Cloud9 took down Immortals, 3-1 on Sunday, winning the North American Regional Qualifier and booking a spot at the World Championships.
C9's outplay began in the draft, as the team was prepared for every strategy Immortals cooked up - a strong laning team to transition and scale better to deal with poke compositions or a team with easy rotations to deal with early aggression. C9's reliance was not on a single player or strategy. Instead it was an even attack with synergy that adapted to most of Immortal's strategies.
The lone blemish was game three when Immortals took the Vladimir and drafted around him while banning his counters. But C9's biggest strength was Jung "Impact" Eon-yeong and his ability to take on Immortal's star player Seong "Huni" Hoon Heo without any help necessary. C9 routinely took the advantage in two out of three lanes and snowballed the lead from there.
Immortals looked out-of-sync and could not muster the signature frantic style that made the team so successful. They were outdrafted, outplayed in lanes, and absolutely decimated in team fights; this was a far cry from the Immortals of the summer split regular season.
The other two North American teams heading to worlds is Team SoloMid and Counter Logic Gaming.