League of Legends LCS: Breaking Down 2020 100 Thieves

We preview a dark horse League of Legends team in 100 Thieves, who had an interesting 2019 LCS season and are looking to come out strong in 2020.

100 Thieves is probably glad the 2019 LCS season of League of Legends is over after narrowly missing the playoffs in the summer. With a fresh start, the Thieves should be looking to capitalize off their momentum with a new roster and new GM. Let’s look at the outlook for 100 Thieves going into 2020.

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During the Spring Split, 100 Thieves had some hype surrounding them. They didn’t live up to it as they went 4-14 and finished 10th.

Though during the Summer Split things got better and the team improved to 8-10. However, they missed the playoffs after losing a tiebreaker against OpTic Gaming.

The 2019 LCS roster for 100 Thieves had Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho and Aaron “FakeGod” Lee in the top lane, Maurice “Amazing” Stückenschneider in the jungle, Max “Soligo” Soong and Ryu “Ryu” Sang-wook and a bottom lane duo of Bae “Bang” Jun-sik and Zaqueri “Aphromoo” Black.

For 2020 the roster has quite a few changes. Ssumday is staying in the top lane, William “Meteos”  Hartman returns after a season on OpTic Gaming.  In the mid lane, it’s going to be Tommy “ry0ma” Le, who is coming over from the Bombers of the OPL. Cody “Cody Sun” Sun makes his return after playing for Clutch Gaming in 2019 and he will be joined in the bottom lane by William “Stunt”  Chen.

Bringing back Ssumday is probably this team’s biggest off-season move. In 2019 import rules hurt the 100 Thieves roster and forced them to play Ssumday on the Academy team, so he only started in four games with the LCS roster. Though funny enough he lost all four.

He is however rated as the number one top laner by League on Lock heading into 2020. So this should be a big boost to the lineup and it comes from in-house.

Meteos returns to the jungle after a big year on OpTic Gaming. I find it interesting that he is being brought back to the team that traded him a couple of seasons ago. Yet after improving last year and with him not taking an import slot, this is a good move.

Meteos is rated as the number seven jungler by League on Lock heading into the 2020 LCS season. This is a one spot improvement on last season’s number eight rank.

Ryoma will start in the mid lane after coming over from the OPL. He was one of the better mid laners in the OPL. Yet with the LCS having many strong mid laners how will he stack up against the competition?

League on Lock has him rated as the tenth best LCS mid laner, which makes him a big question mark for 100 Thieves. I guess nothing has changed as far as the mid lane being this team’s weak point since they started as an LCS franchise.

In another interesting move, Cody Sun returns after a great Summer Split in 2019, but he returns with the cloud of his benching at Worlds 2018 hanging over him. Regardless 100 Thieves added a better bottom laner than Bang from 2019. According to the ratings, Cody Sun is the third-best ADC in the LCS, while Bang is fourth-best.

His new bottom lane partner is Stunt.  Stunt does have some LCS stage experience, however, he hasn’t seen much starting time the past couple of seasons.  I think this is a last chance for him to be a starter in the LCS.

We shall see how it works, but he does have a solid ADC to help him out. Stunt rates as the eighth-best LCS support, which is one spot ahead of Aphromoo, whom he is replacing.

Outlook for 2020

I think this team has upgraded a good bit, but I think they need to find a better mid laner to really have a chance at getting back to the top of the standings. Ryoma may surprise some people since he is coming over to a new region. Though he could very well be overwhelmed by a mid lane that might be the most stacked position in terms of talent in the LCS.

Support is questionable with what kind of play we will see from Stunt. However with Cody Sun to help Stunt along I think as a duo they should manage pretty well. Top should dominate with Ssumday coming back to the main lineup, so it won’t surprise me if this is a play around top lane team.

I would say if you are a 100 Thieves fan to temper expectations a bit. It seemed like last season they were in prime position to try to make it back to worlds and they finished in last place. Granted Summer Split went better, but it still started off slow and they still missed the playoffs. I think they could miss the playoffs again in 2020.

Yet I do think this is a decent roster. I would predict this team to be the sixth-best in the LCS. They should make the playoffs if they play up to expectations. If not we could see this team back near the bottom of the standings.