Cloud9 has swept 100 Thieves in its first match of the 2021 League of Legends Championship Series Mid-Season Showdown. Cloud9 will face Team Liquid in the next round of the upper bracket, while 100 Thieves will be dropped down to the lower bracket for an elimination match against Dignitas. 

Cloud9 came into the series favored to win, but in three games, made sure there was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was the superior team on Summoner's Rift. With each win, C9 built momentum and won more convincingly than the last, with the final game of the series being the quickest and most one-sided start to finish. 

The series was a far cry from Cloud9's last best-of-five match against 100 Thieves, which started in two quick wins for 100 Thieves before C9 turned the tides and won in a reverse sweep. 

It went pretty much as I expected it to go," C9 mid laner Luka "Perkz" Perković said of today's series in a post-game interview with Gabriella “LeTigress” Devia-Allen on the LCS broadcast. "Anything but a 3-0 would have been a disappointment for us." 

Cloud9 and Team Liquid are now the only teams left in the 2021 LCS Mid-Season Showdown with double-elimination privileges. The two teams will face eachother in two weeks in the second round of the upper bracket in a rematch of the 2021 LCS Lock In final, which TL won 3-2. In the 2021 LCS Spring Split, Cloud9 secured 1st place while TL settled for 3rd, but TL held the 2-0 in the head-to-head record against C9 despite the difference in placing.

100 Thieves will fight to survive next week against Dignitas, and TSM, who lost to TL yesterday, will do the same against Evil Geniuses. The winner of those two matches will play each other, and the team who survives that bout will face off against the loser of TL v C9. The winner will meet whichever team is left standing from the lower brack in the LCS Mid-Season Showdown finals to see which team represents North America at the 2021 Mid-Season Invitational.