Go ahead and breathe for a bit, North American League of Legends fans. Cloud9 have qualified for the main event at the 2021 World Championship after crushing PEACE in three short matches.
Even though C9 were the favorite to win this meeting between the OCE representatives, there was still a bit of worry for the LCS third seed. They lost back-to-back games against Unicorns of Love and DetonatioN FocusMe before the start of the elimination round, while PEACE looked very decisive in their victory against the CBLOL’s RED Canids.
Game one was a bit shaky coming out of the gate for C9 after they made early blunders that gave PEACE an early advantage with kills and objectives. It felt like the boys in blue needed to shake off their previous performances, and it took them a game to finally get rid of the rust. Eventually, C9 would be able to take the win, after some great macro play and roams from Perkz, Vulcan, and Blaber.
This ended up being the closest game of the series, because in the next two games, C9 outclassed their opponents with some of the cleanest League they’ve played this season. It only took them 40 minutes to beat PEACE after the first match, with Blaber taking over on Olaf in game two and Zven dominating the bottom lane in game three.
Overall, this is a great sign for C9 fans—a victory like this should be great for their confidence as they enter the hardest group in the tournament. They’ll need all the momentum they can get while they prepare to face off against three of the best teams in the world in FunPlus Phoenix, DWG KIA, and Rogue.
Catch all the action when Worlds continues on Monday, Oct. 11.
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