The first match of the 2020 LCS Spring Split belonged to Team Liquid and Cloud9, the best of the LCS in 2019. In a mostly one-sided match, Cloud9 took the first win of the LCS season.
A rematch of the 2019 LCS Summer Final was a great way to open the year for North American League of Legends. Three of Cloud9’s new players had to prove their worth, while Liquid put a lot of pressure on Shern “Shernfire” Tai, who stood in for Mads “Broxah” Brock-Pedersen as he sorts out visa issues.
The two teams picked League of Legends’ newest champions for the first game. Jesper “Zven” Svenningsen decided to utilize the Aphelios’ unbalanced kit, which drew mixed reactions from the audience. The rest of Cloud9’s draft focused on heavy zone control, looking to scare Liquid away from objectives.
Robert “Blaber” Huang went for an early top lane gank, pushing Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong back to base, and burning his flash and teleport. With the teleport advantage in the top lane, Cloud9 safely took the first Ocean Dragon in the seventh minute and then rotated to the Rift Herald for more top lane pressure.
Almost 12 minutes into the game, the score was still 0-0. Cloud9 seemed to be safely pressuring the lane when the team got caught by Liquid in the mid lane bushes. This started a team fight which saw Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in take first blood. Liquid continued to pick up kills, and also secured a Fire Dragon.
During the mid game, Cloud9 kept getting an advantage over Liquid. Another Rift Herald secured a third turret for C9, while Liquid had none. The team’s draft focus on zone control with Veigar’s cage secured Cloud9 another Drake, as well as the first Baron of the game.
Liquid couldn’t find a clean way to engage and found itself on the bad end of a 5,000 gold difference.
From there on, Cloud9 just kept snowballing. Liquid’s players were struggling to break through Cloud9’s composition over and over again. The game was progressing in a one-sided way as Cloud9 was utilizing the Baron buff, confidently going ahead.
Even when Liquid tried to engage underneath the inhibitor turret, Cloud9 scored an ace with ease and got revenge on Liquid.
Cloud9 is  against the Golden Guardians.
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