Starting a new thread in honor of the big matchup tonight:



Cloud9 Challenger (Balls/Hai/LemonNation) have dominated the LCS so far as FlyQuest. Tonight they face the only more dominant team Cloud9 in a best of 3. Can Hai and his full NA roster prove everyone wrong again?



Other happenings in the NA LCS:

Ssumday/Chaser, Lira/Ninja, and Reignover/Piglet sit in bottom three slots at 4-18 after travelling halfway around the world to join Dignitas, Envy, and Liquid respectively.

Doublelift is on vacation and WildTurtle is back as TSM ADC.

Phoenix1's jungler Inori can't play versus Cloud9 this weekend, so they're subbing in Meteos. I can't see that going well for them.

Hate to start the NA hype train, but 3 teams are looking solid, but they are playing against NA garbage.

I'm thinking: most Asian teams > NA >> EU >>>>>>>>>>>>>> BR/Oceania/Whatever the hell else they have

Cloud9 looks solid, they're 14-2 with Impact. I wouldn't really hold any expectations for TSM/FQ/P1/EF internationally. Maybe they can beat an EU or LPL team? Good for NA only one team gets sent to MSI, so if Cloud9 improves I think great chance to match CLG's runner-up performance from last year.

Pretty sure G2 is still the best western team. UOL and C9 are probably tied for 2nd with H2K, Misfits, TSM, Flyquest, Echo Fox, P1 showing some promise.

c9 are the same team as last year. Difference between Contractz and Meteos is neglible. People just remember worlds when forming an opinion on Meteos last year, where he wasn't even bad, its just his mid laner **** the bed. The rest of NA is just laughable, so c9 look good. If worlds takes place right now, no NA team would get out of groups still

this c9 vs TSM game is hilarious.

Time to kill that 'hype'

Meteos spent all 2016 on GA first tanks. Sure, that doesn't lose too many games where your team gets ahead in lane, but they were not close to Immortals or TSM's level a lot of last split. Contractz may be a worse version of Sven at this point, but that's enough to give you a chance to beat some top teams.

When Khazix isn't in the meta, we'll get a good gauge on how good Contractz is, coz he only pops off on Khazix and early game lee, looks meh on anything else

How did the LCS go on without Hai.

It's been a rough run for FlyQuest since I started this thread. 13-3 in the first 3.5 weeks to 4-9 over the next 2.5. Really boring three week stretch headed into the playoffs, it looks like NA only has two legitimate contenders in C9 and TSM and they won't play each other until likely the spring playoff finals.

yea its too bad, TSM and C9 are just the only two teams that dont have glaring holes. every other potentially decent team (P1, Dig, CLG) either just sucks at communicating or has massive talent issues in at least one position.

I didn't know trade deadline deals were a thing in LoL, but Doublelift from TSM and Adrian from P1 join TL. Doublelift is just a loaner to help TL avoid relegation, whereas Adrian talked his way off the team by basically saying Inori doesn't use his brain.

I think Matt is better for Doublelift/Reignover than Adrian, and I think they might look like the 3rd best team come the spring playoffs, but due to being in 10th place they probably won't even make it in. I'm guessing they dodge relegation matches though. At least Doublelift vs TSM and Midlet vs Hai in week 9 gives something left in this regular season to watch.

lol Adrian, probably didn't get on with Inori because Inori was like, yo can we pick a tank in the bot lane? no, how about an ap mage? no, how about a playmaker? no? ok lock in Nami or Janna then i guess.

Both TSM and C9 have glaring holes. TSM take ages to win every game because their shot calling is atrocious, especially early to mid game, its just the fact they have better players than anyone else prevents them from losing games until they can team fight which they do really well.

C9 have an average jungler and a mid who has no idea how to roam and influence anything outside of mid lane. Their shotcalling is ok, but not great, given more time though Smoothie seems like he will improve a lot in that area and be really good at it

Seems P1 out of nowhere are the best team. They have put together a team that is about as good as an NA team can theoretically put together. Your 2 import slots on your star players who are both very very good and play the carry roles, and both speak english. Then your 3 NA residents all solid smart role players that can ensure the stars can carry. C9 looks awful, they just lose until they realise they are playing in NA so the other team sucks, then they win through Smoothie's macro.

Amazing that Jensen not only has etched out a successful LCS career, but has actually conned people into believing he is a #1/#2 NA mid with Bjerg. Dude is a bottom tier mid. Pretty confident no mid has been solo killed by as many people as he has, (the likes of Hai, Fenix, Piglet, Keane, Huhi all have solo killed him, along with good mids). He never roams, has issues with all junglers he plays with coz he can't play if they don't protect him. He is super good at teamfighting, but if he played on a team that didn't have winning lanes/good players elsewhere, he would look Ninja level bad.

Arrow being the best ADC in NA isn't a surprise, but Meteos crushing 2017 NA to an 80% winrate is a bit surprising. There are only three "good" teams in NA and they play the two others next week. I'd bet against P1 in any playoff series vs C9 or TSM.

Jensen is a top three LCS mid with Bjergsen and Froggen. He leads the league in XPD10 and CSD10. Part of the reason he has notable solo deaths is he's aggressive enough to build a lead and go for a play. He does die more than Bjergsen or Froggen and probably isn't as valuable as them, but it's silly to act like he's a fraud in the NA LCS. (Jensen's style is also greedy which he can get away with vs Pobelter/Huhi but got him exposed vs SKT and Samsung last Worlds. But hey, if it takes a top 4 team to expose you, you can probably win some NA LCS splits.)

http://oracleselixir.com/statistics/na/na-lcs-2017-spring-regular-season-player-statistics/

Pretty crazy having NA LCS relegation tournament include Reignover, Doublelift, MadLife, and LirA.

I want to see that C9 - Flyquest rematch!!!~!~!~!~

Not sure if possible until finals, if Flyquest beats TSM. DIG has to beat P1, and Fly has to win to play C9 in the semis.

While not likely that DIG beats P1, I don't think it's likely any of those teams beat TSM. So, how do we feel about TSM-C9 final?

Hai the reverse sweep god. Also a mid legend to pull this team to top 4 in the NA LCS. I thought for sure they would import a real top laner but somehow Balls is still in the tournament while Ssumday, Looper, Flame, and Darshan will watch from home.

I think C9 vs P1 is pretty much a coin flip and TSM are huge overdogs in their matchup despite Sven's disappointing split.

Yeah, I dunno how Fly ended up winning, I guess CLG demoralized after 4?

Regardless, it's probably still 50/50 for TSM/C9 to win this, obviously if TSM/C9 meet in the finals, it's more favored for TSM to win.

Well tickets have been punched. TSM won 3-0, but looked more flawed than C9 did versus stronger opposition. I think C9's edge bot/jungle edge should make them very small favorites in the finals, could easily go either way.

I kinda said the same thing in a discord group this morning.

I just hope it's a good series.

pretty good series. last game was pretty crazy swings

lame series, elite game 5

Jensen turning into quite the big moment choke artist

ya him and turtle. turtle flashing forward into teamfights just to die will never get old