Top Three Positives From Team Liquid’s Win Over Cloud9 In The LCS Lock In Finals
Team Liquid was crowned champions of the first-ever League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Lock In tournament after a fierce competition with one of the favourites - Cloud9. The first LCS Lock In tournament was a great success, as it allowed the teams to test out various team compositions and get the feel of the current meta before diving into the official Spring Split. Moreover, fans would get to see teams in their early stages and witness them growing throughout the splits. Therefore, it was a win-win for both the teams and the esports enthusiasts.
The LCS Lock In tournament 2021 showcased some great underdog teams like Evil Geniuses make their name in the league, and big names like Cloud9 struggling at the start, with C9 Luka "Perkz" Perkovic not in the best form. As the tournament passed, the more prominent teams gained their momentum and pressed their lead, surpassing other teams.
With Team Liquid facing Cloud9 in the finals, fans anticipated it to be a blockbuster, and the players didn't disappoint the crowd. With an intense back and forth between the two heavyweights, Team Liquid dismissed the reverse sweep hopes of Cloud9 and asserted their desire to claim the LCS trophy in 2021. Their performance was awe-inspiring, and they left no chances for Cloud9 to come back into the series. Moreover, Cloud9 claimed Game 3 and 4 with excellent control over objectives and calculated team fights, but it wasn't enough to get them the win.
While the Lock In tournament results do not necessarily signify how the teams will perform in the future matches, we can indeed analyse the little positives and negatives of arguably the best two teams in the LCS.
1. TL ALPHARI DOMINATED THE TOP LANE AND SNOWBALLED TEAM FIGHTS
Team Liquid's top laner Barney "Alphari" Morris, dominated the Summoner's Rift, and he kept C9 Ibrahim "Fudge" Allami out of the game. Starting from his first pick, Jax, which wasn't that active in the landing phase, frequently traded with the opponent Camille pick and even got killed at an early state with a gank from enemy jungler.
However, as the match went on, the Jax scaled and participated in several team fights to help his team with the ganks and securing kills at every possible opportunity in the match. In the next match, the same story repeats itself with Gnar getting enemy jungle attention and redeeming itself by killing C9 Fudge by himself in the top lane. Moreover, C9 Fudge's Karma pick didn't provide much utility than TL Alphari's Gnar, which initiated team fights and provided a great tool for the team fights.
The rest of the matches also showcased TL Alphari dominating the top lane and providing his services for the ally team, which C9 Fudge couldn't do much in the team fights. Later, Cloud9 started prioritising bans for the top lane to give a good match-up for C9 Fudge. But that didn't mean much as the team was targeting Alphari by giving away jungle and other resources only to get outclassed in the jungle and bottom lane. Even though C9 Fudge is one of the youngest players on the roster, he needs to adapt quickly towards the enemy champion picks and play champions like Ornn and more to provide more for his team.
2. TL COREJJ CARRIES MATCHES WITH AGGRESSIVE ENGAGE SUPPORT PICKS
If you've been watching the LCS for quite some time now, you won't be a stranger to the excellent support carry, Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in, who got many picks in the matches. Team Liquid never had to take a disadvantageous team fight as consistent hooks from the likes of Blitzcrank, Leona, Thresh, and Nautilus made sure that they took good team fights with the potential threat of the enemy getting neutralised even before there is a fight near the objectives. Therefore, Cloud9 was always one step behind the Team Liquid roster.
Combining the support with an aggressive ADC like TL Edward "Tactical" Ra, the bottom lane for Team Liquid attracted the enemy jungle's attention while still managing to salvage a lead for the enemy bot lane duo in the match. CoreJJ finding his hooks would be crucial for Team Liquid as the team heavily relies on his engages in initiating team-fights and winning them in a convincing fashion.
Cloud9 tried their best to stop CoreJJ while banning his most played engage based support champions, but it seems like you need more than one ban in the drafting to stop CoreJJ from controlling the pace of the matches.
3. TEAM LIQUID MAKING GOOD TRADES THROUGHOUT THE MAP
One of the critical reasons that Team Liquid dominated the series was because of their perfect vision control and the capability to secure/trade objectives on the map. Even when they lost some turrets in the top lane, TL Lucas "Santorin" Tao Kilmer Larsen made sure that they got objectives and moved closer to the goal of finishing the games.
His signature picks included Udyr and Taliyah, which allowed him to get early ganks and snowball the lanes. Moreover, TL CoreJJ kept a perfect vision score and removed enemy wards to get good team fights for the team and securing the first-ever LCS Lock In win.
Images via Riot Games
