Cloud9 certainly impressed Sunday in its 2-0 sweep of Echo Fox on Week 2, Day 3 of the North American League of Legends Championship Series, picking up both the longest and fastest wins of the Summer Split in Los Angeles.
Echo Fox (2-2, 5-4 match record) took an early lead in Game 1, but constant back-and-forth fighting kept things relatively even into the mid game. Cloud9's teamfighting composition required time to scale up, giving Echo Fox a window in which its pick comp could take over the game. When the team needed a playmaker, EF turned to mid laner Henrik "Froggen" Hansen's LeBlanc, who dealt massive damage and was a huge splitpushing threat. After securing a Baron at 26 minutes, Cloud9 (2-2, 5-4 match record) did what it could to stem the EF tides, but Froggen's pressure on the backline was too much to deal with. Things were going great for Echo Fox, who looked poised to take Game 1, but then its historic late-game woes returned. Unable to make proactive plays and unsure what to do in the late game, Echo Fox squandered its lead, going so far as to knock down C9's Nexus turrets before Cloud9 took control in an hour long Game 1, eventually scaling up and taking down Echo Fox in 61 minutes.
Echo Fox found another early lead into Game 2, mostly on the back of substitute jungler Jonathan "Grig" Armao's Lee Sin. Grig's early pressure gave Echo Fox a distinct tempo advantage, allowing EF's pick comp to rotate around the map and take relatively free towers. Crisp rotations made it appear as though Echo Fox's horrendous shotcalling late in Game 1 was a thing of the past, but, like all things Echo Fox, hope quickly turned into bitter disappointment. In what most would consider an unnecessarily risky move, Echo Fox attempted a Baron kill at 21 minutes while all of C9 was healthy and nearby. Cloud9 slaughtered Echo Fox with a 3-for-0 teamfight, taking the Baron kill and swinging momentum violently in its favor. Pushing down the mid lane, Cloud9 rendered Echo Fox's meager attempts at base defense useless, taking the fastest game of the Summer Split in 23 minutes to close out a comically tragic 2-0 sweep.
Echo Fox will hope to shake this loss off on Friday with a series against Team EnVyUs at 9 p.m. ET, and Cloud9 prepares to take on Immortals at 3 p.m. ET on Saturday.