).
It's the Tsm bandwagoners and the CLG fans that dont have a rushhour to root for anymore
I mean it always have been TSM and C9 for NA
TSM is only popular for Bjergsen, and then a bit more for DL when he join TSM in 2016
And C9 is popular for everyone of their players especially Sneaky and Hai (When he was still on the Team)
