Cloud9 and mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković are only one best-of-five win away from the 2021 Mid-Season Showdown final, but the schedule isn’t ideal according to the star mid laner.
With the spring splits coming to an end in the biggest leagues around the world, the North American Mid-Season Showdown has started a bit earlier than most other leagues’ playoffs stages. This means that the tournament will be played on patch 11.5, while the LEC, LPL, and LCK playoffs are all expected to be played on patch 11.6. Perkz stated that this is a disadvantage in a recent interview, and indicated that the schedule is less than optimal.
After winning during the first week of the Mid-Season Showdown, both winners have to wait another two weeks before the upper bracket continues. This is due to lower-bracket games that have to be concluded first. For the upper bracket teams, Cloud9 and Team Liquid, it isn’t great to have wait two weeks before hitting Summoner’s Rift again, according to Perkz.
Perkz continued by addressing the playoffs patch, where the Mid-Season Showdown will seem to continue on patch 11.5 throughout the whole tournament to avoid switching patches in the middle of it all.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense that we are the only region in the world that’s playing playoffs on the 11.5 patch and not the 11.6 patch,” Perkz said. “We are going to be a bit behind heading into MSI, whatever team takes it.”
The fact that the LCS has to play out the playoffs on patch 11.5 means that the teams lose valuable practice on patch 11.6. It also seems like the winning LCS team won’t be playing on patch 11.6 at all on the competitive stage, as the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational will likely be on a newer patch.
Cloud9 entered the Mid-Season Showdown as the first seed after topping the league during the regular split with a 13-5 record. This meant starting in the upper bracket, where Perkz and the rest of Cloud9 took care of 100 Thieves with a clean 3-0 sweep.
Moving on in the upper bracket, Cloud9 will play a rematch of the LCS Lock-In final against Team Liquid. This time around, Perkz is confident that C9 will beat Team Liquid and move directly to the Mid-Season Showdown final.
Cloud9 and Team Liquid will clash on Saturday, April 3.
It wasn’t easy to choose a Player of the Series today with how well all of @Cloud9 played, but @C9Perkz was a playmaker all series long! #LCS pic.twitter.com/PG1Fz9qDiZ
— LCS (@LCSOfficial) March 21, 2021
Why did Perkz go to C9?
Perkz left his old team G2 Esports after the 2020 season concluded after being with the organization since he first became a professional player in 2015. The reason for Perkz’s move to Cloud9 was because he wanted to play in the mid lane again. After Rasmus “Caps” Winther joined G2 in 2018, Perkz mostly acted as the team’s bot laner. As a mid-lane player originally, Perkz wanted to get back to his roots and so took a chance at Cloud9 in the LCS.
Perkz was also offered a high salary by Cloud9 in exchange for his switching teams.
Who plays for C9 in the 2021 LCS season?
The 2021 Cloud9 lineup is a bit different from last year as the team has made changes for both the top and mid lane. The new roster is built with the ambition to win and go far at the international tournaments of 2021.
The Cloud9 2021 LCS roster is:
- Top – Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami
- Jungle – Robert “Blaber” Huang
- Mid – Luka “Perkz” Perković
- Bot – Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen
- Support – Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme
