Thorin’s threads: 7 story-lines for the LCS NA playoff semi-finals

As exciting as playoff games and tournaments are on their own, I always find the context surrounding matches to be a key factor in enhancing the experience of watching the matches unfold. Knowing the historical component of the impact, a win or loss can have on a player's or team's career heightens the excitement. Seeing how individual performances can shape the way we think of players, make the big pressure moment they rise to or fall from only more intense. Thorin's threads picks out key story-lines to follow, with their historical and cultural context explained.

Here are seven story-line threads for the LCS North American semi-finals of CLG vs. TSM and Curse vs. C9.

CLG's first real test

This season has been a confusing one to interpet for those following CLG's performance. On the one hand, ever since getting Dexter they've been winning at an incredible clip, taking 73.68% of their games since the German's arrival. On the other hand, their record against the elite two teams (C9 and TSM) has only seen them go 2:4 (33%) since Dexter got there. Fans will want to say that they would have been fighting for a top two spot in the league had it not been for their problems in getting the ex-Lemondogs man into the line-up. This certainly seems to be true, but the problem is whether or not they would actually be better head-to-head against the elite two teams, which is far from decided so far.

Having overcome the problems of their past, always losing in the quarter-finals, they now face their first true test of the split. It is one which will decide whether CLG is ready to take up the mantle of an elite NA team, or whether TSM and C9 will remain a step above them. Ignoring all pre-Dexter results, CLG went 1:2 against TSM, but one of those losses was at the hands of the Reginald TSM. That's a pretty bad sign in itself, as TSM beat them without the player who has been given the MVP award for the regular portion of the split, Bjergsen. Hope for this series will stem from CLG's win over TSM in their last meeting, in week 10.

The history between CLG and TSM really doesn't play as much of a factor in this series as many will suggest, being as only one of the players in CLG (Doublelift) was even on the CLG that fought TSM back in 2012, and nobody in the line-up was there for the earlier portion of the rivalry, going back into 2011. Instead, this series seems more about finding out where CLG are actually at as a team. There's no shame in being the gatekeepers to the elite, but it's not the same as being a member.

Link's chance to show his worth

Link has been a perfect CLG recruit in as much as he plays directly into the team and its fans' penchant for citing the potential of a player. Day-to-day results are eschewed in favour of looking at the best games and imagining that things could be like that every time. The Link who won the MVP award for weeks six and seven was battling to establish himself alongside Bjergsen as a NA Mid laner worth mentioning alongside the famous names of EU. At other times, Link can look more on the level of a player like Hai. With the emergence of Shiphtur, Link now finds himself threatened, even for the position of second best Mid in NA.

This series not only allows Link to go up against the best Mid laner in NA, Bjergsen, but also showcase his skills against the most talent stacked line-up in LCS NA. A strong series here can establish him as one of the region's absolute top players, while a poor series will see him another players with potential which can't always be realised. If this is to be a new CLG, not one weighed down by excuses, then Link is the X factor who can change their fortunes.

I always remember a comment a legendary analyst said in an old hockey broadcast of a playoff game seven I saw. He basically said that the great players of yesteryear had come through in the big game, in the deciding moment, and now the young potentially great players had to as well. That's how I feel whenever I see players touted as stars put into high pressure situations. It's not enough to be great when it doesn't really matter, you have to deliver when it matters the most.

Doublelift vs. WildTurtle in a battle of the best NA AD Carries

Going into Season 3 there was really no debate over who was the best AD Carry in NA, Doublelift won everyone's vote without much difficulty. Then came WildTurtle into the conversation as the new TSM AD Carry won the Spring split. With CLG suffering in both splits in 2013, WildTurtle not only began to creep into the lead of the discussion, but his Worlds performance pretty much sealed the deal in many people's minds. NA had a new best AD Carry, while Doublelift looked to be merely a good player on a bad team. The arrival of Aphromoo back into the CLG line-up has resurrected the debate, with Doublelift finally in a strong bot lane and give the opportunity to perform in theoretically every game.

This season has been an interesting one in terms of the race between the two for best at their position, as Doublelift has been one of the strengths of CLG and WildTurtle has continued to be a rock in the TSM line-up. Bragging rights will very much be on the line in this series, as NA's two best AD Carries, both possessed of excellent mechanics and now each equipped with quality Support players, face off to decide who is the best. Now, as with Doublelift vs. Rekkles at IEM Cologne, this won't necessarily decide who the better player is, but it'll be a chapter in the story, at least.

TSM look to make every split final

Team SoloMid are without a doubt the most successful team in the history of North American LoL, as their incredible offline victories in 2012 set in place as a fact. In 2013 they continued to be the top dogs, winning the first split of the year. They fell to C9 in the final of LCS Summer, but when second place is your worst you're a pretty good team. Now, with a revived CLG biting at their heels, TSM needs to win this semi-final to ensure they make it three LCS finals appearances in a row.

A loss here, especially to CLG, would see their hopes of displacing C9 as the best team in NA delayed for at least a few months. It would also see questions brought up as to whether they were even ahead of CLG by any margin. This TSM squad looked to be an NA dream-team, of sorts, combined with the firepower of an EU Mid laner, sure-fire split champions at a glance. If they lose out in the semi-final, suddenly the dream of a TSM that might be able to contend for the S4 World Championship title becomes less realistic. Fans will also be denied a chance to see the potential Bjergsen vs. Faker Mid lane match-up they've anticipated so much.

The Meteos show

Meteos is the best Jungler in the North American region and the gap isn't close between him and second place. When he rose up to dominate LCS Summer, it was the super farm-heavy carry jungling style that made him famous. After Fnatic exposed the potential weaknesses in that approach, suddenly people could look back at Xmithie's Korean-esque low farm approach and ask which was really better in an international context. Real debate could be had over who was the best Jungler in NA. This season, with Xmithie disappearing into the mists of the bottom two and Meteos adapting to a less farm-orientated approach, debate is far from the table.

It's funny that junglers have hidden for so many years behind the excuse that "you can't judge a jungler individually, since if his lanes are winning he will look good". This certainly carries some weight as a general trend, but has its exceptions. On Meteos' teams his laners are no monsters, only Balls can really be expected to win out every time. Nevertheless he stands head and shoulders above the rest of his team-mates as the star of the line-up. In this semi-final he'll face one of the other names in NA jungling worth taking note of: IWillDominate.

IWD just came out of the battle of the junglers that was the quarter-final against Crumbzz, the man I had down as my second best NA jungler. Now the Curse man must go up against the full force of the best in the region. In a series his team is heavily favoured in, I expect Meteos to deliver a new episode in his long running show of dominating his region. Another LCS split final is calling.

C9 look set to work Curse over tactically

Curse have been all over the place as the season has gone on, from as high as third down to as low as seventh, and yet managed to finish in fifth overall. C9, on the other hand, have never dropped below second place in the standings, such has been their impeccable consistency. Curse only managed a single week with a winning record, while C9 only had one week end without a winning record, one in which they went 1-1. This is on all accounts a mismatch of teams, not least in as much as C9 are the best team in NA from a tactical standpoint. If Curse wins this semi-final then one has to imagine a miraculous Bo3 to have taken place, even if Bo3 is a format considerably more prone to such upsets than Bo5.

This semi-final looks set to be a clinic on the macro strategical component of professional LoL, with C9 as the professors in residence and Curse the unfortunate students, hurrying to take notes and try to cram.

No Curse line-up has ever won an LCS game vs. C9

If the previous story-line made the semi-final seem bleak, the historical component that no Curse player has ever won an LCS game against C9 doesn't really help. Now it's not quite as bad as that might initially seem, since only Cop was even playing his current position in any of those past games, but one has to imagine there is no way the Curse players can summon real confidence that this series should go their way. For an organisation like Curse, with so much backing, it would be pretty humiliating to go down 0:8 or 1:8 to C9, a team whose organisation is less than a year old.

Photo credit: Riot Games