TSM is your NA LCS 2016 Summer Split champion!

Riot·Aug 29, 2016·2 votes·19,319 views

Hard to believe, but it’s been two years since TSM has hoisted the NA LCS Summer championship trophy.

Today, that dry spell ended, as TSM knocked off Cloud9 in four games, taking the series 3-1. The win caps off a dominant Summer Split, in which they only dropped a single Best of 3 match, and solidifies TSM’s No. 1 seed going into the 2016 World Championship.

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Pre-match buzz suggested C9 may have the edge in this Finals. That chatter seemed to be validated in Game 1, when C9 largely shut down NA Summer Split MVP Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg and road that momentum to an easy 19 kill, 5 death victory. TSM rebounded in a major way in Game 2 and Game 3, though, largely on the back of stand-out performances from Bjergsen and jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen.

Game 4 was easily the most intense of the evening. Though gold remained largely even throughout the game, TSM found its advantage off the back of four dragons, securing Elder Dragon and then baiting Baron to close out the game.

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TSM’s win today has reaching implications into next weekend’s NA Regional Qualifier tournament. For one, it makes C9’s path to Worlds significantly harder, as that squad will now need to win two Best of 5 series, including one against 3rd place winner Immortals.

Ironically, the biggest benefactor of TSM’s victory today is their perennial rival, CLG, who thanks to their NA LCS Spring Split victory is pushed into Worlds through Championship Points. CLG, of course, narrowly lost to Immortals in a tight 3-2 series yesterday.

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The 2016 NA LCS Regional Qualifier tournament begins September 3, and will determine which team will join TSM and CLG as NA’s representatives at the 2016 World Championship. You can watch it right here on Lolesports.com.

55 Comments

NimmerAug 29, 201616 votes

TSM should have lost. Not because they're worse than C9, but because it would allow the real top 3 teams in NA (talent-wise) to go to worlds. So instead of C9, TSM, and IMT at worlds, one of those three is replaced by CLG. Which sucks, because they don't have the individual talent to really make a good showing, and TSM, C9, and IMT all look miles above the rest of the riff-raff. I mean, they all look pretty great and each team could have easily snagged first seed in a prior split. Now we're stuck with Darshit and WhoHe. Yeah, the CLG vs. IMT series was close, but everyone knows IMT doesn't try-hard for third place.

HellsAug 29, 20162 votes

I actually think if CLG hadn't taken that break after MSI, they'd probably be on the same level as C9 and IMT. Who knows, maybe they can put in some work and surprise us at Worlds.

GixiaAug 29, 20167 votes

That excuse simply doesn't fly at this point. The first two, maybe three weeks, sure, fine, that makes sense. But it's been 9 weeks of matches, plus two rounds of playoffs at this point, it's no longer justifiable to pretend that their weak performance this split can be attributed to what was at maximum a 2 week vacation after MSI.

HellsAug 30, 20161 votes

Okay? Wasn't really excusing CLG's break but way to take something casual and make it super critical and intense. Let me explain my opinion: CLG looks way better right now than they were at the beginning of the split. I don't see much difference between them and C9/IMT. They took it to 5 games against IMT and IMT took it to 5 games against C9 so the differences seem minuscule enough that if they had started out just a little better, they might have been in the finals vs. TSM again. I imagine if lolesports lists teams in tiers again, TSM would be in S, and IMT, C9, and CLG would be in A.

El JarvaradoAug 29, 20168 votes

Logged in just to upvote because i completely agree CLG doesn't deserve worlds with there performance this year and C9 and IMT Do FeelsBadMan.

DrumkickerAug 29, 20162 votes

If winning the Spring Split and taking 2nd at MSI doesn't justify a World's spot idk what does. Just because they had a rough Summer Split doesn't mean they aren't top 3 NA. They narrowly lost to IMT for the 3rd place anyways.

XarahnAug 29, 20163 votes

Because the point of Worlds is having the most fierce competition, which CLG cannot provide being 4th in NA when there are only 3 seeds available.

Also they only got 2nd at MSI because they were lucky enough to play Flash Wolves in semis, they would've lost to SKT AND RNG for certain and gotten 3rd. MSI doesn't matter because what's important is how good the team is RIGHT NOW for Worlds.

FocodocoSep 5, 20161 votes

so how do you know clg is worse than cloud 9. also you act like flash wolves is a bad team. you dont know that cloud 9 would have beaten clg. you also dont know if the series actually matter clg may have beaten imt. that series does nothing for clg win or lose does nothing.

FocodocoSep 5, 20161 votes

so this year clg has won a split and had the best showing at an international showing for a na team ever. but thats nothing this year. at msi they looked like the best team na has ever had.

III BAKURYU III Aug 29, 20163 votes

If it wasn't for CLG, NA would not have a 1st seed going into Worlds. Not to mention CLG won the Spring split and with the AurelionSol ban/bug who knows what could have happened.

Look at TSM back in 2015 they won the spring split and went to a international tournament and once they came back during the 2015 summer split they looked horrible.

Cloud 9 yeah sucks that they could be eliminated from Worlds this year but they had not once but two chances to get to NA finals if they could only beat TSM. Up 1-0 back in spring and 1-0 this year.

Immortals same thing it sucks they too can be eliminated but if their constantly losing to their own NA teams opponents I have 0 faith they can do anything at Worlds.

EzikiorageAug 29, 20161 votes

I have 0 faith too. Because faith is the justification of believing into something for no good reason.

III BAKURYU III Aug 29, 20161 votes

Yeah I just don't see IMT doing much (Until I see the groups for WORLDS and if they can make it) due to the fact that everyone thought Huni and Reignover would crush NA and while they have done it in the past in the regular season they can't seem to focus when it counts.

MorrogondorAug 30, 20161 votes

lol AurelionSol excuse, for the best the series only end up1-3, will be banned rest of the series if CLG win the first game.

III BAKURYU III Aug 30, 20161 votes

Not really an excuse it is what it is all I'm saying is the series could have been closer if it wasn't for the sol ban. I still think TSM would have won 3-1 but with harder games is all.

DøubléliftSep 4, 20161 votes

I dont agree at all. The series wasn't going to be close no matter how you look at it. If you want proof that Bjergsen plays Aurelian sol look up his solo queue history, Bjergsen played so many games on that champion. If you still dont believe me, other LCS pros have made the same comment, Dardoch being an example who said that Bjergsen played tons of games on Aurelian Sol on his twitter. Knowing this, it wouldve became problematic for CLG for multiple reasons. -Either CLG has to ban it because knowing Bjergsen, his performance on the champion would be fantastic. -CLG has to first pick aurelian Sol which allows TSM to have other power picks as well -If huhi doesnt get aurelian sol, looking at his performance on other champions hes not going to perform well Going further into it, CLG got out macro'd by TSM. -Darshan was 100 CS bellow Hauntzer -Xmithe had no objective control compared to Svenskeren -CLG got out rotated as a team by TSM So overall, CLG just got outplayed as a team, so aurelian sol wouldnt change that. Even in the game CLG had aurelian sol, TSM still had a gold lead through regular laning phase ( each laner having a CS lead ).

Now as for CLG deserving to go to worlds. Thats also not true. Worlds is a tournament for the best teams in there respected regions. Looking at Cloud 9, depsite getting knocked out in the quarter finals at spring split, they improved. Cloud 9 became so much better as a team to a point where they not only beat immortals but took TSM into a intense series. Now look at CLG. They had 11 weeks, 9 weeks from spring split, and the remainder for playoffs. They never improved. CLG never adapted to the meta nor did they improve in any aspect as a team. They even lost to Apex in the end of summer split which shows that CLG clearly isnt a top 3 team but more so a middle packed team. They dont deserve to represent NA at worlds compared to cloud 9 who improved tremendously.

III BAKURYU III Sep 4, 20161 votes

Solo Q is 100% different than LCS. I didn't say Bjergsen has never played AurelionSol ever I said Bjergsen hasn't played Sol in the LCS.(That I'm aware of)

Start of the Summer split C9 was 6-3 while CLG was 4-5 Cloud 9 even beat CLG in the first half the second half of the split C9 was 6-3 while CLG was also 6-3. CLG would beat C9 in the second half CLOUD 9 stayed the same while CLG Improved

They did adept to the meta and they did improve greatly since the start of the split(summer) they did look god awful at the start but once the split was around the second half they looked like their old self again maybe not as good but close.

CLG did lose to Apex upsets happen just because a Tier A team losses to a 7th placed team doesn't mean that the 7th team is just automatically better or the Tier A team is middle of the pack, this isn't College football.

C9 has improved I would say they have improved more so than CLG and any other team exception TSM should C9 go to WORLDS YES they should. Lets see how much C9 has improved when they face NV and if it's not a 3-0 or 2-0 at the start of the series maybe they didn't improve since the regular season.

DøubléliftSep 5, 20161 votes

I do agree that solo queue is different from LCS, but thats where players practice and learn champions. Bjergsen put a great amount of time into Aurelian Sol, im also sure he played that champion in scrims considering the time and effort he put in Aurelian sol in general. Thats to answer the statement made about the series against CLG being close if aurelian sol is left open because im sure that wouldnt be the case. As for C9 going against CLG during the split. The analyst even said that C9 was in a slump for multiple reasons. For starters, there main shot caller, hai who was the in game leader for pretty much all of cloud 9 is gone. Impact wasn't performing at all as well as he is now, not to mention Sneaky had no synergy with his supports because he had to swap multiple times between Bunny FuFu and Smoothie. Overall, even if CLG did improve they went against a mediocre version of Cloud 9 which shouldn't be taken into account as improvement.

Now if Cloud 9 deserves to go to worlds they have to win the gauntlet, if they dont win it means they didnt deserve it i guess

DolorinSep 4, 20161 votes

I don't know if they would have won game 1. Depsite the kill lead, TSM was out-farming them and if not for the bug would have been able to set up more objective control with the Soraka kill. The GP was farming up and it would have been a macro-oriented objective game, which favored TSM pretty heavily. Sol was definitely the pick they showed up best on, but it's possible CLG tilted out of showing other picks properly.

I will say for IMT, though. If they deserve a spot in worlds, they need to beat C9. It's been 2 splits in a row that they've taken 3rd due to an inability to perform in their first Bo3. Whether CLG deserves their spot or not is something we can only discern after worlds. C9 is potentially the only team that I feel bad for if they lose out here. I do think they're one of the top 3 in NA, just hope that they can show up properly against IMT.

III BAKURYU III Sep 4, 20161 votes

Indeed TSM was most likely still would have won but if it wasn't for the AurelionSol bug who knows what could have happened as it was one of Huhi's main champion in his champion pool.

NO ONE Should be crying over IMT as they have had 2 GREAT regular season splits 17-1 16-2 and was in the second rounds in each of the splits and only needed to win 1 series to be in the finals in both splits but still couldn't win in either splits.

Not to mention at the start of the split Cloud 9 was 6-3 and CLG was 4-5 but on the second half of the split Cloud 9 won the same amount of games 6-3 and CLG was tied with C9 6-3.

I will be rooting for Cloud 9 as I personally believe that C9 are a much stronger team than IMT. IMPACT VS HUNI Impact shows that he doesn't need his jungler to camp for him 24/7 like Huni needs Reignover for the past 2 years.

REIGNOVER VS METEOS Reignover is much better than Meteos. However I think most of the Top Tier teams have figured out the Reignover play style like 1. Camp Huni or 2. Counter Jungling.

JENSEN VS POBELTER A Super-Star vs an easy to tilt mid laner that doesn't do anything without Reignover to make plays for him.

SNEAKY/SMOOTHIE VS WILDTURTLE/ADRIAN Sneaky is the most consistent ADC in NA History while his lane phase isn't the greatest it's much better than Wildturtle's not to mention the support differences while Adrain is a great support ( 2 Assists Championships in a row something I think Yellowstar has only achieved) it's pretty easy to see the different play-styles between Smoothie and Adrain. Smoothie tanks and is actually a shot-caller for C9 while Adrian can really only play heal mages and just sits in the back and heals and follows directions of the leaders on IMT(reignover)

Shotcalling lets say IMT Reignover is having a bad game and is tilted who will be another voice of reason and shotcall ? Pobelter ? Huni ? I doubt Pobelter is much of a leader same as Huni as he has shown that most games he seems to be out of it and doesn't seem to know what he's doing most of the time. While for C9 I have heard multiple players communicating and shotcall. Meteos seems to be the main leader while Sneaky and Jensen are more so as just casual Lane shot callers to tell Meteos when and where they can be viable and are more (voice of reason) shot callers so they don't put Meteos in bad situations to only get destroyed also Smoothie needs to be credited as a decent leader for C9 and personally I think Smoothie should have been 3rd ALL- Support instead of Adrian.

DøubléliftAug 30, 20161 votes

This comment makes no sense. Bjergsen plays Aurelian sol so if it wasnt banned he would easily pick it up. Not to mention huhis performance on every champion but aurelian sol and syndra is extremely poor which shows he isnt cut out for worlds. TSM did win the split but with a poor roster. Dyrus, santorin, turtle, under performed heavily. Looking at TSM this year, situation is clearly different where they have players that are far more dedicated and dont tilt which shows a stronger performance. Cloud 9 did have chances to get to worlds but CLG had a free ride to worlds which isnt at all fair considering how much cloud 9 improved compared to CLG.

III BAKURYU III Aug 30, 20161 votes

Cloud 9 eliminated in the first round of Spring playoffs CLG advanced from the first round of Summer Playoffs

Cloud 9 made it to the Finals but Lost CLG mad it to the Finals but Won

Either way you slice it CLG won a split while C9 didn't they deserve to go just as much as anyone else.

Bjergsen hasn't played AurelionSol all split nor have I ever seen him play it in the LCS.

YCitizenSnipsYAug 30, 20161 votes

You mean if it wasn't for G2 right?

III BAKURYU III Aug 30, 20161 votes

Yeah didn't want to make any G2 fans salty but also didn't want to delude CLG's Accomplishment at MSI reason why I only said "wasn't for CLG" .

00000912912Aug 29, 20161 votes

CLG COULDN'T EVEN WIN A GAME AGAINST TSM??? WTF L00L SALTY C9 FANS

MorrogondorAug 30, 20161 votes

Nope.

KnowskillzAug 29, 20162 votes

I agree with you! I want Immortals to get competitive experience, and cloud 9 seems to be getting better and better. CLG on the other hand seems to be struggling. The issue isn't skill, it's consistency. Someone said it last year and I hope it doesn't happen again this year. CLG = Can't Leave Groups. AurelionSol

CrideS58Aug 30, 20161 votes

Well if c9 would have just lost to immortals in the semis then CLG would be in the gauntlet instead of immortals

SneakyTheWalrusAug 29, 20166 votes

Jensen and Meteos absolutely tilted those final 3 games. The failed Zac gank mid where Jensen missed every single skill shot was absolutely horrendous.

The final game where Jensen flashed in to kill a 50HP Doublelift and MISSED everything just to eat an entire culling was worse than my mid lane play and I'm barely Gold..

The worst part though was how they kept the camera on Jensen when he was crying.. That was just cold Riot..

HellsAug 29, 20161 votes

It was really good dodging on Bjergsens part as well though. I went back and looked at how Jensen missed everything and if Bjergsen hadn't stopped for a split second right before Meteos flash ulted him, he would have been pushed towards Jensen's Vel'Koz Q. The missed wall flash is what tilts are made of though.

rescuedAug 29, 20161 votes

It was cold they kept the camera on Jensen. And it was on him for a good 3 minutes.. I feel so bad for him. Everyone has bad games, he was tilted and felt pressure, now people are going to criticize him. :/

III BAKURYU III Aug 29, 20163 votes

That is the side of competition that I like. Not the making fun of a player for losing but the player reacting to a lose and how they worked so hard to achieve greatness and coming short, it shows humanity.

Who cares if random players criticize him he is in the LCS and made it to the Finals not the millions of Bronze players.

Yukon79Aug 29, 20165 votes

Well CLG gets into worlds and either immortals or C9 is out. Just doesn't feel right. Hate the new system.

III BAKURYU III Aug 29, 20164 votes

The new system does suck but the old system made 0 sense. Spring split was complete useless just a waste of time and it only took riot about 3 years to fix that mess.

FocodocoSep 5, 20161 votes

i mean the new system is no different from the old system. watching spring was pointless and teams that were better didnt go to worlds. the problem is its hard to say in a game as swingy as lol 1 best of 5 doesnt say much.

YraellAug 29, 20162 votes

All season long there have been no spoilers on the front page the day of the game... Then, the night of the most important game of the split and this article gets posted? The game that is probably the most important not to spoil... WTF, Riot?

TheHawkeyeMihawkAug 29, 20161 votes

You're joking right? "Oh there was a huge game today.. I should probably go to lolesports and see what they didn't spoil." Why are you on here after the games if you're wanting to avoid spoilers? Seriously lol

YraellAug 29, 20161 votes

Not joking, no. You must not come here often. My point remains and your argument is non-responsive. I'm on here to watch the games from the VOD menu. Thanks for your curiosity! :)

UberChayChayAug 29, 20162 votes

Or you could just go directly to the lolesports YouTube channel, not risking it being spoiled for you ever, and avoid having to whine in the comments... but live your dreams friend.

YraellAug 29, 20161 votes

I often do. Thanks for the suggestion! It just happened to be that I decided to go here instead. Feedback often helps to improve the user experience, though this format might not be the most constructive. Do you disagree that a primarily entertainment driven product should accept feedback from users, even if it appears to be whining?

UberChayChaySep 5, 20161 votes

There is a clear difference to me between feedback and whining, but the fact is, is that it's kind of a matter of pride that when a team wins like that, it gets splashed all over the homepage, like when a team wins the World Series or the Super Bowl, it's splashed all over the news. It's just what happens. Sure maybe it's unfortunate for you, but it's meant for more people than just you. Like you said, it's a primarily entertainment driven product, designed to appeal to MANY people. It's definitely a "majority rules" kind of thing. And while there may even be a lot of people who agree with your view point, the fact is, there are ways around it, that could be used to avoid such a spoiler, and from a purely business standpoint, because there are ways around it, you not utilizing those methods is your own fault.

AsphodelNextAug 29, 20161 votes

This also shows up as a thread on the forums, which makes it a bit bigger than just avoiding lolesports until you've watched the match. You also have to avoid the front page of the forums, so you can't read any other forum posts, even the non esports related ones, unless you directly navigate to the subpage without using the Boards button at the top.

III BAKURYU III Aug 29, 20162 votes

Here is what you Can do to fix the spoilers on the lol-Esports page.

GO to VODS on the top right corner
Hit VODS and once the page refreshes itself to where you can see the Videos SAVE or Bookmark the page
Once a game has completed and you know when a game is done from schedule etc you can go to your SAVE or Bookmark star thing and click the saved bookmark.

You can now watch the games bypassing the front page with no spoilers(From my knowledge)

EagleEye007Aug 29, 20162 votes

Typo: "NA Summer Split MVP Søren "Bjergsen" Bjerg and road that momentum" should be rode, not road.

I'm glad that TSM seemed to settle down in later games. In game one especially there was a ton of misplays. Doublelift had some of the worst skillshots I think I've ever seen from him and had that one Jhin ult he suddenly stopped after 2 shots despite seeming like he had at least one guaranteed kill, and Sven had some crazy aggressive moments that had little to no chance of going well. Overall a fantastic showing to bounce back for game 2 and go back to their dominating play.

III BAKURYU III Aug 29, 20162 votes

I really want the Worlds group stage drawings to hurry up and get here. Spend a month on LPL-LCK-EU-NA to finish their playoffs to get a 20 min video on the group drawings.

OCS SolstarAug 29, 20162 votes

I watched the latter games mainly 4 and 5 plus I read all the posts here. Come on guys nothing about how impact tried to put the entire c9 team on his back and solo carry them the only laner to win his lane. I love on game 5 how he dived bjerg s fed Vlad and ended his streak almost as if to say not bad but faker was better xD

currentlydeadAug 29, 20162 votes

Man I wish I could've seen this game 5, since you know it didn't actually occur.

OCS SolstarAug 31, 20161 votes

Ohh you know that tsm still are getting rekt at worlds right cause their play level is below dirt against China or Korea

AnhDopTraiAug 29, 20161 votes

I think C9 is missing Hai the main shot caller. I know that Reaper taught them how to shot call but that is not enough. They need a leader that gets information from the team and decide what to do next.