Should you get excited about Cloud 9? A perspective from a life-long Cloud 9 fan

I've been a fan of the Cloud 9 organization since their initial entry into the NA LCS in the season 3 summer split, 2013. As a 16 year old it was extremely exciting to see a team from my region look so dominant; when other North American teams at the time were fumbling around, trying to make their old guard players serviceable, Cloud 9 were ushering in the new generation of North American talent making the rest of the LCS field look woefully antiquated in both rosters and play-style. To use an analogy let's say we're playing a game of volley ball, the ball represents the win and the net represents Baron Nashor, every other NA team during the 2013 summer split would spend an extended period of time leisurely passing the ball back and forth over the net to their opponents until, mercifully, one team managed to stumble into victory in a manner representing a man in a drunken stupor somehow returning the ball over the net in a haphazard blacked-out haze (one would be forgiven for thinking I was talking about the current swath of LCS teams using this analogy). Cloud 9 on the other hand would get the ball and then immediately spike it into the opposing team, rarely giving their opposition any chance to rebound back into the game. Cloud 9 would go on to have one of the most dominant splits in NA LCS history going an incredible 25-3 over the course of 28 games of the regular split, they then proceeded to not drop a single game in play-offs, making their total record for the split 30-3. Cloud 9 would then go on to be eliminated by Fnatic in a 2-1 series in the quarter finals of the 2013 World Championship hilariously leaving up Kassadin in the deciding game 3 despite the high priority that had been shown for the champion throughout the tournament. I remember hearing a Cloud 9 member explain their reasoning as to why this happened and it was because they thought that Fnatic wouldn't first pick Kassadin on blue side and so they (Cloud 9) would have the chance to first rotation Kassadin on red, these kind of brain blunders will haunt Cloud 9 fans in subsequent years. Unfortunately due to world's formatting at the time we only got the chance to see that iteration of Cloud 9 in that meta play three games against a single international opponent. My being 16 years old at the time and thus inexperienced in any kind of sports fandom, never having been a fan of traditional sports, made me take this loss extremely hard and ruined my mood for several days; juxtapose this to one of the most recent Cloud 9 failings against Team Liquid in the 2019 summer split play-offs final where, even in the deciding game 5 of that series, I never let myself think for a moment that Cloud 9 were likely to win. This feeling of jaded cynicism turned out to be well founded as the 5th game of that series was the most one sided in Team Liquid's favour.

My feelings of disillusionment with the Cloud 9 organization and their chances of ever truly being number one domestically I imagine will resonate with many other long time fans, which isn't to say that Cloud 9 haven't done some impressive things since their last domestic victory in the 2014 spring split. The international success of Cloud 9 is the envy of many other long-time North American organizations and it isn't far fetched to claim Cloud 9 as the best internationally performing North American organization of all time, as low of a bar as that might be; making it past the group stage in 5 out of 7 of their worlds appearances as well as being the only North American team ever to make it to a semi final, which they did in the 2018 World Championship. I'm also well aware that there are many other organizations that would love to just make it to a domestic final, something Cloud 9 has managed to do 8 times in 13 splits; I can see how complaining about the lack of Cloud 9 success might look to Dignitas and Golden Guardian fans like the runner up in a Miss America beauty pageant venting frustrations about her hideous appearance to a passel of bloated hogs laying in the mud. But how could a fan not be disheartened when their favourite team finishes second place six different times over as many years, it's getting comical at this point, it's as if I'm Charlie Brown falling for the same football trick, never learning, and having the football taken away only to fall face-first with my hopes dashed every year.

I say all of this to convey the sense of hunger for any kind of domestic success that a long time Cloud 9 fan has, which I'm sure is nothing compared to the hunger of those within the organization itself. I don't expect success and even actively predict against it but when it finally happens I'll be satisfied enough to practice celibacy for a month. It's now time to answer the question set up in the headline of this article. Can you be excited for the new 2020 Cloud 9 roster? When I ask this question I don't mean excited enough to make finals or worlds I mean excited enough to predict with confidence in the first Cloud 9 LCS trophy in 6 years. Are Licorice, Blaber, Nisqy, Zven and Vulcan the chosen ones? I'm cautiously optimistic. The level of utter dominance displayed by this current iteration of Cloud 9 harks back to the golden age of Balls, Meteos, Hai, Sneaky and Lemonnation; sitting at a perfect 10-0 record Cloud 9 have already gone undefeated in the first round robin of the LCS after the twitching corpse of CLG failed to reanimate itself into something resembling a professional League of Legends team last week. Cloud 9 have 159 kills, 44 deaths and have only lost 13 turrets in their 10 game stretch, never having lost the mid lane turret. Nisqy, Blaber and Zven have won player of the week and all that's left for Cloud 9 is to win another 8 games in a row for them to have the best split in NA LCS history. Watching Cloud 9 play against other LCS teams right now seems unfair, like watching Usain Bolt compete in the 100 metre dash against a quadriplegic turtle. Will any of this matter when it's time for play-offs however? Too often over the years we've seen regular season heroes unable to replicate the same success in a winner-take-all play-off scenario, most notably with the 2016 Immortals roster having an incredible 17-1 and 16-2 record in the spring and summer regular seasons respectively; despite Immortals routine regular season domination over the course of the entire year they failed to make a single finals appearance.

It would be remiss of me when speaking of Cloud 9's chances to win the split to not mention the 4-time reigning champions of LCS - Team Liquid. Liquid had their own roster changes, though not as radical as Cloud 9, coming into the new year replacing their long time jungler and 6 time North American champion Xmithie with ex-Fnatic member and 2 time European champion Broxah. The start of Liquid's year has been rather rocky so far, which can be expected considering their late start with developing any kind of team cohesion, Broxah having only arrived in North America in week 4 of the LCS. Even when accounting for their current 4-6 record if a time traveler quantum leaped from a couple months into the future to the present day and told me that Liquid wins the spring split I would be only mildly surprised. The pedigree and consistency of all the players on Liquid's roster make it so that I would still consider it an upset if they didn't at least make the finals of spring. I hope and believe that Liquid will keep improving and will become a formidable team come play-offs; my reasoning for hoping that a team will rise up and be able to challenge Cloud 9 is that right now Cloud 9 are suffering from the enviable position of being a big fish in a small pond, when compared to the rest of the league's dreadful play Cloud 9 is looking like a shark among minnows. I won't say that I wouldn't find it entertaining to watch Cloud 9 go 18-0 in the regular season and then crush play-offs, never encountering any resistance, but I do think that it wouldn't be in Cloud 9's best interests if that happened. It's best for the league generally and the top team specifically if there's competition within the top ranks. As of right now Cloud 9 win 90% of every skirmish, team-fight, objective contest and laning phase; this is all well and good and even something Cloud 9 can depend on when playing against the field in North America but I highly doubt things will stay the same when Cloud 9 competes internationally or faces an on-form Team Liquid in the play-offs. Having said this I don't think that this iteration of Cloud 9 is in any danger of becoming complacent, the ambition for victory coming from within the organization and players themselves leads me to believe that Cloud 9 will continue to try to improve even when the lack-luster competition of the moment doesn't demand it.

Why do I have faith that this Cloud 9 roster will be the ones to lift the spring split trophy? The bot lane. I loved Sneaky as much as any Cloud 9 fan did, and Sneaky is undoubtedly the second best North American AD carry of all time but after so many splits of failure it was clear that something needed to change. Zven's resurgence as a top tier player on Cloud 9 has been a joy to watch, he's the best AD carry that Cloud 9 have had since Sneaky in season 4 (Sneaky should have won the season 4 summer MVP but that's another story) and when accounting for the other half of the bot lane in Vulcan I feel like it's almost appropriate to say that this current bot lane pairing is the most mechanically gifted, aggressive and lane dominant bot lane that Cloud 9 has ever had, but I'll have to wait until I see them perform in a high-stakes situation first before bestowing that title. Seeing the introduction of such a powerful force on the bottom side of the map for Cloud 9 helps to explain their 93% drake control. For the last several years Cloud 9 have had to resort to playing around top or mid lane in the early game while bottom lane plays weak side, usually going either even or slightly behind while the team tries to press advantages elsewhere. Zven and Vulcan are a lane that you can absolutely play around as your win condition, the 40 KDA king Zven and his pocket Tahm Kench have had almost nothing but impressive games, their laning and team-fighting have been head and shoulders above any other bot lane in the league and their knowledge of where to be on the map is impeccable. I’d go as far as saying that the bottom lane is the strongest point on the map for Cloud 9, although you have to take into account all the help that Zven and Vulcan get from Blaber and the perma-roaming Nisqy credit must be given that when Zven and Vulcan do receive help they almost always deliver on the play being set up, usually having the push and health advantage on their opposing bot lane, making it a worthwhile investment for Cloud 9’s mid and jungle. If the spring finals ends up being a Cloud 9 vs. Team Liquid show down then Doublelift won’t be able to rely on a “Sneaky in lane” win condition.

Cloud 9 has their best chance in years to win domestically and make their first MSI appearance (as long as the event still manages to occur with the global travel and large-gathering restrictions being put in place to combat the coronavirus; It can also be said that Cloud 9 did appear at the 2014 All-Stars event which was essentially the first MSI). Blaber, as overaggressive as he can be sometimes, is having a field day in the early game playing with his winning lanes and he has the mechanics to make it so that even when he does put himself in a compromising position he can sometimes find his way out of it through the sheer virtue of having better fingers. Nisqy is communicating with Blaber and roaming around the map getting his team advantages wherever he can. Licorice has been winning most of his lanes and looks in sync with the rest of the team when it comes to coordinating teleport plays. Zven and Vulcan are the solid foundation of the team, providing the basis for Cloud 9’s overwhelming objective control. For as good of a coach as Repeared is, winning coach of the split 3 different times, collecting the award once every year since 2017, he is still yet to lead any of his North American rosters to a domestic title. Cloud 9 are on form, with an upgraded bot lane, with a good read on the meta and they have every reason to want to continue their current momentum into a championship title. The Cloud 9 staff are hungry, their players are hungry, and they’re on their way to starving out the rest of the pack in LCS.