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Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen qualified for the League of Legends World Championship for the eighth consecutive time after Cloud9 defeated Evil Geniuses 3-1 in the LCS Championship on Sunday, surpassing a global record that he had previously shared with his longtime teammate Zachary “Sneaky” Scuderi.
Following eight consecutive performances overall, the 27-year-old Danish player will tie the record for most Worlds appearances when he shows up at the 2022 World Championship. Yiliang “Peter” Peng, popularly known as Doublelift, and a member of Team Liquid, has made eight appearances at the competition as well.
Jensen competed in his first World Championship in 2015, when he was only 20 years old, with Cloud9. He had taken over the role of the squad’s former strategist and mid laner, Hai, who was retiring at the time. During his time with the organization, he qualified for the World Championships in 2016, 2017, and 2018. He then went on to qualify for the World Championships with Team Liquid for the next three consecutive years, 2019 through 2021. During that span of time, he won the first of his two LCS titles and qualified for the MSI Finals in 2019, before rejoining Cloud9 in 2022.
Given that Jensen was not even playing for a team during the Spring Split, this accomplishment carries a little bit more weight than it normally would in this season’s competition. Even though he had held the role for three years and had a wonderful performance at Worlds 2021, Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg was brought in to replace him as the mid laner for Liquid. Hence, he did not participate in the Spring of 2022.
After the dismal performance of Cloud9 during the Spring Split, the organization decided to bring back one of its former mid laners to fill the void left by Ibrahim “Fudge” Allami, who had moved back to the top lane following the departure of LCS 2022 Spring MVP and top laner, Park “Summit” Woo-tae, from the team.
Despite having comparatively less performance during the Summer Split, Cloud9 prevailed over the North American team, CLG, in a five-game series during the first round of the LCS Championship. They then secured their spot at Worlds for the eighth time in the last decade by claiming an unexpected win over the top-seeded Evil Geniuses.
Prior to Team Vitality’s seventh-place finish in the 2018 LEC Summer Split, mid laner Luka “Perkz” Perković had qualified for the World Championships six times in a row while playing for G2 and Cloud9. Therefore, the Team Liquid support player Jo “CoreJJ” Yong currently holds the record for the longest active Worlds streak, which is at six. However, Team Liquid’s winning streak will come to an end if they are unable to defeat both CLG and the team that wins the match between Evil Geniuses and TSM.
This year, you can watch Jensen and the rest of Cloud9 compete in the World Championships on either the play-in stage in Mexico City on September 29 or the group stage at Madison Square Garden in New York City on October 7. Visit GG.Bet to see all the odds on the World Championship.
