Samsung Galaxy might've met an echo of boos as they entered the famed Chicago Theatre stage on Thursday night, but only silence was left at the end of their best-of-five quarterfinal series against NA third-place seed Cloud9.
The first game of the series looked promising for C9. Impact grew a solid lead in the top lane on his Rumble against Lee "CuVee" Seong-jin's Ekko, and Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen was able to pressure and take over control of mid lane in his clash against Lee "Crown" Min-ho. The issues came, however, when C9 attempted to be the team on the attack, repeatedly deploying seemingly advantageous attacks that ended with them on the losing end. A three-man gank in the mid lane with Jensen, William "Meteos" Hartman and Andy "Smoothie" Ta ended with Crown grabbing First Blood. And any attention given to the bottom lane was nipped in the bud. Even Impact's lead in the top lane began to dwindle as Ekko took control of the matchup and started a series of solo kills against C9's ace.
Samsung was the best team at gaining mid game leads and turning them into quick finishes in the group stages, and it was the same in the quarterfinal opener. After CuVee had a grip on the top lane matchup, no one from C9 was safe. The South Korean squad rotated across the map in rhythmic succession to take another game below 30 minutes.
By the second game, C9 relented on its aggression, and the teams tiptoed across the map until the mid game. While the North American club was able to pick up advantages here and there, it was Samsung's counter-punching style that never let C9 get a true lead in the game. Everything fell apart for C9 when Zachary "Sneaky" Scuderi's Jhin was caught along the river near the Baron pit and Samsung instantly engaged with CuVee's Kennen teleport into a multi-man ultimate that blew the game open. Samsung picked up the kills, grabbed the Baron, and started up rapidfire destruction of C9's turrets en route to another clean -- albeit more stretched out -- game.
In the third set of the series, it was Samsung's bottom lane that would be put to the test. While the C9 bot-lane duo was able to get miles ahead in the early game, it was the methodical gank timings of Ambition's Olaf that kept his team afloat in the first 10 minutes of the game. By the time the game had started to stabilize, it was the freight train Olaf that continually made sure to delete Sneaky's Caitlyn off the map before it could get any sort of semblance of relevance in the game.
Like the first two games, Samsung got ahold of the lead, didn't take the foot off the pedal, and dipped and dodged any C9 counter-attack by performing a knockout counter. For every step forward C9 took, Samsung was already miles ahead, ready to pull the trigger on another maneuver.
The South Koreans secured a 3-0 series win in a one-sided affair, and the semifinals await the rebuilt empire of the 2014 World Champion organization in New York City's Madison Square Garden. North America is officially out of the tournament, with C9 eliminated. The region as a whole went 9-12 throughout the tournament.
South Korea, the game's strongest region, is at a dominant record of 18-4. And all three teams are left standing.