As we approach a photo-finish to end the Summer Split, I guess it’s fitting that the race is being led by a horse. Seven teams remain in the race for the playoffs, but only six will advance — it’s every team for themselves, and you can bet it’s going to get really desperate. If there’s ever a week to pull out some cheese, it’s now. A loss could mean it’s the last time you’ll play until January — a devastating five-month layoff that no player will want to endure. It could mean retirement. It could mean being cut. Or demoted. The dream will end this weekend for five more players. Here’s 10 thoughts going into Week 9!

[11-5] American Pharaoh

Liquid feels a bit like an aging but prized steed — they still stand at the top of the crop, and they have the legs they need to repeat as champions, but like the spring split, the top seed from NA doesn’t inspire as much confidence as past winners because they haven’t been absolutely dominant. Though all that bravado ended up disappointing us, so maybe this is for the better? TL will secure a bye with just one victory this coming weekend, and that shouldn’t be too difficult to pull off. Last weekend, though, C9 maybe exposed the proper way to beat this team. In camping mid lane, they were able to collapse the map quickly and prevent TL’s side lanes from reaching critical mass. This is something that could happen more and more as we approach international play, and teams may be able to exploit TL. Outside of Doublelift, they just don’t have a true superstar — it’s a lot of very good players who will be very good at enabling Doublelift come team fights, but they are susceptible to getting snowballed on early. Which basically means you should definitely pick the new Nunu and Willump against TL when they are released.

[10-6] Steady presence

AnDa: can you pick me poppy

100: ?? you have no games on it?

AnDa: uhh this is my smurf

100: … at least take smite

AnDa: lol ok what keystone do you guys think I should run

100 continues to be one of the most methodical teams in the league — they seem less prone to making panic-induced decisions than every other team (they already got that bad base race out of their system, too). That means you aren’t going to get away with too many cheeky plays against them, and we’re entering a juncture in the season where consistency is maybe the most valuable attribute a team could possess. The Spring Split Final made it clear they were simply outclassed by TL — this split, they’ve done a better job at leaning into Ssumday as their primary carry, and they brought in AnDa. He’s going to be their X-Factor going forward. For better or for worse, how he matures as a jungler will dictate their success for the rest of their year.

[9-7] 2 subs, 2D chess

Was substituting Svenskeren and Goldenglue in the middle of a five-game winning streak a good idea? On paper, you’d say no. But it turns out it made such little sense that it ended up working out. Like, nobody — not even Liquid — understood it. Truly 2D chess. Ideas are always good if they work out, I guess. It panned out — the pair played around each other to perfection and propelled C9 to a dominant win over the reigning champs. That pushes them to a six-game winning streak, and they’ve clearly been the best team in the latter half of the regular season. They control their own destiny at this point and could finish with a bye if they win out (thanks to having another matchup with 100 coming up). All year, every single NA team has had a glaring weakness that has left me uneasy as we approach Worlds, but C9 is the one squad that makes it easier for me to imagine NA hoisting the Summoner’s Cup. They have strong players who can carry from every single position on the map, and now they have a rotation of substitutes they can bring with them to Worlds. This is the most promising team in NA — they’ve literally harnessed their memes this split into a deadly weapon. The world isn’t ready.

[9-7] What’s in the name?

If you told me a roster consisting of Santorin, WildTurtle, and Flame would be a contending team in the NA LCS, I’d have believed you… in 2014. Which is to say what they’re doing right now is absolutely incredible. Once you get past public perceptions of how good (or washed-up) these players are, they’ve got all the pieces you’d want when building a team. They’ve got Turtle and Flame who are capable of popping off and carrying games, and they’re not afraid to make plays. They’re also very clearly decisive, and they’ve got promising young talent that can still be developed. Stock’s hot on this team! Drop your shares of Ether and invest into FlyQuest, pronto! The main thing preventing me from fully committing to this team is admittedly perceptions of how good these players are — at the end of the day, we’ve seen what their peaks and valleys look like, and that’s not something that’s super easy to change. But I do think it might be helpful to pretend they were five new players entirely — if you’d replaced their names, would you buy into the hype behind this team?

[9-7] The new inconsistent team

Is FOX the new CLG? They play some of the most entertaining games in the league, and their inconsistency makes you scratch your head. Like, one moment I’m convinced this is the best team in the NA LCS, and the next they engage a fight like ants — marching in one by one until they are wiped out. So while I absolutely love watching them play, it’s gotta be tough on the die-hard fans who just want their team to win every time. Even the mid-season roster shuffle is a very CLG thing to do — replacing three players from a top-three squad sounds kind of ridiculous the more I think about it. I’m sure they had good reasons for it, and it’s still panning out alright, but it really is incredulous. Especially given that we’re fast approaching Worlds, and this new roster will only have had two months to synergize (if they even make it there). It makes me wonder if this will wind up being a team with a lot of unrealized potential by the time their season ends. Dardoch and Huni have floated in (and out of) the MVP conversation all year, but are they enough to lift FOX come playoffs? The meta — like Spring — seems to be quickly shifting back to tanks and ADCs, which is decidedly out of favor for them.

[8-8] The joy of winning

So, PowerOfEvil could once again be in a position to put an end to TSM’s year. I write memes every week so it’s nice to be able to take a break once in a while when they just decide to write themselves. Look, OPT also has to face 100 on Sunday, so no matter how you slice the dice, they don’t have an easy path into the playoffs. But that’s not going to stop me from being in their corner! More than any other team, it looks like these guys are always happy to win a game. I think that’s a really valuable thing — they’ve endured a lot of losses this year, so they know to not take a victory for granted. Contrast it with a few other teams in the league who look relieved to win games and it quickly becomes something easy to root for. I’m not about to tell you I think they’re favored to make playoffs, but it’s not like the teams around them have been terribly consistent either, you know? And when it comes down to do-or-die scenarios like this Week 9, it’s not always the better team that wins. It comes down to whoever is hungriest.

[8-8] 9th inning rally?

Backs against the wall and who better to relieve them of stress than their arch rival who they actually haven’t lost to in two years? Thank you CLG. TSM has had a tumultuous year to say the least — after missing Finals for the first time in NA LCS history, they’ve staggered and fallen and gotten back up again all summer. And now they’re in danger of missing playoffs for the first time in the organization’s history. They’ve been in precarious situations before, but I think they always manage to rally by the end of the split to look like a contender. This split, however, they’ve yet to string together a series of good looking games. Even wins have been shaky at times, and that leaves a lot of room to worry. But the flip side is it also leaves a lot of room for growth. If you’re a TSM fan, then you’ve seen what they look like going into Worlds when it appears as if they’re in peak form. What you’re seeing now is a TSM that has (hopefully) been humbled by the year, and may actually be able to adapt and improve if they can survive the NA LCS grinder. And with the meta reverting to something more traditional, perhaps they’ll be able to step up and deliver on their legacy after all.

[6-10] Down but not out… yet?

Looks like this team might end up joining Carmelo Anthony on the bench soon here. There’s still a chance they make Worlds — they retain 30 Championship Points from their Spring Split, so all they need is for either OPT or FLY to lose in the Quarterfinals. That would give them a shot at the gauntlet, and we’ve seen plenty of miracles happen there before. This is also a squad that will benefit from a return towards a more traditional meta, but they’ve yet to really demonstrate that kind of prowess all summer, so it’s not exactly an easy thing to bank on. If their season does come to end here, though, then I think you’d have to start looking at the roster and pick at where it all fell apart. They tried a brief switch this split and they fired their coach — clearly there are internal rumblings that something needs to change. To me, the biggest difference this split seemed to occur in bot lane — a duo that was absolutely dominant last split just didn’t look the same over the summer. Was it a problem tied to the meta? To how their team would play around them? Or specifically was it a problem with them? Answering that will help shed some light on the path they need to take going forward.

[5-11] End of an era

CLG’s self-destructive season was exactly like a BoJack Horseman episode — a nice, promising premise that eventually ends on a multi-week bender. For a second, you think, “Wow, BoJack might actually get it together this time.” And yet, here we are. CLG’s eight game losing streak has to be one of the most colossal disappointments in the history of the NA LCS. To go from first to last like this is just absolutely brutal. The slide cost Zikz his job, and it will likely cost a few players on this squad their jobs as well. I talked to Jatt recently, and he said the absolute worst thing an organization could do is fire both the coach and change the roster — you should figure one or the other is at fault, commit to it, and then see the result. I thought that was a really smart way of putting it. Well, maybe the couple weeks without Zikz will be enough for management to decide something was wrong with both the coach and the roster? The core has been together for a long time, but this should be a long offseason for all of them. CLG is no longer seen as a premier organization in the league — this feels like it’s going to be the end to this era. I just hope they can rally in the final week to ring in at least one more win together as a team.

[5-11] Upstart upended

For GGS, watching other teams play in the Oracle is going to feel like watching your cousins play with your toys that your parents won’t let you play with. Their season followed a similar arc to CLG’s — in just the span of a month, they went from upstart darlings to… exactly where everyone expected them to be before the split began. They rode Heimerdinger/Talon combo to an absolutely well-deserved high, but once that Talon strategy was nerfed, they just have not looked the same. They should be praised for their ability to create a meta of their own, but they should also be critiqued for failing to adapt beyond that. In hindsight, that just looks like a cheese strategy that they mastered without fully comprehending what made the cheese so successful — if they could have isolated that and replicated it, then maybe they wouldn’t be sitting in last place right now. GGS replaced Hai with Mickey this split in hopes of securing a higher ceiling of talent in mid lane, but it would appear a lot of issues from their Spring Split persisted — namely their inability to execute on their win condition after securing early leads, a tendency to overextend on skirmishes, and an even more pronounced lack of a playmaker without Hai in the lineup (that is someone willing to start a fight, even at the cost of their own life). This will be a long offseason for them — there is promise in the roster, but they are lacking direction.