After Cloud9’s defeat at the hands of Team Liquid, and TSM’s defeat at the hands of Clutch Gaming, no one expected the semifinals to be easy. Liquid and Clutch didn’t play like a fourth and sixth place team either. Team Liquid continued to crush their way through the playoffs, putting Echo Fox down in a 3-1 series. This was followed on Saturday by the sixth place Clutch Gaming forcing first place 100 Thieves into a 5-game showdown that went long into the night.

Team Liquid has been doing a great job getting themselves out of the ‘one trick pony’ category. Previously, all anyone cared about was the Doublelift and Olleh show, but that all changed in the playoffs. Impact has been doing amazing work, crushing his old teammates and then taking even Huhi to task as Liquid prioritized putting him onto powerful tank picks. Pobelter too has been doing his part to play supportive mid-laners that are more about strengthening the team than playing as an all-star. As a result, even with all 5 first game bans leveled against the bot lane, Doublelift still managed to go 10-0-8 with an 81% Kill Participation. If Fox had tried to focus less on the Liquid bot lane, they probably would have had greater success.

The only game that Echo Fox did win was when they were actually crushed early game but played more to team comp and strategy than anything else. Unfortunately for them, every other game they let themselves buy into the hype, and instead of trying to force Liquid into a less favorable draft, they spent almost every ban of every game on the bot lane, which Liquid clearly proved is not a deterrent to their style. Team Liquid came to a decisive victory in Game 4 when they beat Echo Fox in 21-3 in kills.

No one expected Clutch Gaming to win this matchup, but that has been the story for Clutch all along. Apollo has said time and again that no one has had any faith in the team. Doublelift said his team wasn’t worried about Clutch because they had three players from a failed team – Hakuho, LirA, and Apollo – and the worst top laner in the NA LCS. Despite the criticisms though, no one can dispute what Clutch did in this 5 game series. From the first game, Clutch was determined not to go down easy. Even when Aphromoo picked Morgana away from Hakuho, Clutch showed that Hakuho’s mastery of that champion also went into identifying all of her weaknesses, and the Clutch bot lane brutalized the Thieves despite later losing the game.

None of that is to say that nerves were not a factor. Ryu made a mistake in the final game by not holding a Galio taunt long enough, Aphromoo flashed and ulted into a retreating Clutch when Cody Sun wasn’t there to back him up, and Cody Sun died when he extended too far into his lane without support. While Clutch was playing very well, their focus was far better than the Thieves, and that helped them considerably.

Though Clutch played tighter, there were still mistakes. A Syndra into Ashe ulti whiffed as Cody Sun moved to safety, and Solo charging into a Trundle pillar on Orne wasn’t his finest moment, but both of these teams fought like hell. Their final game was a 74 minute slug fest that ultimately came down to the Thieves gaining enough composure to identify a winning strategy – force Clutch to answer a threat at their doorsteps while minions went to work. It was a slow strategy with kills being traded by both teams, but finally, the minions knocked down both Nexus turrets while Clutch battle the Thieves at the edge of their base, and it was at this moment that Clutch’s steely focus cracked and the Thieves were able to catch them out, closing the series and moving themselves into the finals.