Cloud9 has eliminated Golden Guardians from the 2021 League Championship Series Championship in a 3-0 sweep in the lower bracket.

Golden Guardians is the second LCS team to be eliminated from the post-season following Dignitas' elimination at the hands of Immortals one day prior, and the fourth team to have its LCS season end after DIG, FlyQuest and Counter Logic Gaming, the latter pair whom failed to qualify for the post-season.

Cloud9 unexpectedly found itself in the lower bracket after losing the 2021 LCS Mid-Season Showdown rematch against Team Liquid 3-1 in round 1 of the LCS Championship. Now that the reigning champion of North America has dispatched of Golden Guardians, it will have to wait for some of the upper bracket matches to resolve before it knows its next opponent.

Tomorrow, Evil Geniuses will face off against 100 Thieves. The former got to the second round of the upper bracket by sweeping Dignitas into the lower bracket, while 100 Thieves' 2nd place finish this summer guaranteed it a first round bye.

On the other side of the upper bracket, TL's victory that sent Cloud9 to the lower bracket puts TL against TSM, who finished 1st in the regular season. The winners of both matches will lock up two of the three North American seeds reserved for representatives of the region at the 2021 World Championship, which will take place in China this fall. The losers of both matches will face Immortals and Cloud9 on respective sides of the lower bracket. 

The winners of the two lower bracket matches will then play one another, with the winner locking up the last Worlds 2021 seed while moving on to face the loser of the upper bracket match. The winner of the match between the two remaining upper bracket teams will move on to the finals undefeated, while the loser will face off against the last surviving team from the lower bracket to see who will take on the only remaining undefeated team in the finals.