Golden Guardians’ incredible Split run came to a losing end on Sunday in the grand final of the 2023 LCS Spring Playoffs.
The game on Sunday was the first time Golden Guardians would face Cloud9 in this year’s split, and they made the encounter worth it becoming the only team to push C9 to the limit.
Golden Guardians won six matches from their seven games before Sunday’s game, but C9 managed a win against LCS’ sixth seed, winning to get their hands on their second league title in as many splits for C9.
It is the first time a franchise will win two consecutive LCS titles since 2019 as C9 snatches its sixth overall LCS trophy.
C9 will hope to win the Mid-Season Invitational, which they have qualified for from North America as the first seed. They are in the bracket stage, with the MSI expected to start on May 2.
Golden Guardians led the game in the first two series as they put C9 on the back foot with 5,800 golds in the first fifteen minutes of games one and two, but C9 managed a comeback to dominate games three and four as they won the series 3-1.
Berserker made the difference for C9 in the back-end games with a combined scoreline of 13/0/6 across games three and four.
The Mid-Season Invitational will see the top two teams in the four major regions of EMEA, Korea, China, and North America, participate, which means that Golden Guardians and C9 secured their places the moment they qualified for the finals.
However, their seeding was one more factor at stake in the final game. This year’s MSI has a new format with two phases introduced, which are the play-in and bracket stages. The bracket stage has the champions seeded in directly while their runner-ups will have to contend in the play-ins. The MSI play-in stage starts on May 2 in London, United Kingdom, on May 2.
Daniel Ademiju Idowu
