100 Thieves might have needed a bit of time to ramp up their play through the regular season, but the defending LCS champions have come out swinging in the 2022 Spring Split playoffs with a crushing series sweep against Cloud9 today.
Before this weekend, 100T were one of North America’s hottest teams, having ripped through the league with a seven-game win streak in the last few weeks of the split. Their last match against C9 was also a hard stomp, and that trend continued today in all three games thanks to some smart planning and well-coordinated teamplay.
Across the series, there was a clear focus on the top lane for the Thieves—and for good reason. C9’s new top laner Summit has been arguably the best player in the league this spring and a leading candidate for MVP. But today, he was limited to only two kills with a whopping 15 deaths. He was ganked early and often by Closer, who was the most impressive player on Summoner’s Rift by far.
The 23-year-old found success across the entire map, pulling off well-timed ganks and skirmishes that would almost always land in his team’s favor. He also had a handful of highlight moments on Lee Sin that stunned the live audience at the LCS studio in Los Angeles. Closer ended the day with 12 kills, 23 assists, and only five deaths, earning himself the Player of the Series award for his stellar play.
Overall, 100T simply outplayed C9 in every facet of the game in each of their matches, right after shutting down their best player. “We just think that Summit is their win condition, and he’s kind of playing one-vs-five versus us,” Huhi said in a post-game interview. “Ssumday could even take [him] one-vs-one, but this is a five-vs-five game, so we were teaching him a lesson.”
100T will move on in the winners bracket, while C9 must now fight for their lives in the losers bracket against Golden Guardians next week. A big weak point has been exposed in this series, however, so if the boys in blue wish to keep their season going, they’ll need to find a way to close up any holes in their strategies.
In the meantime, fans will be getting more LCS action tomorrow when Team Liquid face off against Evil Geniuses in the second series of the winners bracket.
