Cloud9 take home the 2022 LCS Championship following a 100 Thieves sweep
Cloud9 took home the 2022 League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Championship trophy after they dominantly swept 100 Thieves who were on their third LCS finals visit in the last two years.
Amongst all the chitter chatter of the upper echelon teams such as Team Liquid's super team, Evil Geniuses' possible two-peat, and 100 Thieves' high-end dominance, one of the LCS' highly touted dynasty teams, Cloud9, sat idly by waiting for their moment to shine. At first, this moment went as fast as it came in the form of the 2022 LCS Spring Split where the team not only performed one of their patented dominant Cloud9 Springs but did so in style with an MVP-winning top laner in Park "Summit" Woo-tae.
It didn't last long as in everyone's eyes - LCS watchers and theirs - the moment faded too quickly. Demonstrably failing come playoff time in the Spring, Cloud9 were dismantled when it counted by the hands of the team they just beat in the 2022 LCS Championship, 100 Thieves. They put all the eggs in the Summit basket was figured out and suddenly they were back to the drawing board.
That's when, after thinking long and hard, the team went on to make some significant changes that not only were unexpected but ended up proving to be the most fruitful… Cue the re-joining of former mid-laner, Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen and the return of AD Carry now support, Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen.
With two new, or in this case old, members in its roster and a return of Ibrahim "Fudge" Allami in the top lane, this Cloud9 team didn't perform well in the Summer regular season. But come to the LCS Championship, that was all thrown out the window. It all ended how it started, with pure dominance, capturing their fourth title.
This championship victory came off of the back of none other than AD Carry Kim "Berserker" Min-cheol. Cloud9 went all in on his play drafting around him with picks such as Kennen, and Zilean, giving him the opportunity to shine. But it wasn't just the marksmen, every Cloud9 member from top to bottom was just as dominant as the sweep itself, from Fudge to jungler Robert "Blaber" Huang, the team's members were miles ahead of their opposition.
100 Thieves, didn't stand a chance, offbeat engages, poor macro and team play, disconnected team fighting, and Cloud9 were ahead every step of the way. If the Thieves attempted to create some momentum or advantageous state, Cloud9 already had sniffed it out - complete dominance. It was all top off by Bersker nearly netting himself a Pentakill to end the final game of the series until Zven decided to steal it away.
With this LCS Championship result, Jensen finally broke his curse of never bringing Cloud9 a title, Berserker earned his first, Zven showcased to be a powerful support player, Blaber continued to show why he's on the top 10 LCS all-time player list, and Fudge got to continue to trash talk.
On 100 Thieves' side, this is now yet another finals sweep in their record books. Unfortunately for them, it's now the third one in which they lose in essentially record-breaking time. It seemed like this was theirs to take as after they got revenge on Evil Geniuses from their 2022 LCS Spring finals loss to qualify for the grand final, they were unable to even muster up a fight.
Cloud9's win over 100 Thieves has put them in Group A of 2022 League of Legends World Championship where they will face off against Korea's T1 and China's EDward Gaming in what will be yet another chapter in the Cloud9 vs T1 and EDG saga. As for 100 Thieves, they've been slotted in D, a group that look to be dominated by Korea's number one seed, Gen.G. Both groups await their fourth team following the Play-In Stage.
