C9 Jack calls out LCS for bad Player of the Week awards

William Davis Published 22/06/2020

Cloud9 owner Jack Etienne is not happy with the Player of the Week awards in the 2020 LCS Summer Split.

At the end of the weekend’s LCS broadcast, FlyQuest jungler Lucas “Santorin” Larsen received the Player of the Week award. FlyQuest finished the weekend with two victories and is now tied in second place with Evil Geniuses, Counter Logic Gaming, and Team Liquid. In week one, the award went to Evil Genuises’ mid laner Daniele “Jiizuke” di Mauro

Congratulations to @Santorin of @FlyQuest on winning the @MastercardNexus Player of the Week for week two of the 2020 #LCS Summer Split! #FLYWIN pic.twitter.com/eVTyAQw50g
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) June 21, 2020

C9’s Jack Etienne took on Twitter to share his opinion on the award.

“I’m convinced the Player of the Week awards is some sort of participation award vs actually being awarded to the best players in the league,” Jack wrote on Twitter.

Maybe you only win if you’re out there shoving IMT and TSM into lockers?
— Jack Etienne (@JackEtienne) June 21, 2020

C9 is the only team undefeated so far in the LCS and everything indicates that it will remain at the top of the league for the foreseeable future. LCS caster Isaac “Azael” Cummings Bentley joined the conversation, trying to explain the reasoning behind the Player of the Week award.

“Best player in the league award is 1st team all pro, which C9 had 5/5 members on! Player of the week is meant to be best player over that 2-game stretch, and even though C9 is clearly the #1 team atm the individual players don’t always put 2 incredible games back to back!” Azael wrote.

System will never be perfect, but I do think that the best team doesn’t automatically equal the most impressive individual performance each week.
If Blaber had a better Trundle game today I think he was easy POTW vote, or Licorice better on Jayce yesterday would be too! — Isaac CB (@RiotAzael) June 22, 2020

While Azael’s argument is valid, someone pointed out that C9’s support Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme finished the weekend with a 2-0-26 record, a perfect KDA. Santorin wasn’t even close to a perfect KDA.

Is the Player of the Week award rigged against Cloud9?

In the spring, Cloud9 walked away with every seasonal award including all five spots on the first-team All-Pro team. Cloud9 finished the regular season with a 17-1 record and only dropped one game in three series in the playoffs, making for a combined 35-2 record.

In the summer, Cloud9 is looking like it might repeat that feat since no other team can seemingly challenge it. According to C9’s ADC Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen, Team Liquid is the only team that is looking strong of those they’ve played or practiced against in the LCS. C9 has a solid performance across all roles, and yet it hasn’t received an individual award so far. Some are calling foul on the decision and believe that the LCS is trying to make it seem more fair by dispersing awards amongst other lesser teams.

I guarantee that the conversation behind the scenes goes like this:
“Well, we can’t give it to C9 players every week…” — MonteCristo (@MonteCristo) June 21, 2020

C9 and Team Liquid play on Friday, June 26 at 9 PM CST.

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