Cloud9 vs FlyQuest Preview: 2023 LCS Spring Playoffs

Winner of the Cloud9 vs FlyQuest series will earn the right to represent North America at the MSI.

The two best teams from the LCS regular season will go head-to-head one more time in the Upper Bracket semifinals to decide who will be the first team to guarantee their place in the 2023 LCS Finals. But a spot in the grand finale played in Raleigh, North Caroline won’t be the only prize for the next week’s matchup. With the recent format changes, every major region now sends two teams to the Mid-Season Invitational, so a victory in this series will also mean at least a Play-In spot in London.

When it comes to representing North America on the international stage, what better series than Cloud9 vs FlyQuest? Both teams dominated the regular season at different stages during Spring, FlyQuest during the first half and Cloud9 in the second round robin. Their games against each other also went the same way. FlyQuest won the first game with Cloud9 besting them in the second one. Of course, two teams also played a third time for the tiebreaker game for the first place, with Cloud9 coming on top in that one to make the head-to-head 2-1 going into the playoffs.

Cloud9 vs FlyQuest Preview

Cloud9

While Cloud9 vs FlyQuest regular season Bo3 was a 2-1, it’s important to keep in mind the only Cloud9 loss came in while they were playing with Diplex. They haven’t lost to FlyQuest with EMENES in the mid lane. It’s not to say he was the difference maker in those games, in fact he had some of his quietest performances against FlyQuest. But what’s important is how EMENES joining the roster impacted the rest of the players, especially Blaber.

EMENES loves to play early pushing lanes and press every advantage he gets in the laning phase, even if it sometimes backfires on him. This fits really well with the other two Cloud9 lanes, and more importantly lets Blaber be much more active on the map, whether it’s for ganking or invading enemy jungler. And we’ve seen time and time again Cloud9 are at their best when Blaber is the one controlling the game from minute one. It was even apparent in their games against FlyQuest, the one game they lost was when Blaber and Diplex lost a level four mid lane 2v2 and fell behind incredibly. Getting a good mid/jungle duo that will let C9 control the early game will be a big win condition for them in this series.

FlyQuest

FlyQuest has a little bit of a different play style compared to Cloud9. They are significantly slow-paced compared to C9 and have more of a tendency to play for late game scaling, more so in the latter half of the season. Of course, this doesn’t mean they cannot match them if need be. Spica and VicLa are more than capable of matching the C9 duo in aggression and playmaking. They showed multiple times this split they are willing to take early fights in the river as a team. Sometimes they haven’t been the most coordinated team in how they approach these fights, but their individual skill still manages to shine through.

One big question in my mind before the series about FlyQuest is centered around Prince. After absolutely lighting the league on fire during the first ten or so games, Prince had a slight dip in his performance. He isn’t playing badly by any stretch, but he isn’t necessarily having the same highs. It’s probably due to him adjusting to playing with Eyla, and FlyQuest playing a lot more of their games from behind which means fewer opportunities for him to snowball leads. But against a Cloud9 who plays around their ADC very well, FlyQuest will need to utilize their bot lane much better. Especially since the C9 bot lane is more willing to play pushing lanes while FlyQuest generally opts into scaling picks, so they probably will fall behind during the early games.

Cloud9 vs FlyQuest Predictions

When looking lane by lane, Cloud9 matches up really well against FlyQuest. Berserker is one of the only ADCs in LCS that can challenge Prince and he has a better support than him in Zven. Plus Fudge being always willing to bring out counter picks like Fiora or Camille to Impact’s champions means the generally stable FlyQuest top side can get volatile quite fast. While these teams are close in power, Cloud9’s small edges in multiple facets of the game slowly add up, giving them an advantage over their competition. I’m expecting most games in the series to be tight but Cloud9 favored, with an overall score of 3-1.

How to watch Cloud9 vs FlyQuest

Cloud9 vs FlyQuest will be played on March 30 and will determine the first Spring finalist and the first 2023 Mid-Season Invitational representative for NA. Fans can watch the series on lolesports.com or the official LCS Youtube and Twitch channels. For Spanish-speaking fans, LCS also started their Spanish broadcast in partnership with LLA, you can find the stream on the LLA Twitch channel.

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