C9 IWDominate: “Right now, we're losing the fights that we should win, we’re losing the fights that we should lose, and if there’s an even fight, we’re also losing those fights”

On Saturday, Cloud9 lost to Team Liquid 3-0, an elimination match that cemented their failure to qualify to MSI. This comes after a failure to qualify to First Stand last split, as well as every to any Riot–ran international event since 2023. The once-great team, defining NA as a region, has faltered again and again. After remotely advising the team last year, C9 fully brought in Christian “IWDominate” Rivera for 2026, a mainstay of the NA League scene through his years as a player and years as a costreamer, as an in-person coach. And while fans hoped IWD, alongside newly-promoted head coach Nick “Inero” Smith, could turn the team’s fortune around, it wasn’t to be, even after a Spring season that earned them accolades, it wasn’t to be. With playoffs came the crushing loss to TL, a series that looked lifeless from a C9 that was winning MVP awards just days before. Following the series, Sheep Esports sat down for an in-depth post-series conversation with IWDominate exploring the team, their challenges, and his aspirations as a coach.

Christian “IWDominate” Rivera: "Well, I think Game 1 started off really poorly for us. We lost a lot of situations that we know we have the advantage in. We’ve had this problem for a while now, where it feels like when there’s pressure, we just lose the details of the game. If you just look at the opening of Game 1, we see the enemy jungler crossing to chickens. We die because we think we’re fine on mid. We die top as well. And then, in the first drake fight, which is a massive win, we know that if they face-check us on drakes, we should be really strong. We’re playing Ashe Seraphine, we’re playing Anivia. We have a huge win condition there. We got the first drake, got the second drake, and then, on the exit, we have three deaths. It makes the game super hard, because in a game where our bot is winning by 20 CS, and we’re actually ahead in the game, we end up being down five kills. To me, none of those kills are justified kills. Sure, if they expend a flash, or they three man a lane and you dine, that’s fine. But the fact that we were in good positions, and the fight results in a win, but we die with three people, that just makes the game so much harder to play. It's been rough, because we've been losing a lot of situations that we know we have an advantage in. Versus LYON, we had the same thing. We’re losing fights when they’re walking in to us, we’re playing comps that are stronger in front-to-back, they’re not getting flanks, but then we’re losing the fight anyway in the position that we want. It's something that we just need to get better at. We need to be able to turn these situations into hard wins. If they walk into us, and we’re playing a comp where they're not allowed to walk into us, we just kill whoever walks in. We hit them with whatever spells we need to hit, and then the fight will just end. They’ll end up giving, or they’ll all run in and kill themselves afterwards. Something like this will happen almost every time. That’s a big issue for us.

I think we lost three different ways in all three games. Game 2, I think we just had a disaster on the grubs. We have a fight where Ziggs has item, they’re playing champs that are weaker than us at that point in the game. They’re playing Yone without Blade of the Ruined King yet, he’s on Berserker’s Greaves, while our midlaner has a full item. We ended up using 4 ultis on the Trundle, and Bard just ulted him, and our whole team is dead. We had all our flashes. Ornn got a three-man ult, Yone got a three-man ult, and the game just became really hard. A lot of times, the main thing is that we’re just losing fights that we should win. It’s very hard to win the game when you’re losing the fights you should win. Because right now, we are losing the fights that we should win, we’re losing the fights that we should lose, and if there’s an even fight, we’re also losing those fights. That’s how you get 6-0’d. There’s no way that in those games, we are in positions that are only losing every single time. This is a problem that everyone’s aware of on the team, everyone has discussed together. And it’s something that has to be our main focus going forward to get to Worlds and actually represent ourselves the way we want to represent ourselves.

IWDominate: I mean, it’s player execution, but it’s also, like, our ideas going in. So it’s not necessarily ‘oh, the players are just playing poorly.’ It’s that we’re not confident enough in our ideas of what should happen. That’s on coaches as well. We should be at the point where everyone is so confident that what we’re doing is good that we don’t have to think about that at all, in the fight. It’s like second nature to us. And then when the fights start, we just play what’s on our screen. So to me, it was a mix of player execution and then just us not being able to trust ourselves in these situations, that what we’re doing is actually good.

IWDominate: Game 1, it’s the classic, where enemy team wants full comfort. But I think our comp just counters their comp. Our bot lane is just winning. We have Ashe, Seraphine, Anivia, and they have to run into us, but they don’t really have the tools to run into us easily. Like, if Ryze and Lee Sin and Rakan try to flank us, it’s very hard for Xayah to hit, because we have Anivia wall. We have Anivia wall to zone him off, we have Nocturne ult, so he’s not going to really be able to see. They have a Zaahen, which, to me, should not have been a good champion in that game. He’s playing into three ranged champions, and he’s also playing a game where it’s very hard for them to stay on people. I feel like Zaahen’s much better when champions don’t have a lot of CC, and they don’t have to peel. Zaahen’s much better into multiple melee comps, where you’re just guaranteed to get your stacks.

I think Game 2, which was the game where we ended up playing Jarvan into Trundle. We ended up with Nautilus Jhin into Ornn, Trundle, Yone mid. I wouldn’t say we hard won the draft, but our draft definitely does a different thing than their draft does. Like, they’re very good at fighting, once they get items, but we should control the early part of the game. And it’s kind of like ‘Can we get ahead of in this game, before Yone gets BORK, that we are running the game during that period?’ Because when he gets BORK, it’s really hard to match him on side. But obviously, everything becomes really terrible if you lose a fight during Yone’s weak period. Yone is a very defined champion at this point. Everyone knows what Yone does. Up until Yone has BORK: pretty bad champion. You’re just trying to survive. The second you get BORK, you’re gonna beat anyone on sidelane, and you have to try to get to teamfights, and play them in ways where he’s not gonna be able to get off a lot of free damage.

I think Game 3 was probably our worst draft, out of all the drafts we had. But, I still think we have a win condition in the game. It should be easy for us to get kills on Shen; the Ambessa has no one that can match him in the game. We have TF to help ult onto the Shen, and get the Ambessa strong. It’s pretty hard for them to play sidelanes, but in 5v5, their comp is obviously pretty good, because they have Viktor, they have Neeko, they have Ezreal. They’re going to be able to control space better than us. And, in this game, we went for a top play. Everyone saw the top play. We ended up missing all of our skills. And then, we weren’t able to kill the Shen, so our Ambessa was not as strong as he should’ve been. It was a free kill topside.

I feel like a lot of people have this idea that each draft is ‘winning’ or ‘losing,’ but I think drafts just do different things. Game 1, our draft is objectively winning, because I don’t think they can execute what they can. But I think Games 2 and 3, we’re just going for different things in the game, and it’s going to be ‘Who can play better to the conditions that are going to allow them to get stronger at the point of the game where they actually win?’ And, clearly, we weren’t able to do that in either of those games.

IWDominate: I definitely think there’s a regression in our play today. We were unrecognizable today. Versus LYON, they beat us in a very LYON fashion, where people that are going to look at the game will say ‘Oh, it was 3-0.’ But the games, like Game 1 and Game 3, were easily winnable. When I was watching those games, it’s very obvious that one good thing happens and we win both of those games. To me, it’s like, a regression from us came very hardcore today. I think that LYON is the team where right now, I just believe they’re the best team. They’re the type of team here, in regular season, you might beat them, but it never feels real. They’re able to turn it on when it matters and play the game properly. And they just care more in playoffs. (Kacper Słoma) is the number one playoff performer in our league. I mean, he’s, in my opinion, the best player in the league. I think everyone knows it. Until he starts losing some of these important series, he just deserves to have that title. And a lot of times in regular season, the games are just less important, and teams just lose in ways where, in playoffs, it’s not really the same game. They’ll die way more. In playoffs, everything comes down to drake fights, and these are issues that we obviously have had the entire split, and it ended up biting us in the ass in the end. So, it’s tough to say. I think there’s definitely a regression. But I also think it’s both. We’re regressing. And other teams were leveling up more than us, throughout playoffs.

IWDominate: It’s just going for passion over something that I wasn't as passionate about. I really wanted to coach. I want to be on stage. I want to be part of these discussions. I want to try to raise the level of a team. And I've just decided to go with a different path because I think that that's just a more fulfilling thing. Obviously, I haven't been able to win yet. We got second in Winter. Now we've just got third in Spring. I really want to make an international, I want to go to Worlds, I want to win a split, these are still aspirations that I have. A lot of it is going to come down to ‘Can we be in the right headspace when we get to these really important matches?’ and ‘Can we improve on the things that we need to improve on, to actually be able to win the situations that are sided towards us?’ because, right now that's the biggest issue that we have. In terms of personal stuff, I definitely have respect for a lot of the top coaches in this region. I think that when you play against people like Spawn (Jake Tiberi,) you play against people like Spookz (Samuel Broadley,) who I think is actually really good, Reignover (Kim Yeu-jin,) Rigby (Han Earl,) these guys have been doing it for a long time. And you can just understand that they’re all extremely good at their jobs. So it’s not easy to win. People think that, ‘Oh, if you’re a really great coach, you’re going to come in and make all the difference.’ All these guys are really good. It’s like a new competition, where we’re all trying to make our teams the best possible, given the pieces that we have. And it’s really fun to be a part of that process of trying to make strategy adjustments and trying to exploit the weaknesses of a team, and highlight your own. And that's what I decided to do it for; I just find it extremely exciting. It just sucks that it’s turned out this way in this split.

IWDominate: Uh, I don’t know if they won because they mogged us, if that’s what the implication is. The thing is, like, Spawn is a pretty built guy. He can pull off the collared shirt maybe better than Nick and I can. So maybe it’s just like even, but for us, in order to really get up there with the mog battle, we need to wear suits. Like, it’s really important for our side.

IWDominate: Luckily, from going top 3, we have a boot camp in Korea. So, we’re going to go there, we’re going to try to improve our individual level. We’re going to have to just keep on working towards the inevitable playoffs matches. And, with this experience, we know what the games are going to come down to, and can just start super early focusing on these things. A lot of times in the season, you approach a lot of the matches and you’re trying to beat the team in front of you. But it seems like the best teams, the teams that end up winning at the end, like G2 in Europe and LYON so far in NA, and essentially, when I say LYON, it’s just Inspired teams, they’re focused on the big picture a lot more. That’s something that we’ve tried to do this split, that was the whole plan, that’s what we were trying to execute, and clearly, it didn't work, so we need to adjust how we do it to get the results that we want. Whether it’s like, scrimming differently, whether it’s using different things that are available to you, like Practice Tool. I’m not sure exactly what the solution is, but I know that what we did this split didn’t work, we have stuff to change, clearly. It’s a very difficult problem to have, because you also need to have opponents that are working toward similar things. If you’re scrimming, and one team doesn’t care about mid-game, and you want to practice your mid-game, if they FF every game at 12 minutes, it’s very hard to get the practice you want. You have to be able to do a lot of work outside the games, to get the results you want. That’s something that maybe I just have to do better at, is doing things without the physical reps of practice.”