Coming into Week 9, only Team Liquid and 100 Thieves clinched a playoff berth while the other teams were still battling for the remaining 4 spots. Cloud9, Echo Fox, and FlyQuest were sitting at 9 wins and needed just 1 more win to secure a playoff spot, while OpTic Gaming and Team SoloMid were sitting at 8 wins and needed at least 1 more win and some help to get into the playoffs. Day 1 saw many of these teams face off against each other with the match of the day being OpTic Gaming vs Team SoloMid. Team Liquid started the day off by securing 1st place by beating Echo Fox. Cloud9 followed this up with another convincing victory against 100 Thieves. Then came the match of the day where Team SoloMid looked to out draft and out play OpTic Gaming to leap frog them in the standings. Lastly, FlyQuest also secured their playoff berth by beating Golden Guardians. This left Echo Fox and Team SoloMid at 9 wins and still not safe yet with OpTic Gaming behind at 8 wins.
The start of Day 2 could have solidified the playoff picture, but OpTic Gaming had other ideas as they bounced back and defeated 100 Thieves to give themselves a chance, finishing the season with a record of 9-9. 100 Thieves went 0-2 in Week 9 and were now waiting to see who they might play in tiebreakers. Next up was Echo Fox, who needed a victory as a loss could mean that they would miss playoffs entirely, and they came out focused and crushed Clutch Gaming, which meant that they secured their playoff berth and were now in the tiebreakers with other teams at 10-8. The battle for 2nd place was between two surprising teams in Cloud9 and FlyQuest as both teams had been last place earlier in the season. It was another quick game with Cloud9 taking the victory and getting the playoff bye. They were sitting in last place at 3-7 after Week 5, but have since gone on a 8 game winning streak to finish 11-7 and finish 2nd. The very last match of the regular season was between Team SoloMid and Team Liquid. With a win, Team SoloMid would avoid a must win tiebreaker vs OpTic Gaming for 6th place and Bjergsen looked like a man on a mission. He picked Akali and pulled off an amazing 1v9 performance going 14/1/5 with a Baron kill to cap off the game. The win by Team SoloMid created a 4-way tie between 100 Thieves, Echo Fox and FlyQuest at 10-8 for 3rd-6th place. This officially eliminated OpTic Gaming from playoff contention.
Strength of schedule / victory was used to seed each of the 10-8 teams with 100 Thieves being the highest ranked then Echo Fox, then Team SoloMid, and finally FlyQuest. After 4 tiebreaker games, which were played on a special Tiebreaker Monday, the teams ended up in the same spot. 100 Thieves took 3rd, Echo Fox took 4th, Team SoloMid took 5th and FlyQuest took 6th. This setup rematches for the quarterfinals as Echo Fox would face off against Team SoloMid again and 100 Thieves would face FlyQuest. Echo Fox and 100 Thieves were victorious in the most recent tiebreaker matches, but with a week to prepare, they shouldn't be taking their opponents lightly. Team SoloMid know this all too well as Clutch Gaming upset them in the quarterfinals last split after a similar scenario. The road to Oakland starts next week as the playoffs kick off with the two quarterfinals match ups.
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