LCS 2022 Summer Regular Season ended last week with Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves taking the top two places. While MSI 2022 champions entered the summer split strong and definitely deserved this achievement, 100 Thieves’ story looks inspiring because of their ability to come back and challenge for the title after a disappointing spring split.
LCS currently has several teams that can represent the region at Worlds 2022 besides EG and 100. Team Liquid, CLG and Cloud9, followed by FlyQuest, will try and steal one of the three spots available. 100 Thieves will give their best during the playoffs to get themselves out of that competition and take the spot directly by winning the LCS.
100 Thieves rising
After a deserved championship in LCS 2021 Summer, 100 Thieves represented North America in Worlds for the first time in their history. Their roster consisted of Ssumday and transfers from Golden Guardians, Closer, FBI and Huhi. Abbedagge joined late to wrap up the roster. With the addition of an experienced coach, Reapered, 100 Thieves came back from Worlds 2021 with a promising result for the following years.
However, 2022 started tough for them. After an early elimination at LCS 2022 Lock In, shaky performances in LCS 2022 Spring Season followed. 100 Thieves managed to turned that around just as the regular season finished, taking third place and moving on to playoffs. Evil Geniuses’ lower bracket miracle run crushed the undefeated 100 in the grand final with a 3-0, stopping them from making it to MSI 2022.
This result naturally hurt 100 Thieves a lot. Their unstoppable rise was stopped, and their confidence was damaged. Reapered and the coaching staff worked hard to fix the problems throughout the season, and close to the end of it, 100 Thieves was once again a natural favourite at the championship.
Obviously, they will still have to take down Evil Geniuses in playoffs with a position just as advantageous as 100 Thieves’. 100 roster has more experience and arguably more skill which can take them to the top, though.
As with previous years, 100 Thieves’ game revolved around their Turkish jungler Closer. While he showed several times that he is capable of making flashy plays, his confident and solemn gameplay helped 100 Thieves members a lot, both in laning and in teamfights. If you can’t stop Closer from getting his teammates what they need, you most likely won’t be able to stop 100 Thieves.
LCS 2022 Summer Playoffs or simply, LCS 2022 Championship will kick off this weekend with the first matches: Team Liquid vs FlyQuest and CLG vs Cloud9. Make sure to tune in with live streams on Luckbox. Sign up now to claim your 100% bonus before placing your bets.
LCS 2022 Summer Playoffs will start
Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves will start LCS 2022 Summer Playoffs with an extra advantage over the third-sixth placed teams. Looking at summer season performances, Team Liquid seems to be the closest team to the championship after these two. With Bwipo’s performance improving, Liquid became a perfect team and they should challenge the best both in North America and at Worlds.
Following TL, Cloud9 with their promising roster aims to get to Worlds 2022. Although they are significantly behind EG and 100, the organization is used to similar situations before, like in Worlds 2021 where they were considered the weakest NA team and managed to make it out of their “death group”.
Counter Logic Gaming is a strong candidate that misses the necessary experience to get to Worlds for many. With Luger’s firepower and the four North American players improving their performances significantly, CLG is the definition of a dark horse. While they finished in top six with the same record as Cloud9, FlyQuest’s performances were more similar to TSM and Golden Guardians, stuck at the bottom of the table.
TSM and GG will start at the lower bracket and a miracle run doesn’t seem likely for any of them. Their performance throughout the season was awful, and they are only here because of LCS’ unique format that allows eight teams to participate in playoffs. Still, both of them are great organizations that aim for the best, and they might show us some incredible series. Make sure to keep track of them on Luckbox.
