Liquid LoL enters the Gauntlet

The dust has settled on the Air Canada Center and the 2016 season of the NA LCS has come to a close. With TSM hoisting the trophy for the fourth time in the organization's long history, they have secured their spot in the 2016 World Championship along with Spring Split victors Counter Logic Gaming. Only one slot remains and it’s do or die for the remaining NA hopefuls looking for a shot at the Summoner’s Cup.

This weekend, the Regional Qualifier (aptly referred to as “The Gauntlet”) kicks off with with a three match bracket of increasing seed, and worlds qualification to the winner. Playoffs second and third place finishers Cloud9 and Immortals are certainly the favorites going into the tournament, but if there’s anything to learn from last year's miracle gauntlet run by Cloud9 themselves, it’s that anything can happen at this point in the competition.

Team Liquid needs a performance of similar proportion. They enter the weekend as the third seed after falling short in playoffs with a sub-curse fifth-place finish. Liquid became a question mark for many after inconsistencies plagued the roster in the Spring Split. The team’s fifth place finish and 9-9 regular season record is not bad by any means, but with a roster that has shown so much promise this year in their rookie core of Sam “Lourlo” Jackson, Joshua “Dardoch” Hartnett, and Matthew “Matt” Elento, the team fell short of their potential.

At this point, the team is left with nothing to lose—a strong force in high-pressure competition. With Lyonel “Arcsecond” Pfaender as a last minute sub in the jungle, and brand new ADC Phil “Jynthe” Vu, the Gauntlet means either an underdog worlds qualification, or more time to tighten up for next year’s season—Liquid charges on regardless.

The Gauntlet sports the most unforgiving format in League of Legends. With a double bye for first seed and a single bye for second, Liquid’s worlds qualifying performance would be three best of five victories over the span of three days. A huge nine games are the absolute minimum needed for Liquid to claim victory, and that is only in the event of a perfect bracket sweep. Team Liquid has three opponents standing between them and worlds qualification: Team EnVyUs, Cloud 9, and Immortals.

Against nV, Liquid is slightly favored going in having 2-0’d them in their last regular season match. On top of this, nV showed poor play during the majority of their quarterfinal loss to Cloud 9. Liquid must shut down nV’s top lane leader Shin “Seraph” Woo-yeong, as well as hold composure against any cheese picks they may encounter, after mid laner Noh “Ninja” Geon-woo pulled out both Jayce and Pantheon in their set against Cloud 9.

Victory over nV on Saturday puts Team Liquid up against second place finisher Cloud9. C9 is arguably the strongest team in the gauntlet and Team Liquid’s toughest opponent of the weekend. It will take a lot for Liquid to come out on top as C9’s performance has been steadily increasing since playoffs began. It will be up to Lourlo and Liquid mid laner Kim “Fenix” Jae-hoon to keep Cloud 9’s Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong and Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen (their respective lane opponents) from controlling the pace of the game. Impact especially has come back to his world champion form over playoffs with several star performances on meta picks like Ekko and Gnar.

The final boss of the gauntlet is Immortals. The team is a favorite to take North America’s third worlds seed even after a repeat failure to translate regular season success into playoffs. As with Cloud 9, Immortals will be a great challenge for Liquid to overcome, with a strong roster top to bottom. The focus will once again fall largely in the top lane as Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon has historically been the deciding factor in both the wins and losses for the team. His extremely inconsistent and often sporadic play is certainly a weakness for the team, but his high points can’t be overlooked either. It will be up to Lourlo once again to hold down the pressure from the top lane for Team Liquid.

All bets are off for Team Liquid going into the NA Regional Qualifier on Saturday. After an up and down season, last minute roster swaps, and a rough playoff performance, the team will be searching for an upset or two as they make their way through the gauntlet. It will come down to both the team’s ability to pull together in a short time and their stamina to keep it together as they stand at the foot of three consecutive days of play. While worlds qualification would be an incredible feat for Liquid, it’s not off the table—the team will be locking in this Saturday, September 3rd, ready to go against Team EnVyUs