By Christian Aguilar
Courier Staff Writer
The last two matches are between Cloud 9 vs Samsung Blue and Najin White Shield vs OMG. As of right now North America’s hope is slowly disappearing due to C9 matched against Samsung Blue, a top tier Korean team. C9 was put in a similar position as TSM. Both C9 and TSM had the power to take the number one spot to secure their spot into the Semifinals due to them going against teams that they have a higher percentage of beating compared to the top Korean teams.
Cloud 9 had the possibility of taking first in their group by beating Samsung Blue in a tiebreaker match at the end of day four of Worlds. Considering the fact that they previously beat Najin White Shield who have the similar skill level as SSB everyone thought they had a good chance of beating them to take the first place spot. Unfortunately, C9 choked and did not clinch that spot. By doing that C9 made their quarterfinal match significantly harder. They’re going against the 2nd most favored team to win Worlds.
In Group C we have Samsung Blue (Korea), OMG (China), LMQ (North America) and Fnatic (Europe). Samsung Blue was inconsistent by going 5-1 dropping one game to Fnatic. OMG barely clinched their 2nd place spot by going 3-3. Everyone was upset at LMQ not making it to the quarterfinals with their convincing two wins on day one of Worlds for group stage two. Group D was quite one sided with NWS and C9 proving they they were the top of their group. With Alliance and Kabum eSports falling quite behind of the top teams.
The quarter finals starts on October 3rd at 1:25am PST. The NA hope is still alive and we can only hope that C9/TSM have improved to put up a great fight against the top Korean teams.