The 2023 LCS Summer Split has entered its final week of the regular season. While the bottom teams are giving their all to secure a playoff spot, the fight at the top of the table is also similarly intense. Cloud9 faced off against their kryptonite NRG on July 19 and the match was a treat to watch for every League of Legends fan.
In Overwatch 2, the term “C9” refers to a situation where a squad fails to be on the payload while the enemy team is far away from the fight. With the clock counting down to the final moments, players remain distracted or far from the payload, making it impossible to reach it within the remaining time. This results in a loss—even though there was no real danger pushing the enemy off the payload.
A similar instance happened with Cloud9 during their second match against NRG.
Despite getting an early first blood kill and gaining a 1,500 gold lead in the early game, C9’s momentum slowed down as the match progressed further. NRG secured a narrow win over them in the fight for the first Baron and the match started slipping away from C9’s favor from that moment.
C9 were still able to halt the enemy’s Nexus push in the 35th minute and ace NRG to get the final fighting chance for the Elder Dragon. It was here Cloud9 committed a “C9” by leaving their Nexus largely exposed while four members of the team focused completely on securing the objective.
C9’s mid-laner EMENES was the only one left on Nexus guarding duty. But unfortunately, he faced Palafox, the most fed player from NRG, and was granted a swift death. It allowed Palafox to walk unhindered into C9’s base and destroy the Nexus after taking down the two defending turrets.
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Although the remaining four C9 players managed to secure the Elder Dragon, they stayed back to wipe out NRG players unaware of their own impending doom. By the time they had started recalling to defend their Nexus, it was already too late.
The manner in which C9 lost the game was summed up perfectly by Twitter user sen_ebooks. “The spirit of C9 truly transcends games,” they said.
After this loss, Cloud9 now share first place at the LCS table with Golden Guardians. Their next match against TSM begins at 5pm CT on July 20.
