NA LCS playoff bracket locked, TSM secures No. 1 seed

After nine weeks of regular season action, the 2017 North American LCS Spring Split has come to a close and the playoff brackets are locked in.

In the somewhat chaotic final week, we saw the league’s number one seed, Team SoloMid, lose to Team Liquid. That didn’t end up impacting either team’s fate: TSM still secured the No. 1 seed with a sweep of Phoenix1, while Team Liquid still fell to the promotion tournament after a loss to FlyQuest.

In a clash between two teams whose seasons only came together in the last third, Team Dignitas secured its playoff spot with two close wins over Immortals. That left IMT’s fate in the hands of Team Liquid, who would have had to 2-0 FlyQuest for them to move on. Instead FlyQuest — whose season started strong and ended on several consecutive down notes — managed a game two win against Team Liquid to secure the sixth seed moving into playoffs, before winning the third game to carry some momentum with it.

For Cloud9, Phoenix1 and Counter Logic Gaming — all teams that were, more or less, secure in their playoff standings coming into the weekend — week nine provided the perfect time for some experimentation as each team, whether by choice or not, deviated from their standard lineups.

This leaves Team Envy and Team Liquid as the two teams moving into the relegation tournament, while Immortals and Echo Fox will remain safe in the LCS, but will not advance to the playoffs. NV will face NA Challenger Series winners Gold Coin United (featuring LCK legend Hong "MadLife" Min-gi) in the first round, while TL will face Challenger runners-up EUnited.

With the games finishing up on Sunday, we finally have a complete view of the playoffs and which matches will happen when and which teams will get byes in the first week:

Quarterfinals (April 8-9)

No. 3 Phoenix1 vs. No. 6 Team Dignitas

No. 4 Counter Logic Gaming vs. No. 5 FlyQuest

Semifinals (April 15-16)

No. 1 Team SoloMid vs. TBD

No. 2 Cloud9 vs. TBD

Finals (April 23)

TBD vs. TBD

As the number one seed, Team SoloMid will play the lowest-seeded team remaining after the quarterfinals. For example, if Dignitas beats Phoenix1, TSM would automatically face DIG in the semifinal round. If P1 wins, C9 would face P1 in the semifinals.

Playoffs will begin on April 8th, with the NA LCS finals being held in Vancouver’s Pacific Coliseum on April 23rd. All series in the playoffs will be Best-of-5s, with the winner qualifying to represent North America at Riot’s Mid-Season Invitational in Brazil.

The Spring Split playoffs will also have strong implications on the race to worlds for the NA LCS teams as each of them will acquire LCS Championship Points based on their finishing place in the playoffs. After the Summer Split finals in August, the three teams with the most Championship Points will have the chance to represent North America at the World Championships in China.

Here’s a reminder of the breakdown of points for the Spring Split Playoff finishers:

1st place - 90 points

2nd place - 70 points

3rd place - 50 points

4th place - 30 points