League of Legends LCS finals preview: Liquid vs. Cloud9 – why C9 is poised for an upset

Mid Lane

Yasin “Nisqy” Dinçer vs. Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen

Jensen is the quintessential “do your job” player in the mid lane. He’s never been the flashiest player, but he does his job consistently. That’s been the story during the regular season, as he had one of the lowest deaths per game in the regular split along with the second-best adjusted KDA, and it’s continued into the playoffs.

Facing the terror of Tanner Time last week, Jensen stayed cool, posting a 4.4 KDA and the most damage per minute of any playoff mid laner. His Akali performances were disgusting, as he went 21/4/13 in three games. While he wasn’t performing as well on regular season comfort picks like Sylas and Corki, I never fear him costing his team games.

The same cannot be said of his lane opponent, Nisqy. Although he put up some monster games himself on Sylas (a combined 10/6/15) and Qiyana, he also had a disastrous game on Taliyah. This game showed exactly what is so concerning about Nisqy, that he can tend to out-think himself and pick champions that aren’t super strong in the meta.

All is not lost for C9 with Nisqy, though. Despite the boom or bust cycle, Nisqy was the best-laning mid laner in the league this summer and that has continued in the playoffs.

Advantage: Cloud9