Samsung Galaxy Sweeps NA’s Last Hope

Cloud9, NA LCS’ last hope in the 2016 League of Legends World Championship, got cleanly swept by LCK’s Samsung Galaxy. Here’s how SSG showed dominance over The Rift.
Game 1

Just 6 minutes into the game, Crown turns around a 3v1 gank from C9’s jungler and support. He even gets first blood in this encounter, giving him an early advantage against Jensen.

Before the 20-minute mark, all 3 outer turrets of C9 are down, they’re behind in kills 5-to-1 and is at a 5k gold deficit. And then all hell breaks loose for C9 as SSG claims a clean ace by 20:30. This further puts SSG ahead: 10-1 in kills and they’re up by almost 8k in gold. SSG was quick to secure Baron and, after getting 2 quick kills on Impact and Smoothie, just demolishes C9’s base.

It all came down to C9’s failure to execute their plays. Most of Smoothie’s Pulverize were on-point but the follow-up damage wasn’t enough to even kill CoreJJ on Karma. That first gank on Crown also set the tempo in mid lane, giving Crown a very small lead that he was able to use effectively.

Game 2

C9, after a crushing loss in Game 1, seemed to learn their lesson and played much more safely in the early stages of Game 2. At the 26-minute mark, both teams are still neck and neck, just waiting for one to slip up and give an opening.

And then C9 did. Giving CuVee the chance to flank, he takes it and just slices through 4 members of C9 as Impact desperately tries to match the Teleport play by CuVee. Crown immediately follows up, catching the same 4 members with his ultimate. Just as 3 members of C9 dies, Impact finishes his Teleport and goes crazy, diving into a 1v5 fight. C9 gives up 4 kills, takes down no one from SSG essentially giving away a free Baron.

C9’s 3-carry lineup wanted to whittle down SSG before going into a fight. SSG, with their composition focused in teamfights, wanted to either pick a high value target or catch C9 clumped up. SSG was able to do both while C9, again, failed to execute.

Game 3

After losing 2 games in a row, C9 is in a do-or-die situation. And they must win this game or else, NA will have to wait another season for a shot at the Summoner’s Cup.

Early on, C9 wanted to assert dominance by pushing SSG’s bot lane under their own turret and denying them CS. Initially, they were successful and were even able to secure first turret gold. But SSG didn’t watch helplessly, they made plays in the other lanes and traded a turret for 2 kills.

Despite having the early pressure, Sneaky and Smoothie wasn’t able to convert it into any sizable advantage. With most of the early kills on Meteos, there was even a point where Meteos’ Zac was dealing more damage compared to his teammates.

Meanwhile, Ambition kept mowing down C9 and CuVee was constantly diving and tanking most of the damage from C9. And, with CoreJJ’s Tahm Kench constantly denying kills by eating up his teammates, SSG was able to eventually secure the sweet taste of victory.

With a clean 3-0 sweep against C9, SSG eliminates NA’s last hope in the Worlds. SSG moves on to the Semifinals and will be facing whoever wins in the ANX vs H2K match on Mon.

Tomorrow, it will be SKT vs RNG. Will Korea secure another spot in the Semifinals or will China take it for themselves?

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