Anticipation for the Grand Final’s prelude soared after the contestants were narrowed to
and
. The 2026
League of Legends Championship Series (
LCS) Summer Split Playoffs Winners Final’s would reward the winner with a direct seed to the 2026
World Championship’s Main Stage and a chance to break each team’s championship drought.
Fireworks flew as the teams battled it out on the Rift, but only one team could emerge victorious. As the series closed, Game 4 emerged as a contender for match of the year. Though C9 put up a great effort, they couldn’t overcome TL’s superior teamfighting and
lost the series 1-3.
Following the defeat, Robert “
" Huang had an exclusive interview with
Sheep Esports. Cloud9’s jungler shared his thoughts on LYON and TL’s differences, their preparation for LYON, and this is the year C9 breaks all their demons.
Could you walk me through Cloud9’s comms over two crucial moments in Game 4? The siege inside TL’s base and the ultra-heater-banger two-minute-long late-game team fight.
Robert “Blaber" Huang: "When we were sieging the Nexus, Lissandra had died, and I was trying to talk about how… Well, I didn't say it very loudly, but we talked about how they can't really kill the minions, so we don't need to dive. Someone said they wanted to dive, but I don't think we needed to. If we played the situation slower, we would've ended on that push, but we rushed it a bit. Even after the initial situation, if Eddie hadn’t flashed on Ashe and had just killed Ambessa, I think we could have ended it. In that situation, we should've been a bit calmer and realized we don't need to dive because they will have to go into us at some point.
In the Elder situation, it was a bit hectic. They were sieging our tier three and our inhib, so they were looking to engage 20 seconds before the Elder buff expired. That's when they tried to force a fight with Ashe. We lost Olaf ult, and after they lost Elder, we took a small fight. They took both our nexus turrets, and we talked about fighting after Elder was gone. After the Elder buff expired, I believe we killed one person. We were talking about Olaf teleporting behind, then tried to chase them down, but it didn't work, and then… Yeah, they team-fought with Lissandra to end the game because it was 4v5. When we were losing, we said we shouldn’t fight, or fight away from the Nexus, because if we let them come to the Nexus, they'll ignore us and just go for it. We tried to fight before they actually reached our Nexus, even though it was a 4v5.
Obviously, I wasn't in the game, but damn, that sounds super stressful. Wow!
Blaber: Yeah, I think the end of the game was up to them because they had the Elder buff. We should have ended on the first timer, when we were in botlane. We would have ended it if we approached the situation more slowly.
C9 seems to come late into the series. The first two games were slightly less competitive than the back end of the series, which seemed poised for Silver Scrapes. Why do you think Cloud9 struggled against Team Liquid's early-game plans in the first two games of this series?
Blaber: Honestly, I'm not sure it was the early-game plans because I felt like… I think we team fought really poorly in the first two games. For example, in Game 1, they took an early Drake fight we actually won. We got the Drake, and we killed three for one. Then, on the third Drake fight, I'm pretty sure we got a 5-for-0 ace… Maybe 4-for-0, but we lost to Drake. Losing that Drake was my bad; my Q-Smite did a lot less damage than I thought. We had another early-game fight at our chickens; when I played Xin Zhao, I believe we killed them 2-for-0. We then went to Herald at 15 minutes and got aced without killing any of them. Our teamfights were really off in the first two games, and that snowballed the 5v5s from there. It felt like we weren’t as ready to trade punches with them; I’m not sure why exactly.
Without revealing any strategy, has C9 identified anything you did repeatedly in last week’s series against LYON but couldn't replicate today?
Blaber: I think LYON and TL are very different teams. TL plays a much faster, much more aggressive play style. They play much more for invades, dives, and two-laning, but you have to adapt. Because they have really strong early games and skirmishes, they run over many teams. TL and LYON play very different styles. So, sorry, what was the question? I thought it was something else.
Is there anything C9 did repeatedly against LYON that you couldn't replicate today?
Blaber: Honestly, we just didn't teamfight very well in the first two games. That's basically it. We teamfought a lot better against LYON, but that didn’t happen in the first two games. We also threw Game 4; in my opinion, it was a free win, and we gave it to them.
You will face LYON in a rematch next week in the Losers Finals in Atlanta, Georgia. They had time to prepare after an upsetting loss. Again, without revealing any plans, how will C9 identify different strategies and/or trump cards to stump LYON again?
Blaber: I think we have a good plan going into LYON. Obviously, I can't reveal too much, but we know how they want to play. I think my coaching staff has a good idea of how to draft against LYON, so we're prepared. Obviously, they're a strong team; there are no weak teams left in the finals. If we want to beat LYON, we have to prepare well and play well on the day because I don't think they have any glaring weaknesses.
In a previous interview, LYON’s (Kang Sung-in) told Sheep Esports he wanted to get revenge on C9 on the grandest stage possible. When asked if he had anything to say to C9 and TL, he said he didn’t. Before this super important match, do you have anything to say to LYON?
Blaber: No. I have nothing to say to LYON as well. I think it'll be a good match, and I'm looking forward to playing on the big stage again.
Such respectful competitors. At the end of the series, the broadcast brought up that C9 has the sixth-worst win rate with Dragon Soul across Tier 1 leagues. Why do you think C9 struggles to close games with Soul?
Blaber: Before, we were definitely a team prone to throwing. Honestly, it's not a big problem for us these days, and by “these days” I mean the last couple of weeks. For example, today’s Ocean Soul isn’t as overpowered as Hextech or Cloud, so losing with it isn’t as egregious. I'm not sure; I mean, definitely before, we were throwing, and that was a big reason we would lose with Soul.
I remember an interview where IWD (Christian Rivera) commented on Cloud9’s exaggerated choking narrative. You're telling me you've corrected this mistake. How has this changed over the past couple of weeks?
Blaber: I guess I can't say it's fully broken because we lost with the Dragon Soul buff today. It's not fully broken, but these days we are more... Coordinated isn’t the right word, but we try not to overplay too much, especially when we're winning too hard on stage. We've been working on it. I don't think this Soul throw wasn't, like... I mean, we definitely overplayed in this game and threw, but we made a slew of bad decisions in their base, and again in the last team fight before Elder. I think we're working on taking fewer big risks when we're winning really hard.
For the last question, I want to spin a positive narrative, especially for Cloud9 fans. It's been 10 years since C9 qualified for the 2016 World Quarterfinals in North America. It's also been 8 years since the team’s semifinals run at Worlds 2018, which you were a part of. Why is this the year C9 wins the LCS and brings back the magical international performances?
Blaber: Okay, let me actually think of a response, so I can have a better answer. [Thinks profoundly] For me, I feel like we have a really good chance this year because, in general, I feel like we’re individually very strong. Not just that, but I think that we've shown a lot of improvement, which I'm honestly happy with. I feel like if we're able to improve, you know, going into Worlds, we'll be able to do a deep run, contest the top teams, and I'm feeling really hopeful with this team. I feel like we have shown good improvement, at least internally. I'm looking forward to being able to show that in a long tournament like the World Championship.
