Team Liquid secured a spot in the semifinals of the North American League Championship Series Spring Split playoffs with a commanding 3-0 sweep over Cloud9 on Saturday.
A rematch of last Saturday's Week 9 bout, Cloud9 certainly appeared to learn from its mistakes in the early portion of Game 1. With superior rotations and objective control, Cloud9 found itself up 7,000 gold. The quick start was thanks to jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen, whose Sejuani picked up numerous early kills and dragons.
That was the extent of the Cloud9's success throughout the entire series, though. Team Liquid continued to scale with its late-game composition and bided its time until an eventual back-door Nexus opportunity arose. Mid laner Eugene "Pobelter" Park used his Ryze ultimate and end the game while Cloud9 was distracted at Elder Dragon.
Team Liquid switched up its strategy in Game 2, picking a surprise Singed that paid off massively. Just two minutes into the game, top laner Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong was ganked but turned things around by picking up two kills for the team in exchange for a single death. Team Liquid learned from its early mistakes in the previous game, working as a unit during the mid game to take several favorable fights and earn the win in much more convincing fashion.
Game 3 was a much more back-and-forth affair as Cloud9 pulled out all the stops in an attempt to begin a reverse-sweep. Unlike the previous games, Team Liquid found itself ahead in the early game, forcing Cloud9 to show its ability to play from behind. With the series on the line, Cloud9 navigated an early gold disadvantage expertly, picking multiple fights and stalling things out until the late game. This allowed AD carry Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi to pick up a quadra kill on Ezreal immediately following an uncontested Baron take from Team Liquid. The bumbled teamfight ended up being a momentary setback, as Team Liquid quickly regrouped and forced a final teamfight which saw an expert engage from Pobelter's Azir shatter Cloud9's hopes at a semifinal berth. With back-to-back teamfights under its belt, Team Liquid claimed a swift 40-minute game victory.
Team Liquid will square off with either Echo Fox or 100 Thieves next weekend, depending on the outcome of Sunday's match between Team SoloMid and Clutch Gaming, while Cloud9 will begin preparations for the Summer Split where a ticket to the World Championship is at stake.