After suffering embarrassing 0-4 defeats in the semifinals at Overwatch APEX Season 4, both Cloud9 Kongdoo and NC Foxes sought redemption. Unfortunately, the 0-4 trend continued and Fortune swept C9K sweeping NC Foxes.
Map 1: Ilios (Control)
Map 2: Numbani (Assault/Escort)
Map 3: Horizon Lunar Colony (Assault)
Map 4: Dorado (Escort)
Ilios showed a troubled C9K. In the recent weeks there've been some scandals and controversies from some of its players, leading to a possible explanation behind the disjointed play. Choi "Bdosin" Seung-tae played off of his usual rhythm and sometimes Kim "birdring" Ji-hyuk just never showed what made him an excellent DPS player on Ilios. C9K still won the map, but it was much closer than it should have been.
After Ilios, maybe it was the long pause for NC Foxes' PC issue or maybe it was just getting its nerves together, but the players on C9K were able to recollect their bearings and give NC Foxes the thrashing people were expecting them to give. Numbani exposed a lot of the weaknesses the Foxes had that were mostly hidden throughout APEX by fighting some of the weaker opponents. The biggest exploit? Simply its inexperience as a newer team.
On Numbani, NC Foxes failed to finish the map, whereas C9K beat it with plenty of time leftover. On Horizon Lunar Colony, the Foxes were held off the second point, but C9K bulldozed its defenses with almost five minutes leftover on the clock. Birdring's Tracer shined despite not playing the hero well at the beginning of the series, and Kim "Rascal" Dong-jun was the anchor that kept the team together through the earlier maps, and the driving point forward for the rest of the series. On top of that, Baek "Fissure" Chan-hyung played an excellent Winston in the second half of the series, able to disrupt the flow of NC Foxes further than its norm.
These players continued to shine on Dorado, crushing the Foxes in the timebank stage. One play even features birdring flying out of the offensive gate and sniping Kim "E1kiNo" Geun-hyeong the second the timebank stage started. Despite the rough opening of the series, C9K achieve a relatively easy 4-0 over Foxes and claim the 3rd place spot for itself.