In the North American finals of the LCS Lock-in tournament, a Cloud9 that’s rough around the edges looks to face off against an assembled Team Liquid who has been consistently smashing any team that’s been unlucky enough to stand between them and victory. We have two spots each for both teams, so let’s find out who’s best for each.

Christopher Troeh's Breakdown

Captain - Team Liquid

Tactical ($16,200)

For TL, there’s a few great places you can hit on: you can play to the team’s strengths with Tactical, but he comes in as being extremely expensive. Beside that, you have few “bad” options: the disadvantage with Tactical is Zven and Vulcan are by far the strongest parts for Cloud9, and you’re unlikely to be capable of exploiting them to their fullest extent. If you want to hit on their weaknesses, you could consider Alphari in the top lane, since Fudge has looked like the worst player on Cloud9 by far; a far cry from his gameplay in academy. Finally, your last option would be Jensen, which strikes an interesting medium between the two, Perkz has been underwhelming, but I’d hesitate to call him “straight awful” like Fudge, while the mid lane role allows Jensen to pick up additional resources that let him snowball more freely as opposed to Alphari in the top lane.

Alternatives to consider: Alphari ($12,600), Jensen ($15,000)

Captain - Cloud9

Zven ($15,900)

Realistically, for Cloud9 you have one option: Zven, the only player who has consistently hit his highs and is a stable player on the rift. He pretty much hard dragged his team to the finals, and I think it’s unlikely for Cloud9 to win, although I do think Zven is by far in the best position to make the most out of a bad situation; support Vulcan is still strong, and Cloud9’s Blaber has been playing pretty well too. Unfortunately, Perkz is completely inconsistent and Fudge is just straight terrible. Zven has the highest potential to generate resources, although I could maybe say that Blaber may have the easier route due to Santorin’s relatively defensive jungle style. Either way, you pick one up here.

Alternatives to consider: Blaber ($13,800)

Flex - Team Liquid

Alphari ($8,400)

Liquid is the team with more options for flex, and captain too; each player is a good pick-up, although I would try to avoid CoreJJ just since I think the winning team has a generally easier time using Flex to get points. I like for my captain to be the strongest player on the team (big potential for points) whereas I like my flex to target the biggest weakness on the enemy team; in this case, it’s Fudge. Fudge looked like a massive liability throughout the 100 Thieves series whereas Alphari has been a premier carry, even showing up fantastically against Impact. I would try to keep my hands off Jensen due to Perkz’s latent potential, but Santorin is another smash hit in my eyes: his defensive style allows him to scale quickly without needing to interact with the enemy jungle, and he enters the mid game powered up and difficult to deal with for the enemy. I like both picks, however.

Alternatives to consider: Santorin ($9,000) Jensen ($10,000)

Flex - Cloud9

Vulcan ($7,000)

While supports are usually a dud for me, I think Vulcan has a promising exception behind him: I think Cloud9’s bottom lane is the only place that’s capable of standing up to Liquid, and picking up nearly anyone else is going to result in a massive liability; although, I do think there’s one last member to consider, and we’ve brought him up before: Blaber has been playing well enough, but he’s surrounded by inferior teammates and he himself isn’t really likely better than Santorin, despite having a stylistic advantage with a strong, interaction-heavy style. Your choices are between the two, or Zven I suppose if you didn’t pick him up for captain for whatever reason. Just personally, I’d stay far away from Fudge or Perkz, though.

Alternatives to consider: Blaber ($9,200)

 

Ed Cann's Breakdown

I love championship Sundays! This best of 5 match is the culmination of the preseason for the North American Lock In Tournament. While we had some surprises along the way, the finals give us the two teams we expect to be fighting for the LCS crown this year. So buckle in as I give you some insights on the match and where to look for solid points! This is a Showdown slate so you will need to make a four man roster (1 Captain and 1 Flex from each team) and I’m just the guy to give you the insight to help you make those tough choices! 

Team Liquid v Cloud9

Cann’s Pick: Team Liquid

Team Liquid Captain

Favorite: Tactical ($16,200) Tactical has been a stat machine for this tournament. He has 48 kills and has one of the highest first blood rates among ADCs at 44%. Tactical has grown a lot since he joined the the pro scene in late Spring Split of last year. WHile both bot lanes are good, and I think the experience Zven brings to the table may make him a little better than Tactical, CoreJJ is the best player in the league and he is supporting Tactical. I give a slight edge to the Team Liquid bot lane. 

Value Pick: Santorin ($13,500) People are starting to catch up on the value of junglers right now. The meta (or the widely accepted best strategy for the game) right now is to pick junglers who can carry and farm a ton in the early/mid game. Even with missing a week of matches because of visa issues, Santorin has the fourth most kills in the league at 22. Santorin sets the tone in the match and will usually find help from his roaming and engage heavy support in CoreJJ. His price also allows you to evenly pay for all four of your slots. 

Team Liquid Flex

Favorite: Jensen ($10,000) Jensen being at the top of the kill leaderboard really came off the back of his performance against Evil Geniuses where he went 17-2-26. In this match he is facing off against the heating up import in Perkz. It will be interesting to see how this lane plays out because while both have their pop off games, I think the floor has been much lower for Perkz in this tournament (Perkz has over 20 more deaths than Jensen).

Value Pick: CoreJJ ($7,200) This is the player who makes it happen on TL. He is the returning LCS MVP and for good reason. CoreJJ is the leader in KDA amongst supports in this tournament at 6.3 and has over 100 assists in 9 games. If you went for a big flashy captain (and especially if you picked Tactical) this is a steal of a pick in this match. 

Cloud9 Captain

Favorite: Zven ($15,900) Want to hear something nuts? Zven is the only NA player to get a Penta kill in two separate games in a best of series in LCS history. He absolutely put Cloud9 on his back and drug them kicking and screaming to the finals. He leads all ADCs in the tournament with 68 kills and is arguably part of either the best or close second best bot lane in the league. There should be nothing but value here for you because even when C9 struggle, he tends to play safe enough not to lose you too many points. 

Value Pick: Blaber ($13,800) Much like I said with Santorin, jungle is becoming the most important role to a team’s success. Even in their early losses to 100 Thieves in the Semifinals yesterday, Blaber was an abso;lute menace to deal with. He has 46 kills in the tournament and a staggering 92 assists (Next closest is Closer at 72). He very well may be the best domestic talent North America has ever had. If Cloud9 wins this series, it will be off of the back of Blaber in the jungle.

Cloud9 Flex

Favorite: Perkz ($9,600) Perkz is starting to earn his Brinks truck worth of a contract now. Early on this tournament he looked shaky and obviously did not think much of his competition. He has settled in sense and you can see a difference in his play. He is calculated and making the roams he needs to. He is also beginning to limit the deaths he has and instead plays with his team rather than in spite of them. Even with his early struggles, he is still averaging leads in gold, experience, and cs at 10 minutes which is indicative of him still having the talent for the sololane, but there is a need to work more collaboratively with his teammates.

Value Pick: Vulcan ($7,000) Vulcan is a really fun support to watch play the game. He and Zven have really grown as a duo and any lane for them is a kill lane, regardless of champion matchup. He has a tournament high 124 assists and a tournament high 74.3% kill participation. As much as Team Liquid runs through CoreJJ, Cloud9 runs through Vulcan. A lot of that stems from the fact that Vulcan will transition out of laning phase and become a second jungler with Blaber. He will secure deep vision which sets up plays and ganks for the rest of the match. Again, if you have exhausted your cash elsewhere, this is a solid pickup. 

Cann’s Example Lineup

Captain (x1.5): Santorin ($13,500)

     Alternate: Tactical ($16,200)

Captain (x1.5): Blaber ($13,800)

Flex: Jensen ($10,000)

     Alternate: Alphari ($8,400)

Flex: Zven ($10,600)