LCS 2022 Championship Week Two Preview

The first week of the League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) 2022 Championship is done and dusted, which means that we can now shift our focus toward the second week. This coming week LCS fans are in for a treat as four matches will be gracing their screens, and they are sure to be action-packed. 

To start off, on day one, FlyQuest will look to bounce back from their demolishing loss to Team Liquid against a Team SoloMid team that wants to prove they can still perform. On day two, Counter Logic Gaming looks to propel their momentum forward against a Golden Guardians team who barely scraped into the playoffs. 

Following that up on days three and four respectively will be 100 Thieves taking on a strong-looking Team Liquid and Cloud9 taking on the reigning champions Evil Geniuses.

There is much to talk about for these matches so here’s a bit of background on some of the teams. 

FlyQuest

After the 2021 offseason, FlyQuest were on every LCS watcher’s radar. As a team that could be a solid middle-of-the-pack team with the likes of jungler Brandon Joel "Josedeodo" Villegas - who came off of an impressive Worlds 2020 performance - and newcomers from the Academy scene such as mid-laner Palafox "Palafox" Palafox, they had some of the most potential outside of the big dynasty organisations. However, unfortunately for them, the roster didn’t pan out as their performances left them with zero playoff appearances for the year.

Going into 2022 though, they decided to shake things up. They kept their 2021 top laner, Colin "Kumo" Zhao who had a solid showing and kept Josedeodo. FlyQuest ended up rounding out the roster with mid-laner Loic "toucouille" Dubois, ADC Johnson "Johnsun" Nguyen and experienced support, Zaqueri "aphromoo" Black.

This led to impressive performances to start the Spring Split, often surprising both their opponents and fans. However, this didn’t continue come the latter half of the split and subsequently the playoffs. Come to the LCS 2022 Summer Split they improved slightly, add the fact that they promoted Academy top laner Philip "Philip" Zeng into the line-up, and they made some strides. 

Now in the LCS 2022 Championship, they’re already at the canyon’s edge as thanks to a demolishing by the hand of Team Liquid in Round 1 of the upper bracket, they are now tasked with keeping their playoff hopes alive versus Team SoloMid.

Cloud9 

To say that Cloud9 had a terrific 2022 Spring Split regular season is a massive understatement. A second-place finish going into the playoffs, an MVP-winning top-laner in Park "Summit" Woo-tae, and an overall dominant split - it was one of the patented Cloud9 springs. 

However, instead of ending it on a good note, it all came crumbling down… The team got figured out, Summit couldn’t do Summit things, and suddenly they end up finishing in fourth place in the playoffs. This later ushers in some significant roster changes: Summit leaves, Ibrahim "Fudge" Allami goes back to the top lane, Jesper "Zven" Svenningsen comes in as a support and mid-laner Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen returns. 

During the LCS 2022 Summer Split, this new-look roster hasn’t been looking the best as they’ve struggled to get by. But now, thanks to a five-game slobber knocker against Counter Logic Gaming in Round 1 of the upper bracket, this all might change.

Now they are tasked with taking on the reigning LCS champions, Evil Geniuses.

Evil Geniuses

We’d be remiss if we didn’t include Evil Geniuses in here. There’s just so much to say about this team.

At first, upon rejoining the LCS come the 2020 season, the Geniuses laid down their plan to conquest the league. This started off with the first iteration of their first-ever roster which was a rag-tag group of players from various teams that included the likes of jungler Dennis "Svenskeren" Johnsen, ADC Bae "Bang" Jun-sik and more. This led them to revise their roster.

Not satisfied with their performance in 2020, Evil Geniuses looked to give their initial blueprint a strong revision. This came in the form of bringing in stellar top laner, Jeong "Impact" Eon-young and a whole new bottom lane comprised of ADC Matthew "Deftly" Chen and support Lee "IgNar" Dong-geun. Much to the league’s surprise, this roster performed well over expectations in the 2021 LCS Lock In tournament, giving them something to work off of. Later in that year, they brought in ADC Kyle "Danny" Sakamaki. However, this roster too struggled.

Once in 2022, all bets were off. Evil Geniuses looked to make an even bigger change to their already evolving blueprint. They kept Impact and Danny as strong pillars to build on, and went for absolute haymakers, these came in the form of superstar European jungler and LEC MVP, Kacper "Inspired" Sloma, support Philippe "Vulcan" Laflamme, and mid-laner Joseph "Jojopyun" Joon Pyun which came to a big surprise to the LCS as a whole due to his young nature and amateur nature.

Ever since this iteration of the roster was formed, Evil Geniuses haven’t looked back. Although they sat in the middle of the pack in the Spring Split regular season, come playoffs they were one of the most dominant teams in the LCS, only dropping one game in their championship run and claiming the Mid-Season Invitational (MSI) spot. 

After the team returned from MSI, they continued that dominant momentum rolling and secured one of the two playoff byes and now in the LCS 2022 Championship, they look to continue dominating.