C9 has kinda played like dogshit most of the split. Meteos went from great on a bunch of champs, to great on Elise, to just kind of meh. Hai is only good on like two champions. Balls rarely wins lane hard anymore. Sneaky and Lemon were dumpstering NA lanes early in the split but now they can't matchup with anyone. Basically C9 is only winning now due to great team fighting and map movements. All their lane phases suck pretty hard now.
That said, Alliance has no business being this successful. Wickd generally sucks on anything not Irelia, yet they refuse to ban it. This isn't new information either, it's been true for like two years. I'm glad they won because I want Western teams to do well but I can't see them doing anything in a Bo5 in the playoffs.