Cloud9 bounces back to dominate Dignitas, 100 Thieves in Week 2
After three consecutive defeats in Week 1, Cloud 9 bounced back in Week 2 to break its humiliating 0-3 record over the Newark-based Dignitas on June 26 and 100 Thieves on the following day. The team’s back-to-back win has propelled C9 to No. 5 in the 2022 LCS Summer Split standings.
Hitting two wins in Week 2 means that C9 is back on track. Also, the team’s two experienced rosters, namely mid-laner Kim “Berserker” Min-cheol and support Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen, have finally returned after they missed the action in the previous week due to passports and COVID-19 issues.
C9’s newfound strat, performance this far
Both Berserker and Zven demonstrated a decent play to keep C9 in the competition — considering it was the first time for Zven to play support. The duo’s endeavor was more than enough to assist C9’s trio comprising top-laner Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami, jungler Robert “Blaber” Huang, and mid-laner Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen to win the game.
Jensen ended up picking his signature champion, LeBlanc, for the 45th time in his career against Dignitas. Compared to any other champions he has played before, Jensen holds the highest KDA and win rate with LeBlanc — and this proved to be a sensible choice as C9 dominated the match.
Moreover, to some extent, the absence of Berserker and Zven greatly limited the team in the previous week. C9 was forced to roll in two academy players, support Mitchell “Destiny” Shaw and bot-laner Calvin “k1ng” Truong as replacements.
Other than the absence of Berserker and Zven, the team’s weak performance in Week 1 might be due to the team trying to acclimate itself, as C9 employed Fudge back to his position as top-laner after playing mid-laner in this year’s Spring Split. On the other hand, Jensen was only signed to the team in May after C9 released South Korean top-laner Park “Summit” Woo-tae to FunPlus Phoenix.
C9’s tournaments this year
Looking back on how C9 was only able to finish in the top-four positions in three tournaments this year — two of which were when Summit was still playing — it might be safe to assume the team’s front office wanted the crew to perform better.
Since Summit was only hired in November last year, the South Korean pro helped C9 snatch its second position in this year’s LCS Spring. Only to have the team conceded once again to Evil Geniuses 3-0 in the Spring Playoffs, resulting in them being placed fourth. The exact same event happened when C9 was defeated by EG 3-0 in the 2022 LCS Lock-In in January.
Now that C9 has finally found its rhythm, the team is eyeing to have a rematch against this year’s arch-nemesis, the Seattle-based EG, in the Summer Split. However, Fudge and co. still have a long way to go to take on standings No. 2 EG or its fellow top-three teams, such as No. 1 Counter Logic Gaming as well as Team Liquid, which have demonstrated stellar performance of 4-1 win-loss record and a whopping 80 percent win rate ahead of Week 3.
