One team preaches League of Legends stability, and the other is wildly unpredictable. In the second quarterfinal of the opening week in the North America League Championship Series playoffs on Sunday, two-time league champion Counter Logic Gaming will look to make a third consecutive domestic semifinal when it heads in as favorites versus the remnants of the old Cloud9 starting lineup on rookie organization FlyQuest.
It has been an average season for CLG. While other clubs made brash offseason maneuvers to move up in the hierarchy of the league, the former champion held firm, entering the 2017 spring split with the same roster as last year. After becoming the first NA team to make a major Riot-sponsored international tournament final at the Mid-Season Invitational in Shanghai, and winning the league in the spring of that year, the team was abruptly swept away by TSM in the summer playoffs.
CLG's status this season has been for the most part in the middle of the pack. The team would rebound from an embarrassing loss to a low-ranked team with a surprising win over a top-end squad. Then the reverse would occur. And again and so forth until the team found itself at the end of the season in fourth place -- just below the top three teams in the league (TSM, C9 and Phoenix1).
But here we are now in the postseason where an aimless regular season can be forgotten in a day's work, and this group of CLG players know how to win in the NA LCS playoffs. FlyQuest, though the underdog, poses a threat unlike any other this iteration of CLG has come across in the elimination rounds.
"I hate playing FlyQuest," said Counter Logic Gaming's captain Zaqueri "Aphromoo" Black. "Hai likes to go for 50/50 shot calls, and you're either forced to make a decision, or -- [like] most teams they played against early in the split -- not make a decision at all."
FlyQuest didn't have a ho-hum season -- anything but. When Cloud9 Academy was announced to become FlyQuest, expectations were low. Avoiding regulation would be a successful first season. The starting lineup included a trio of the former C9 squad that won two LCS titles in their heyday, an AD carry with up-and-down past results, and a jungler who failed to make any sort of impact in his rookie year as a professional.
The team smashed those preconceived notions, however, jumping out to a first half that the Milwaukee Bucks' brass, the owners of FlyQuest, could only dream of when they bought their spot in the NA LCS. Hai "Hai" Lam, the former leader of the championship C9 teams, was playing like his old self with an innovative and daring style that had the team challenging for the top spot in the league at the end of the first half of the split.
Every series was an adventure with FlyQuest. You never know what they would pick as their champions or what composition they might have come up with in the mad scientist lab of their team house. And though some picks didn't have the effect they hoped -- maybe it isn't the best time to use Shaco in the jungle -- the overall record was firmly in the positive for FlyQuest, and the team was delighting crowds while also rocketing up the standings.
"The only thing I'm worried about is their cheese picks," said Aphromoo. "So hopefully they don't whip out Mordekaiser, Blitzcrank, Brand, Shaco -- oh my god, [even] Evelynn."
Unfortunately for FlyQuest, the good times didn't last forever. By the time the season came to a close, the club had made the playoffs by the skin of its teeth, narrowly beating relegated (and since re-promoted) Team Liquid 2-1 to secure its position in the field of six. The charismatic play became more of a running gag, the differing selections of champions now looked at more as a desperation move than anything ingenious. And Hai's 50/50 shot-calling around Baron -- which got FlyQuest out to plenty of leads in the first part of the season -- was now also seen as a last-ditch effort. The team needed that early advantage in the mid-game to have any chance in the end portions of the battle.
There is no question who the long shot is coming into this postseason. Out of the six playoff teams, five have shown in the second half of the season that they can leave the month of April as domestic champions and head into May representing the region at MSI in Brazil. FlyQuest is the odd man out.
A team that has been counted out before it even played its first pro match, starting jungler Galen "Moon" Holgate still believes FlyQuest can pull off the most stylish heist of the championship trophy in league history.
"We 2-0'ed CLG early in the split, and then they 2-0'ed us, so not really sure how it's going to go." Moon said. "But if we [can] get back to form like how we were at the beginning of the split, we're confident against every team."
If FlyQuest wants to pull off the major upset and book its ticket to Vancouver for at least the third-place match, Moon will need to be a main factor. Of the starting players on the team, Moon has had the biggest ascent as an individual talent, pairing up with Hai to form a one-two punch that was essential to a majority of FLY's wins throughout the split.
"I don't think the fan criticism affected us at all," said Moon. "But obviously [losing and] going 1-7 or 1-8 affected us."
A win for FlyQuest would be one of the bigger upsets in the history of the NA LCS playoffs. A win for CLG, a team that has become one of the "Big 3" of the league the past two years, would keep the status quo with the trio of CLG, TSM, and C9 -- the only teams to make the postseason finals since summer 2013 -- and give us a matchup between either CLG and C9 or another chapter in the CLG/TSM rivalry.
This quarterfinal matchup will take place on Sunday at 3 p.m. ET from the LCS Arena in Los Angeles.