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Three reasons why Clutch Gaming will or won’t win the League of Legends World Championship

By s. samek

Los Angeles, USA - September 8: TSM versus Clutch Gaming during the 2019 LCS Gauntlet at the LCS Arena on September 8, 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA. (Photo by Kevin Haube/Riot Games)
Los Angeles, USA - September 8: TSM versus Clutch Gaming during the 2019 LCS Gauntlet at the LCS Arena on September 8, 2019 in Los Angeles, California, USA. (Photo by Kevin Haube/Riot Games) /
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Can Clutch Gaming win the 2019 League of Legends World Championship?

Everyone expected Cloud9 and Team Liquid to be representing North America at the 2019 League of Legends World Championship. But NA’s third team came out of nowhere in the Summer Split to earn a spot in the regional qualifier, then they shocked everyone by running the table and claiming the third seed at Worlds. This team, of course, is Clutch Gaming, but can they win the whole thing?

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Three Reasons why Clutch will win

1. Hot at the right time

Clutch is playing some of their best League of Legends right now. They finished the Summer Split with a 9-9 record, but they won their last three matches in a row. In the first round of the playoffs, Clutch defeated TSM 3-1, then played NA’s best in Team Liquid to game five before falling 3-2 in the semifinals.

In the regional finals, Clutch defeated Flyquest and CLG 3-1 in the first two rounds, then beating TSM 3-2. They earned nine wins over the course of a weekend to match their total from a whole split sitting at 9-4 during the regional tournament.

In addition, Clutch went 7-7 in individual games during the summer playoffs, giving them a combined 16-11 record in postseason play this summer. Clutch only won 14 games in regular season Spring and Summer Split play this year.

Not only that, but Clutch racked up these wins against good teams. They beat TSM in the summer playoffs and regional finals last round to get their spot at Worlds while holding a 6-3 game record against them for those matches.  They split two matches with Summer Split third seed CLG, but won 3-1 in the regional against a 3-2 loss in the third-place match of the summer playoffs, giving them a 5-4 head to head playoff record against them. Both of these team were favored to go to worlds as North America’s third team.

2. The rising Sun

One of the big reasons for Clutch’s rise was the return of ADC Sun Cody “Cody Sun” Li-Yu to the bottom lane. After mostly playing in Academy during spring he returned with vengeance.  He earned third-team all-pro accolades for NA LCS during the summer.

Yet during the play-offs was where he really shined. Against TSM in the first round he went 24/2/ 24 during the four-game series, with three games without a single death. Before that, he didn’t die for the last five games of the regular season and the first two of that series making it a seven-game streak with no deaths. He continued to make a big impact in all three regional finals series and even won MVP of a series.

This is the third team Cody Sun gone to Worlds with, previously having made Worlds with 100 Thieves in 2018 and Immortals in 2017. Sadly last season he was benched by 100 Thieves during Worlds, so we didn’t get to see him on stage.

However, I think that’s going to put a fire in him as he something to prove this year. If he gets hot he can really cause issues for a lot of teams and carry this team to wins. Watch out for him to rise at worlds.

3. Huni Returns

It can never hurt to have a player with World’s experience on your team. Just like Cody Sun, top Laner Heo ” Huni”  Seung-hoon has played on the world’s stage.  This year marks his third time at the tournament as he previously attended with Fnatic and SKT. With Fnatic in 2015, they made it to the semifinals before falling to Koo Tigers and with SKT in 2017 Huni made it all the way to the grand finals before losing to Samsung Galaxy.

Needless to say, he has a good bit of experience going far in this tournament. That should help Clutch, even more so when you combine it with the experience of Cody Sun. Huni had two MVP of the series during the regional finals, showing he can still be a carry player for his team.

Huni is a player who can be known to be boom or bust as either a carry or dead weight. I think Worlds is going to inspire the carry Huni to return to form and challenge for the World Championship.

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