NA LCS Playoffs – League of Legends

TSM dominated summer split, finishing at the top spot, with only 1 defeat against Pheonix1. Counter Logic Gaming (champions of 2015 Summer and 2016 Spring championship) is looking to win third consecutive championship, whereas the newcomers Team EnVyUs will try to show they deserve the spot in the playoffs.

With the end of the regular season, we now know which are the top 6 teams in NA, and now they need to back up what they provided in the regular season in Summer Playoffs. Top 2 teams in Summer Split (TSM and Immortals) got a ticket directly to semi-finals, this leaves us with 4 teams, who will have to battle it out to reach quarter finals (Cloud9 v Team EnVyUs) (CLG v Team Liquid). 4 teams (Cloud9,Team EnVyUS, CLG and Team Liquid) battling it out between each other to advance to semi-finals.

To give you a better insight into the teams playing in this play-offs I’ll provide you with a short description of each team.

Team SoloMid

They dominated the regular season, and expectations for them to perform up to part in the upcoming play-offs are huge. They are arguably the best team in North America and they will have a chance to prove this statement soon enough. Keeping in mind that they have beaten every team that has advanced into play-offs twice, it’s without a shadow of a doubt they are favourites to achieve another title.

ROSTER:

Immortals

Looking at Immortals, they are in my eyes not much “worse” than TSM. We can say, that TSM and Immortals had been playing in a league of their own during the Summer Split, leaving their opponents far back in the leader boards. The only team, who managed to defeat Immortals were no other than TSM, whereas other teams were not seen as a threat for them. We might say that Immortals are seeking revenge against their bitter rivals TSM.
The only place Immortals will have a chance to play TSM is in a finals and what a revenge would it be, if they managed to take the cup from their rivals hands.

ROSTER:

Cloud9

They have been a team that is sitting in the 3rd place for most of the regular season. They are not a bad team, but are just a bit short when they face top teams. Every once and a while they manage to have a showing, that could be compared to TSM and Immortals, but those performances are not consistent. I’m not counting out Cloud9 being a strong competitor in this play-offs. On the other hand, if they play as they can throughout the play-offs, we could easily see them compete in the finals, but first they will need to defeat the newcomers, Team EnVyUs. Even though they seem to be a slight underdog, they will strive to take their 3rd title in LCS. Both of their previous titles came defeating  TSM (3-0) in the finals. But teams have changed since then and it will be a tough road to even reach the finals. It is wise for them to take one match at a time, as Team EnVyUs, Immortals and TSM are all standing in between Cloud9 and the title.

ROSTER:

Team EnVyUs

Newcomers in LCS have proven they deserve to swim with the “big sharks”, being the only new team (out of 3) to qualify for play-offs. The strong start in the regular season helped the a lot, but sadly they slowed down later in the season, barely passing Apex for a spot in playoffs. Their goal is clearly winning their first title, but the road will be tough.

ROSTER:

Counter Logic Gaming

They looked like a disaster in the beginning of this split. The expectations of CLG were really high as they were champions in 2016 Spring and 2015 Summer. Despite a terrible start, they managed to qualify for play-offs and are looking for their 3rd consecutive title.

ROSTER:

Team Liquid

The bad start of the split was arguably because their star jungler Dardoch was suspended. The suspension was later lifted and the performance of Team Liquid was much better after. With that, they managed to stay in the middle of the table for most of the season. I see them as a consistent team and they were rewarded the spot in the play-offs, where they will take a full advantage of it and push for their first LCS title.

ROSTER:

This will be a fun month for League of Legends fans as we will have a chance to see teams as TSM (who strive for their 4th title) to newcomers EnVyUs all fighting for a title and a name in the history books.