League of Legends LCS 2019 Summer Playoffs runner up game preview: Clutch vs. CLG
By Josh Tyler
The LCS playoffs conclude this weekend. First up, the battle for the third-best League of Legends team in North America between Clutch and CLG.
While both of these teams are in the losers bracket, with only position in the LCS Gauntlet to play for, which team should be favored in the battle for third place? We preview this first League of Legends match beginning this weekend.
In this corner…
We have Clutch Gaming, who were only one game away from securing themselves a legacy as the LCS titan killers last week. Squeeking into the playoffs on the last weekend of the Summer Split, thanks to some strong, Clutch was certainly overlooked entering their match against TSM as the fifth seed. Of course, you all know what happened next.
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Clutch dominated their series, taking an easy 3-1 series win and setting up a match against the best team in the LCS (perhaps the best North American League of Legends team ever) in Liquid.
In perhaps even a bigger shocker than their win over TSM, Clutch took Liquid to a fifth game, ultimately losing the close series 3-2. Most observers, however, were sure to point out that for vast stretches of the series Clutch massively outplayed Liquid. They’ll be entering this final match before the Gauntlet looking to show that their strong play of the last few weeks wasn’t just a fluke.
In that corner…
CLG, who would likely be the favorite and considered the third-best NA team for most of the Summer Split. This team was one game from securing the first-round bye at the end of the regular season, ultimately losing the deciding tiebreaker game to Cloud9.
Undeterred by the setback, CLG entered the quarterfinal match against OpTic angry that they were denied that bye. They took that anger out on OpTic by decimating them in three straight games for a sweep and a chance to get revenge on C9 in the semifinals.
Unfortunately, CLG’s revenge was a dish best served never. They were handily beaten by Cloud9 in a four-game series.