The Ultimate Dark Horse vs Uncrowned Kings

[Mary C]

Cloud9 vs Beyond Gaming  

 

C9: 

Top - Fudge 

Jungle - Blaber 

Mid - Perkz 

Bot - Zven 

Support - Vulcan 

 

Beyond Gaming: 

Top - Liang 

Jungle - Husha 

Mid - Husky/Maoan 

Bot - Doggo 

Support - TNS 

 

The Ultimate Dark Horse vs Uncrowned Kings 

by: Barney Cruz

Worlds are less than a week away, and the groups for the play-ins have been confirmed. Apart from the usual favorites Hanwha Life Esports, LNG Esports, and Cloud9, there is another emerging competitor: Beyond Gaming. The PCS's second seed will play in Group B, and their prospects of advancing are quite good.  

Let us begin by discussing Beyond Gaming (BYG). Following a strong spring, BYG fell behind PSG Talon once again in the summer. This time, though, they were forced to fight harder: a tiebreaker against Machi Esports earned them second place. Despite their inferior record, their playoff run was decisive. Not only because of Doggo, but also because other players improved their game. While the squad is required to compete in the play-in rounds, they were able to avoid both HLE and LNG in their group. In general, this is a better situation, as the only actual danger is Cloud9. They possess the capability and ability to challenge C9, and it will be fascinating to see how these two teams do against one another.  

 

On the other hand, Cloud 9 (C9) must compete in play-ins to secure a spot in the group stage. At this stage of the competition, the meta is frequently shaped, thus it's beneficial for the squad to play the first official games on the next tournament patch. They automatically qualify for the main tournament group stage if they finish first in their play-in group. Beyond Gaming and Cloud9 will battle it out for first place in group B. Winning versus the PCS would almost certainly assure them of the group's top ranking (barring major upsets of course). 

 

Cloud9 has an extremely talented roster to take on each team they’ll face. One of the biggest playmakers in the team is Ibrahim ‘Fudge’ Allami. Since joining Cloud9, he has been destroying each matchup he has on the top lane through sheer laning power alone. And if we’re talking about buffs to Cloud9, we can’t leave Perkz out of the conversation. Luka ‘Perkz’ Perković a top-tier mid laner that made it to the finals and semifinals of Worlds. Perkz has never come up short when it comes to the big stage, he’s shown how strong and unbothered he can be even when up against the big names like RNG in Worlds 2018 while playing Leblanc and against SKT in Worlds 2019 while playing Yasuo. Perkz is the backbone of the success of Cloud9, even when down 0-2 is when he pops off the most, the Perkz Comfort Zone. We’ll surely expect Perkz to put up an outstanding play against Beyond Gaming this Tuesday.   

 

On the other hand, Beyond Gaming or BYG is a team that heavily relies on their ADC, Chiu “Doggo” Tzu-Chuan. Ever since joining BYG, Doggo fitted in and was able to showcase strong performances as BYG is a team who likes to funnel their resources into their ADC. Last August 27, BYG finished behind PSG Talon again, after losing in the finals against PSG 2-3, BYG showed huge potential as Mid Laner Chien “Maoan” Mao-An and Jungler Huang “HuSha” Zi-Wei had incredible performances and surprised everyone as many people were sleeping on them. Husha’s Xin Zhao and Viego matches well in today's meta because of his aggressive play style and strong mechanics. 

 

Cloud9 is one of the favorites to win the whole play-ins but because of Beyond Gaming’s young roster, they are undoubtedly the biggest dark horse of the whole play-ins. This matchup should result in Cloud9 as the match winner with Perkz on their side.  

 

Beyond Gaming has the required skills and talent to face a Tier 1 team like Cloud9, will they upset the NA Powerhouse Cloud9 or will the pressure get to them leading to their own fall? Cloud9 vs Beyond Gaming will face off this October 6, 11:00 pm (GMT +8).