Cloud9 vs. FlyQuest 7/19/20 - 2020 LCS Summer Split

What a difference just a couple of days can make. Last week, Cloud9 was at the top of North America and was deemed as the most dominant and commanding champion the LCS had ever seen — an unassailable giant of unparalleled strength. Now, however, they’ve dropped two games in a row, something that has never happened throughout the first six months of 2020.

And it’s not just that they lost (a strange occurrence, in and of itself), but rather the fashion in which it all went down. They were outperformed by teams that had no business beating them. They had subpar drafts, their engages were out of sync, and they were no longer dominant on an individual level. In other words, this wasn’t the Cloud9 we all know and love. They were a pale shadow of their former selves, and it was not an easy sight to behold. 100 Thieves and Golden Guardians are by no means abysmal teams, but they are worse in every conceivable fashion when compared to the boys in black and blue. And yet none of it mattered in the grand scheme of things. Cloud9 lost fair and square, and while their failures certainly make things a lot more entertaining, it does put the region (and our betting tendencies) in a state of absolute chaos.

FlyQuest, on the other hand, finally shook off a multi-week-long slump by outclassing Team SoloMid in one of the most dominant and one-sided games of 2020. TSM basically imploded from the very get-go — they faced an insurmountable deficit mere minutes into the game and could never quite mount a comeback. Not only did Santorin play out of his mind, but PowerOfEvil and IgNar once again stepped up and carried their fair share of the weight.

Predicting the outcome of this game feels downright impossible. On the one hand, this is Cloud9 we’re talking about so we simply have to give them our benefit of the doubt. On the other hand, they’ve looked so uncharacteristically bad that it’s impossible not to worry and question whether they’re still as good as everyone thinks. This game will be the definition of hindsight 20/20. We’re going to side with Cloud9 on this one, although it’s going to be a lot closer than most people expect, and the chances of them losing are far higher than the odds here would suggest.

A repeat of the 2020 Spring Split finals simply has to deliver, and seeing how both teams love to skirmish right from the very get-go, it’s fair to expect a clash worthy of the history books.