Cloud9 Answered My Question Four Days Later, and the Answer Was No
Cloud9 are out of Stage 2 Play-Ins after a loss to Evil Geniuses and a sweep at the hands of BESTIA, and the turn I kept arguing for never held.
Cloud9's season is over. Evil Geniuses got them 2-1 on Sunday, BESTIA finished the job 2-0, and that's the year. No Shanghai, no points, nothing left to play for.
The Map That Gave It Away
Look at Breeze. Four days before this, Cloud9 won Breeze 13-4 against Fluxo W7M and I wrote that the scoreline looked comfortable enough to believe in. Against BESTIA they lost the same map 13-10, after dropping Lotus 13-8. Same map, same roster, four days apart, completely different team. That's the thing I kept refusing to call, and BESTIA called it for me.
I Was Asking the Wrong Question
I spent two articles asking whether Cloud9's turn was real. Wrong question. The right one was whether this roster can play the same way twice, and the answer has been no since the 100 Thieves win. They beat 100 Thieves, then needed three maps to get past a roster that was six days old, then lost two straight series. One good night, then diminishing returns every time out.
There were two ways to read Zellsis publicly telling Sentinels to give him a call a couple weeks back. Either a guy who'd already checked out, or a competitor annoyed at losing. I gave him the second reading at the time. After watching him carry the IGL load through a sweep that ended his season, I still think that's the right one, and it doesn't matter much now.
Where I Land
I was wrong about this team, and I was wrong twice. The tell was there in the Fluxo series and I read it as a scare instead of a pattern. Cloud9 go home. I'll take the L on this one.