The 2016 World Championship group stages wrapped up Sunday, sending forward North America’s Cloud9 as well as the two-time world champion SK Telecom T1.
The defending champions were the first to qualify, sweeping three games to a 5-1 total record and Group B’s first seed. The Korean powerhouse definitely looked much sharper in the second week, perhaps solidifying themselves as the tournament favorite.
On the other hand, Cloud9, with the hope of North America levied on their shoulders, would have a much different path. After struggling through losses against SKT and Flash Wolves, C9 would pull back to .500 following a long-winded victory over I May before relying spectating the game to decide their fate.
Flash Wolves and SKT would then duke it out. With a win, the former would head to a tiebreaker with C9 for second place, but they unfortunately would fall victim to SKT’s fifth win of the group stage.
Both C9 and SKT will join six other qualifying teams in the knockout-based quarterfinals, slated to take on Samsung Galaxy and Royal Never Give Up, respectively.