North America's hopes are dead as Samsung Galaxy 3-0's Cloud9 at the 2016 League of Legends World Championships
Samsung Galaxy showed exactly why they have emerged as a tournament favorite at the first day of the 2016 League of Legends World Championships quarterfinals by crushing Cloud9 — and North America’s hopes — in swift, 3-0 fashion. Next week, they’ll play the winner of H2K vs. Albus NoX Luna.
Game 1 was an outright stomp, with SSG rolling early execution mistakes from Cloud9 into a 28-minute victory. Game 2 was significantly closer, with C9 keeping up with the Korean roster until a massive teamfight at the Baron pit saw their members struck down. From there, same story as Game 1, with Samsung pushing their advantage to an easy victory.
It wasn’t until Game 3 that Cloud9 was able to gain an advantage. William “Meteos” Harman pulled out his signature Zac, blowing Flashes across the map. Unfortunately, they rarely turned into kills, and Samsung held on through the pressure to get tanky enough and run down the carries of Cloud9.
While C9 was never really considered a strong contender on the Worlds stage, teams from around the world now have to be looking at Samsung Galaxy as a threat for the Summoner’s Cup. Mid laner Lee “Crown” Min-ho was expected to play well, but the stellar engages of top laner Lee “CuVee” Seong-jin stole the show. Meanwhile, support Jo “Core JJ” Yong-in is proving his worth on a multitude of champions after swapping to the role earlier this year. AD carry Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk has shown no nerves at his first international tournament, likely helped along by the veteran leadership of jungler Kang “Ambition” Chan-yong.
Watch out, rest of the world, Samsung Galaxy is coming.
Taylor Cocke is crying into his apple pie. Follow him on Twitter @taylorcocke.
