GUANGZHOU, China -- In North America, Cloud9 is one of the most recognizable brands in all of esports. It's difficult to go to a League of Legends game in the United States or Canada without seeing at least a few people wearing the club's signature bright blue and white colors.
I'm definitely not in North America anymore. Everyone around me is cheering for C9's opponent, Team WE, in the World Championship quarterfinal.
The League of Legends Pro League squad, a home crowd favorite, laid the foundation years ago for what the Chinese League of Legends scene has become. Thousands of fans in the Guangzhou Gymnasium are in attendance to see if Team WE can become the second Chinese team in as many days to make it to the Worlds semifinals next week in Shanghai.
It's October, but the atmosphere and surroundings at the arena have a Christmas-like feel. To the right of me is a woman, short in stature, holding a light-up sign that looks bigger than she is, displaying her love for Team WE's ace Jin "Mystic" Sung-jun of South Korea. To the left, a banner hangs, sharing the bright red of WE and gold of the Chinese semifinalist Royal Never Give Up. Fans of two domestic rivals have come together to help goad the teams toward a Summoner's Cup.
"Are you C9 fan or North American fan?" a fan in front of me asks, noticing that I stand out among the crowd of Chinese fans cheering on Team WE to make it into the next round. He turns out to be one of the few C9 fans in attendance Sunday. A fan of Nicolaj "Jensen" Jensen, he shushes his friends next to him when they start to make noise for WE. When Jensen makes a positive play for his team, he's out in front, chanting "C-9!" as his Chinese peers stare at him like he's lost his mind.
For the first half of the day, the Team WE fans had little to cheer about. In the first three game of the series, C9 dictated most of the play, with one or two decisions in the first set keeping the series from a straight sweep for the North American squad. Each time the crowd tried to provide some motivation and started a spirited chant for the team, something would go awry, and the pockets of C9 fans in the massive crowd would make their voices heard, the WE contingent slinking into their seats.
In the fourth set, the crowd was finally given a reason to cheer. One game away from the semifinals, C9 fell apart in a game-clinching scenario. The North Americans fell behind early and let the crowd get back into the series. The roars of the crowd only grew as the fourth game shifted into the do-or-die fifth chapter of the series: Even the most staunch C9 supporters in the crowd were muted by the synchronized chants from the Chinese team's fans, their cries leading their team to a decisive victory in the climax of the back-and-forth match.
The fans wanted the players to know they weren't alone.
The players knew they weren't.
"[Guangzhou] is truly amazing," WE jungler Xiang "Condi" Ren-Jie said minutes after his team's advancement to the semifinals against Samsung Galaxy next week in Shanghai. "They're really passionate. When I took off my headset, I could hear everyone cheering for me, and it makes me really happy."