Cloud9 is making a sudden change at the support position heading into its upcoming lower bracket match against Golden Guardians this weekend. In their next 2022 LCS Spring Split playoff series, C9 will field substitute support Isles, moving regular starter Winsome to the Academy level as an accompanying move.
Isles has not played a game at the LCS level during the 2022 Spring Split. The last game he played alongside C9’s main League of Legends roster came during the preseason Lock In tournament, when C9 was forced to field a fragmented roster consisting of starters and substitutes.
“A few things led up to this change,” C9 head coach Max Waldo said in an announcement made on Twitter earlier today. “One of them was that we were struggling in scrims and it was difficult to improve from that point. Another was that it was difficult for us in-game to apply and implement the strategies and solutions that we agreed on in reviews in the game itself because of our limited ability to communicate within the game.”
Last weekend, C9 were bounced from the upper bracket of the 2022 LCS Spring Split playoffs after being swept by 100 Thieves in the first round of the tournament. In that match, Winsome finished with a personal KDA of 1.6, two full points below his Spring Split average, according to League stats site Games of Legends.
“With this change, what Isles will be able to do is very clearly communicate with our mid and jungle, for example, and make much more detailed and precise plans on how to get advantages with the team, something that we weren’t able to do well before,” Waldo said.
This weekend’s playoff series will pit C9 against Golden Guardians, a team that they defeated twice across two best-of-one matches in the Spring Split. The series will also combine Isles alongside AD carry Berserker in the bottom lane. The two have never played in an official game together as a bottom lane pairing for C9.
Waldo said in today’s announcement that the roster swap had been implemented by C9 earlier in the week and that the team has been scrimmaging with Isles in the starting lineup, leading to “improvements in our in-game planning, as well as our reviews.”
C9 will face off against Golden Guardians tomorrow, April 9, at 3:30pm CT.
