Who Will Be The First LCS Lock In Champion?
After a revamp to the League of Legends Championship Series’ (LCS) format, this coming weekend the LCS will crown its first LCS Lock In champion for the 2021 season. Two teams will face off on Sunday after the winners of 100 Thieves versus Cloud9 and the winners of Evil Geniuses and Team Liquid are decided.
The four teams in the semifinals are bar none the best teams out of the ten total in the LCS Lock In tournament. Cloud9 is strutting their brand new superstar mid laner from the League of Legends European Championship (LEC), Luka “Perkz” Perkovic, while Team Liquid added upgrades to their already Worlds-visiting line up. 100 Thieves continued the impressive synergy formed from Golden Guardians’ four members while keeping Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho, and Evil Geniuses have surprised everyone with their red-hot start.
This is shaping up to be one of the best format changes ever to grace the LCS, and it’s only the start to the 2021 season. With that in mind, let’s look at all of the four teams taking part in the semifinals.
Cloud9
Cloud9 surprised everyone early on in the offseason after they let go of top-tier North American top laner, Eric “Licorice” Ritchie and bringing in Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami. A move that left many confused, would be a move that ended up setting up the corralling of one of the greatest Western players to ever play League of Legends - Perkz.
Cloud9 had a terrible start to the LCS Lock In after getting demolished by Evil Geniuses who were on their way to being the only team to start the tournament at 3-0 after the first week — Perkz recorded seven deaths. After that loss, Cloud9 gradually built themselves up off of the backs of not Perkz, but their bottom lane and their jungler — the players who remained from their 2020 roster. This netted them a 3-1 finish, setting themselves up nicely in the quarterfinals to face off against old rivals, Team SoloMid.
Once at quarterfinals, Cloud9 took a stammering 2-1 victory over their old rivals. Similar to the tournament’s group play, Cloud9 dropped the first game and slowly ramped up afterwards. After much criticism, Fudge showed up big time, while the Cloud9 mainstays maintained their top tier play.
100 Thieves
Perhaps the team with the most synergy in these semifinals, showed it from the LCS Lock In’s start, the group stage, up to now in the quarterfinals. Not surprising, seeing as they quite literally took four players from that impressive Golden Guardians roster from last year, and tagged it along with one of the best top laners in the league, Ssumday. In all of their games — barring the loss to Counter Logic Gaming in which they seemed out of sorts — the Thieves had a lead early on. Their bottom lane is in many people’s eyes the best bottom lane in the league, Ssumday is still Ssumday, and the jungle and mid duo of Can “Closer” Celik and Tanner “Damonte” Damonte looks as fierce as ever.
Click to enlargeThey were the only team to beat the other 2-1 teams in their group, and come quarterfinals, they quickly dismantled Immortals’ ragtag group of Academy players. This is one of the teams to beat in these semifinals.
Team Liquid
Even with a substitute jungler in Jonathan “Armao” Armao covering for Lucas “Santorin” Larsen due to Visa-related issues, Team Liquid started the LCS Lock In without a hitch. Like 100 Thieves, they also finished 3-1 with their only loss being to that very same team. Their brand new top laner Barney “Alphari” Morris looks unstoppable alongside their ever-improving bottom lane of Edward “Tactical” Ra and reigning MVP, Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in while Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen is still Jensen in the mid lane.
They made quick work of everyone who was in their way in the first week, and come the second week, Santorin was finally slotted into their lineup. Santorin being added to the lineup seems to be the final push that this newly aggressive Team Liquid wanted. Like 100 Thieves before them, and the team they face off in the semifinals, Evil Geniuses did as well; they made quick work of a FlyQuest in the quarterfinals. A FlyQuest who looked much improved after their starting jungler, Brandon “Josedeodo” Villegas was finally in the lineup.
Evil Geniuses
As the most surprising out of the four teams, they were the only team to start 3-0 in the LCS Lock In’s first week. Only to drop a match later to a surging FlyQuest after they had clinched a playoff spot.
There’s just so much to say about this team. First and foremost, Jeong “Impact” Eon-young, he is perhaps the best player right now in the whole tournament. His Renekton play has been superb — dominating for four games straight — and even when he was pushed off of it, he played well on the other champion too. The coin flip that is Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro seemed to have landed on the correct side, while their bottom lane — especially Matthew “Deftly” Chen who was a question mark for many — has been solid all throughout, especially in team fights. All while Dennis “Svenskeren” Johnsen is nearing his former MVP level.
The team has surprisingly clicked on all cylinders from the get-go and is a team to watch out for, not just in the tournament, but throughout the LCS’ regular-season start.
This format revamping is already paying dividends, bridging much-needed excitement and competition to the LCS. Right off the bat, the LCS' top of the tables already seems much more contested compared to previous years. While the teams in the middle of the pack and even in the bottom have a lot to prove and improve upon — showing the potential that perhaps hasn’t been seen in season’s past.
The semifinals start on Friday, January 29 where 100 Thieves face off against Cloud9, with Evil Geniuses facing off against Team Liquid on Saturday, January 30. The tournament culminates after each winner from each respective semifinals face off on Sunday, January 31.
Images via Riot Games
