C9 vs FW – Someone’s Gotta Get A Win

Cloud9 looks for redemption against Flash Wolves

Looking for their first win of the tournament, C9 heads into day 3 to face Flash Wolves who is also looking for their first win…someone had to get it.  From the start, it certainly looked like FW would be the ones to get that win.  They were doing quite a few things right in the early game and rolled to a 7-2 lead and were dominating the turret battle, but C9 had a late game configuration.  Kennan, Lee, Oriana, Caitlyn, and Karma were poised to do some damage once they got some items, and at 38 minutes, they seemed to begin their comeback with multiple kills.  But then they lost the baron – comeback over.

With baron buff and an elder dragon, it looked like Flash Wolves were set to beat back the late game push of C9.  They knocked down one inhibitor and were banging on a second inhibitor turret, but they got no further into the base with the buffs.  They did get another turret shortly after the they faded, though, but the game kept going and going and going and the consequences for losing a team fight kept getting higher.

At 53 minutes, it looked like FW had the game in hand.  They downed their second baron and quickly knocked down the 2 open inhibitors and managed to take out Meteos and Smoothie.  It was 5v3, they had baron buff, and they…headed to get the bottom turret.  Fortunate for C9, they had pushed out the minions which slowed FW down so they weren’t able to get the turret and inhibitor until minute 55 and by then both teams were back to full strength.  That is until C9 struck back taking out SwordArt, Maple, and MMD – they managed to delay what seemed inevitable.  But the game seemed to be slowing down to a crawl.

Both teams started playing safe – C9 grabbed the Elder dragon but went back to defend their open base while FW waited for their death timers to expire.  And pretty much, this status quo remained until FW threatened baron at the one hour mark.  With C9 still down an inhibitor, FW felt confident they could grab baron before C9 could fully react…they were wrong.  With Meteos surrounded by 4 Wolves in the baron pit, Jensen pulled off the steal with a perfectly timed ult.  Smoothie died, but C9 had baron – this was when things started to turn, or was it?  FW was still up 12-7 kills and had all inhibitor turrets down but they felt the fear that they would lose a marathon game.

At the game went on, records started to fall – Jensen and Impact grabbed over 600 cs, but Sneaky took the crown with 690, the most ever in a World Championship tournament…would they reach the longest game?

At the end of the 66th minute, as Flash Wolves prepared to take on the Elder dragon, and with 25 seconds left on the baron buff for C9, Meteos struck.  He jumped out of FW’s red buff pit and landed a kick on Varus, knocking him into the rest of C9…the ADC was dead in a second even though he managed to get a flash off and start to run for cover.  This started a cascade. Guardian Angels started being popped and Karsa went down.  But C9 backed off to grab an uncontested baron and then back to dragon to get their second Elder buff.  It was all over…just had to wait for the 70 minute 16 second match to finish and C9 had won its first game of the 2016 tournament.  It wasn’t the longest game ever, but it was the longest I’ve ever watched.

Wow!

Jensen ended the game with a 6-0 record and had to get the MVP for that steal of the baron and though Meteos (0-4-5) didn’t pick up a kill during the marathon, he made some critical plays that kept his team going when things looked bad.

What a game!  If you get a chance, definitely give this one a watch.