The final day of the LCS Spring 2020 group stage witnessed the complete downfall of the “King,” as Team Liquid fell to the top team Cloud9 in a dramatic backdoor play, officially losing their playoff spot and becoming the former LCS champion by finishing near the bottom of the standings.
Yes, we are not mistaken; the gap between a playoff spot and the bottom of the table has never been so thin. Besides the top position firmly held by C9, the battle for the playoff spot in North America has never been more intense.
At the end of the group stage, the distance from the 9th place to the 2nd place is just a mere 3 wins. In the upcoming week, LCS Spring 2020 will have to organize a series of tiebreaker matches to determine the rankings due to the number of teams with the same record.
One person’s sorrow is sometimes another’s joy; on the day that Team Liquid was officially dethroned, Bang’s Evil Geniuses also defeated another direct rival, Immortals, to officially secure their spot in the playoffs. This is also the first time since moving to North America that the former world champion has achieved this success.
Surely the online community still remembers Doublelift’s challenge to Bang, when he declared he would annihilate the former SKT AD carry when he first stepped into the LCS last spring.
Indeed, at that time, Team Liquid was in an “unmatched” position while Bang’s 100 Thieves was struggling, resulting in the two-time world champion having to endure the overwhelming shadow of Doublelift.
However, what few expected was that Team Liquid would plummet so drastically in less than a season. Perhaps the signing of Broxah truly turned out to be a disaster for this team, with Doublelift previously admitting: “Our lineup has already failed, as the players in the team can’t even communicate clearly with each other.”
Currently, Bang has temporarily pulled ahead of Doublelift in the 2020 season, although his chances of winning his first championship after leaving SKT still seem slim, as Cloud9 is exhibiting a devastating performance.