2021 Worlds Prep — Cloud9 (LCS Seed 3)

10 min readMar 18, 2022

The following is a self-preservation of analysis researched & written by Tom Searfoss for the League of Legends World Championship Broadcast in 2021.

Roster: Fudge, Blaber, Perkz, Zven, Vulcan, Reignover (Coach), Mithy (Coach)

Author: Tom Searfoss

Top Takeaways

Play-Ins C9 is back — C9’s been through Play-Ins more than any other major region team
“Playoff Perkz” and “Fudge Factor” were enough to secure Worlds after missing in 2020 for the first time in org history
Relied on a strong early game of kills (especially first blood) and CS to create leads
Have surprisingly mediocre objective control in both early and late game
The best team at using Baron Power Play in the LCS, but not the best at securing Baron

Region Overview

The LCS switched to a new format for the 2021 Season, extending Spring and Summer into a 5-round Bo1 round robin tournament
Teams play each other twice during Spring, and three times during the Summer for a total of 45 games (18 Spring, 27 Summer)
The top 8 teams are seeded into a double elimination bracket for the LCS Championship (LCSC)

The 1st & 2nd seeds receive an automatic bye into Round 2, while the 7th & 8th seeds start in the lower bracket
Top 3 teams at the end of the LCSC go to Worlds, with 3rd place starting at the Play-In Stage

Team Overview

Missed Worlds last year for the first time in org history
Qualified for 2021 MSI, notably losing to PGG and missing Knockout Stage
Benched Zven at the start of the Split, playing with K1ng for the full 3rd round robin before putting Zven back in the starting lineup
The “Summer C9 slump” hit even earlier, as they struggled to find their footing in regular season play going 4–5 in the 3rd round robin, and 5–4 in the 4th
Ended the 5th round robin 6–3, securing upper bracket seeding for the LCS Championship at 15–12 in Summer, 28–17 on the Season
Lost in first round to TL 3–1, falling to the lower bracket going 3–0 against GG and EG
Their win vs EG was seen as an upset victory
Won a 5 game series against TSM to secure their spot in Worlds, and then lost to 100T requiring them to start at the Play-In Stage for the 3rd time since it was introduced in 2017

Game Line

Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

Players per role

We include all players who have played 30% or more of the average number of games for a player in the league, for the LCS these are how many players are included in the ranking for each position (rankings are always among position unless otherwise stated):

Analysis

Gold Graphs

Summer Regular Season

C9 have lost 3 regular season games while still having a gold lead

Playoffs

C9 lost 1 game where they had a gold lead during playoffs
There are less games with early leads in the playoffs compared to the regular season
Their early deficits outweigh most early leads as well
A lot of these large deficits were in their series vs TL

Early Game

Gold & Objective Stats

C9 Early game gold leads — Summer Regular Season vs Playoffs

*Playoff rankings are among 8 teams, while regular season are among 10 teams

As seen on the gold graphs above, struggled against TL/TSM/100T in playoffs
Instead of being ahead or close in gold, they were often close or behind in playoffs

C9 Early game objective stats — Summer Regular Season vs Playoffs

Regular season C9 were T-Last in FH%, and tied with four other teams for 2nd lowest FD%
The only early game stat they excel at was murder (highest FB%)
In playoffs, they re-calibrated to focus on FD% — but the rest of the 1st objective stats remained poor
They were ranked last in TD@15 at both points of Summer Split

Kill stats

C9 Early game kill-related stats — Summer Regular Season vs Playoffs

During the regular season, C9’s early games were more kills in their favor, less deaths
In playoffs, they ended up dying more than they were killing
This would account for some of the drop off in gold during playoffs
C9 died 20 times @15 vs TL in 4 games, and 16 times vs 100T in 4 games

Lane phase stats

C9 Lane Phase Stats by Player (Summer Regular Season, Adjusted Roles)

*Fudge and Perkz had 2 lane swapped games in the Regular Season. Adjusted roles do not count their stats, and only account for their main role

C9’s slight early game leads come from their kills combined with being ahead in CS early game
Although not a ton, all lanes are ahead in CS @15 in the regular season
In playoffs, dying more + less CS helped to lower their leads into deficits
Fewer first bloods meant less bonus gold as well
In playoffs, no one was ahead in GD@15
The top side of C9’s map was the biggest discrepancy in CS and gold between regular season and playoffs

Objective control

C9 Objective stats — Summer Regular Season vs Playoffs

C9’s poor early objectives improved a bit as the games went on in the regular season, but were still middle-of-the-pack
Their HERALD% plummeted in playoffs, while their DRAKE% & BARON% rose slightly
DRAKE% was something they had 100.0% of in their 3–0 series vs GG & EG
They had a 40.0% DRAKE% in their other 3 series that went 4+ games
One thing was clear in Summer: C9 had the best BPP and used the buff to close games (see below)

C9 Baron stats — Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

In the regular season C9’s Baron use was incredibly strong
They were also very good at closing the game out after Baron
They T-3rd for most Barons killed at 21
C9 secured the most Barons during playoffs at 16, but were less effective at finishing the game
Their avg. time to end increased by 2:20
Their kills dropped the most, making it harder to end games

Resource stats

C9 Gold stats — Summer Regular Season vs Playoffs

During the regular season C9 had a decent M-LEAD, but not the largest
Their M-DEFICIT was smaller but still sizeable
C9 also lost 3 games with gold leads that fall into M-LEAD/CLOSE territory
In playoffs, their M-LEAD fell to just over half of what it was before
They still kept games CLOSE quite often, but their M-DEFICIT increased

Players to watch

Perkz

Narrative: Worth the investment?

Perkz was probably one of the most high profile off-season acquisitions, in addition to being one of the (supposedly) highest paid Western pros. Constantly the question was asked throughout the Split — “was it worth the money?” — especially when Cloud9 looked to be slumping. “Playoff Perkz” and “1–2 comfort zone” popped up in their TSM series, but many were left unsatisfied by 3rd place Perkz.

Regular Season vs Playoffs Perkz

C9 Perkz Early game stats — Summer Regular Season vs Playoffs

Despite C9’s stepping up in mid proximity, opposing teams were even more present
Teams really wanted to keep down playoff Perkz in the early game

C9 Perkz Total game stats — Regular Season vs Playoffs

Despite heightened attention early game, Perkz late game was still fine
C9 gave Perkz more resources in playoffs
It was enough to qualify for Worlds, but not to win LCS

Fudge

Narrative: Fudge Factor

Fudge was the recipient of a new award this year: the LCS “Most Improved Player” award. With question marks around him at the start of season, and despite C9’s ups and downs at MSI and during Summer, Fudge remained a consistent point of improvement. He was also someone that opposing playoff teams needed to shut down.

Fudge Improvement

C9 Fudge Early game stats — Regular Season vs Playoffs

Teams slowly sent more attention top side to deal with Fudge, especially after MSI

C9 Fudge Total game stats — Regular Season vs Playoffs

After Spring, Fudge became more of a threat for C9 and earned more resources
He had a few picks that became his own, and his contribution in fights went up
A small dip in his playoff stats still show higher KP, DMG & Gold than Spring Fudge

Blaber

Narrative: Where is he?

Known to give his life (and the game) for a scuttle crab, Blaber had a relatively quiet Summer Split this year and was overshadowed by not just the Summer MVP Spica — but both Junglers attending Worlds for NA alongside him. Eeking out a 3rd All-Pro team nomination (partly due to Santorin taking an extended leave during Regular Season play) Blaber has a lot to prove between his MSI performance and Summer.

C9 Blaber stats & position rankings — Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

Picks to watch

Bans Against C9

Target Bans against C9

Target bans against C9 — Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

LeBlanc is T-1st in bans against C9 with Xin Zhao
However, Xin Zhao is the 2nd most banned Champion in the 2021 LCS Summer
Gwen fell off in ban priority later on, but Fudge still ate almost a quarter of her bans
As soon as Olaf started seeing play again, teams had to ban it against Blaber

Fudge as Viego

C9 Fudge as Viego — Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

C9 played Viego in 3 roles, but it was most often seen and most successful in Fudge’s hands
Viego is Fudge’s most played Champion, and Fudge has the 2nd most Viego games in LCS

Blaber as Diana/Xin Zhao

C9 Blaber top played stats — Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

Blaber has the most Xin Zhao games and is tied for most Diana games in the LCS
They are tied for his most played Champions in Summer
The fact they are both played so much is interesting, when you consider their play styles
Clearly one is more successful than the other (record-wise)

Perkz as LeBlanc

C9 Perkz as LeBlanc — Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

LeBlanc was tied for Perkz’s most played Champion (with Ryze, see below)
His stats show why it was tied for most banned against C9

Other C9 picks to watch (high PICK or WIN%)

C9 high WIN% or PICK Champions — Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

*Denotes that the player has the most games played on the Champion in LCS Summer

Zven played 12 of his 19 Varus games (63.2%) during the LCS Championship

Breakout (optional)

Zven vs K1ng — Resources

K1ng and Zven were both used during the regular season, but it took until playoffs for Zven to really pop off (also, he basically was a Varus one-trick this Split). What did the team’s resource share look like when using them?

C9 Resource share stats — Bot lane Summer Regular Season + Playoffs

*These stats used adjusted roles, so games where roles swapped reflect where they played. ºPlayoff rankings are out of 8 teams

During the regular season, C9 had K1ng doing a large amount of their damage at almost 30%
Zven and K1ng were getting similar amount of resources, but K1ng did more damage with it
K1ng played exactly half the games (9) Zven did (18) during the regular season
Zven played 5 games of Varus (who has higher DMG) while K1ng played 1
K1ng played 3 games of Ezreal (who also can have higher DMG) while Zven played 2
In playoffs though, Zven started doing large shares of C9’s damage with the same (if not less CS%15–30) resources
He played 12 games of Varus in 19 total games with 661 DMG/M and 1.60 DMG/GOLD
Zven’s DMG/GOLD for all of Playoffs was 1.60, which was the highest for all playoff players
His DMG/GOLD was 1.26 in the regular season (12th among all players)