NALCS Summer Spilt 2019 Week Nine Recap

S. Samek

The NALCS concluded it’s summer spilt matches during week nine. It was an exciting week with playoff spots on the line and seedings to earn. Lets see what went down.

For our 2-0 teams this week we have Clutch, Cloud 9 and team Liquid. Clutch took out 100 Thieves and Golden Guardians. These were big wins as they earned Clutch a spot in the playoffs outright instead of playing in a tie-breaker.

Team Liquid took revenge for an earlier in the spilt loss to Echo Fox then downed TSM. The TSM match was fun to watch as they played a composition based on TFT glacial and still won in easy fashion.

Cloud 9 defeated Golden Guardians and Optic. These team weren’t really a challenge for C9. Heck against Optic they racked up 24 kills. It was what you expect from a Cloud 9 squad that has looked farly consistent between both spilts as a top 2-3 team.

Speaking of Optic and Golden Guardians they both went 0-2 teams for the week. It really hurt them to have 0-2 weeks as they were looking to earn playoff spots. Optic struggled against CLG as well as Cloud 9. Golden Guardians didn’t look good aginst Cloud nine before they lost a heart breaker to Clutch that might have put them in the playoffs instead of Clutch outright. More to come on these two teams in a bit.

Flyquest also went 0-2 this week with losses to Echo Fox and TSM. They finished ninth this split. They could make still make the gauntlet ,but don’t expect much with how bad they played during the split

Then of course you have the 1-1 cluster. TSM, 100 Thieves, CLG and Echo Fox.

TSM got beat by Liquid after beating Flyquest. They finished 10-8, yet they don’t seem as strong as advertised.

100 Thieves lost to Clutch in a match that really would have helped their playoff chances. Then they made things difficult by beating CLG. The crushed CLG and showed why they deserved a playoff spot. Yet they just missed on qualifying and had to enter into a tie breaker series.

CLG defeated Optic to pair with the loss to 100 Thieves. This set up a tie breaker with Cloud 9 for the second seed. They don’t look that bad, but the loss to 100 Thieves could be a bit of a negative towards the confidence.

Echo Fox was all about ending on a high note. They defeated Flyquest after a loss to Liquid. The seasons over for them,but at least the finished with a win.

Now for the bonus. We had tie breakers with the second seed and a playoff spot still on the line.

100 Thieves and Optic went first. Optic won this game to eliminate 100 Thieves and advance to play Golden Guardians. Then they dispatched Golden Guardians to make the playoffs.

Cloud 9 then defeated CLG to earn the second seed in the playoffs.

So there you have it the six teams are all set for the playoffs. Stay tuned to see what happens and who wins the spilt and who earns the spots for worlds.