I am a Cloud 9 fan. I have the shirt, I watch every game, I know all of the players by name, I have memorized their favorite champions to play, hell, I can even tell you the way they behave during champion select. These are my guys.

I’m not part of the selfie culture. I am not good at this.

I enjoyed watching the team play this past summer split, even though some of it was painful. Something wasn’t clicking and the whole switching out Impact and Ray, definitely was only making matters worse. Plus that completely killed my fantasy league team…. So there’s that.

All of a sudden, in comes the changes for the NA LCS and completely flip flops everything. Teams were dismantled, new teams were created, and the pros were basically thrown everywhere.

Source: Giphy

For C9, that means Impact, Ray, and rookie Contractz are out... Svenskeren and Licorice are in. This mix up has me extremely optimistic for this next Split, but it is sad to see these guys leave the team in a way.

Source: http://c9sneaksen.tumblr.com

So first let’s talk really quick about the three that survived the “Great League Purge of 2017”. Specifically on Cloud 9, because I really don’t care about anyone else (I promise I’ll talk about others later...maybe). I like to call these the “Core Three,” because let’s be honest, they’re the core of the team. There’s a reason they are still there. They are at the top of the stats charts.

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Jensen, mid laner, in the Summer Split regular season had a KDA of 8.7 and a Kill Participation of 78.2%. He tops the stat charts. This guy is a powerhouse, period.

Source: Youtube

Sneaky, ADC, had a KDA of 5.0 and Kill Participation of 69.7%. This kid can’t be stopped. He is a force on the Rift.

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Smoothie, Support, has a KDA 5.1 and a Kill Participation of 77.3%. He has the highest stats for a support player (based on last year). He is, in my opinion, the best support in NA. (Of course, I feel the same about all of these 3. They prove themselves again and again.)

Source: youtube

So now, who got purged…… and who replaced them?
Contractz was considered one of the best players on the team at the time of worlds, however my personal opinion was that he didn’t fit the play style of Jensen. While there were some super impressive plays, but something wasn’t meshing.

Source: Youtube

Insert Svenskeren here. He has been to 4 finals in NA, has claimed 3 of those with 1st place titles, is a Rift Rival champ, has had 2 Worlds appearances, and he’s only been in the NA LCS for two years.In Summer Split regular season his KDA was 3.2 and his Kill Participation was at an impressive 70.4%. Despite all of his success and solid stats, he always felt like the weakest link of TSM. I believe it isn’t his skill level that caused the problem, but the style of play and shotcalling with TSM (even though I do enjoy watching Bjergsen whenever C9 isn’t playing.) Some people would call his style “risky,” I think it’s aggressive. His stats may not be that different from Contractz, but I have a really good feeling about the duo of Jensen and Svenskeren. Sometimes it doesn’t always pay to be aggressive, however, whenever you have a mid lane like Jensen, the possibilities are through the roof. Their styles will pair well together and I can’t wait to watch them eat their way through every team this next split.

Impact and Ray were never a pair that you could be sure of. They both had their less than perfect games, and the constant switching seemed to throw the whole team synergy off. Impact’s stats (KDA 3.3 and Kill Participation 58.3%) and Ray’s (KDA 2.9 and Kill Participation 64.0%), while not terrible, didn’t do too much to help the team. “Sword and Shield” they might have tried to be, but the dual top lane system just didn’t work out.

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Youtube - LoL Esports

Rounding off the team at top now will be Licorice. He recently played for eUnited in the challenger series. While he hasn’t played above challenger yet, there are high hopes for this newcomer. Plus, having one guy consistently in the top will really get the boys working together better. His stats may not be topping the charts and almost identical to Impact (KDA 3.1 and Kill Participation 56.4%), but fresh blood in Top may be what has been missing. Can we get another “Rookie of the Split” for C9? I’m excited to find out.

So with all this being said, it’s now time for everyone to learn the Cloud 9 chant, because my boys are going to wreck this Split.

Let’s go C9 clap clap clapclapclap