League of Legends: 100 Thieves Next Soars in Debut

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JANUARY 27: — during 2020 LCS Spring Split at the LCS Arena on January 27, 2020 in Los Angeles, California, USA.. (Photo by Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games) /

New League of Legends amateur team of 100 Thieves Next plays first match.

It was recently announced that 100 Thieves would create a brand new amateur League of Legends team to compete under their banner. Now that the team has been announced it’s time to see how well 100 Thieves Next (“100X”) compete on the Rift.

100X plays in the Upsurge Premier League (“UPL”), a league in North America comprised of collegiate and amateur teams that started in 2019 in the Ocean division. Their opening day roster includes Milan “Tenacity” Oleksij in the top lane, Shane “Kenv” Espinoza in the jungle, Jouhan “Copy” Pathmanathan in the mid lane and a bot lane duo of Osama “Auto” Alkhalaileh and Philippe “Poome” Lavoie-Giguere.

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In their first-ever match against Vital Point Esports, 100 Thieves Next drafted Syndra, Xayah/Rakan, Sett and Trundle against a squad of Rumble, Sejuani, Irelia with a Senna/Braum bot lane. About four minutes in, 100X score first blood onto Kenv after a successful top lane gank. Then at about nine minutes in they spit a one for one in the mid lane. Less than a minute later they scored two more kills after another fight in the mid lane.

The fun didn’t stop there as another top lane dive scored 100X another kill and their second tower. A couple minutes later a big team fight in the river went 5-0 in favor of 100Thievesx for their first ace.

Vital Point would retaliate with two kills in a top lane skirmish, however, Tenacity took two kills of his own to help keep the gold lead at 11,000.

The lead continued to snowball from there with another ace for 100X at the 21:30 mark and yet another ace a mere two minutes later near the baron pit. That was plenty enough to get the final push to win the game. They just looked so sharp from every position on the map in such a dominating performance.

In Game 2 of the round-robin series, the draft for 100X saw Syndra, Lee Sin, Aphelios, Thresh and Fiora against a Vladimir, Miss Fortune, Gragas, Rakan, and Kled.

It started out a bit slower than Game 1, but once more a top lane gank got 100X on the board with a double kill. Unfortunately, it was countered with a successful gank in the bottom lane for Vital Point. It was quiet for a bit until another top lane gank scored 100Thievesx another kill.

The action wound down for a little bit until around 17 minutes in the game when Copy was able to score a triple kill, while the rest of the team took down the last remaining two members of Vital Point, while also getting the drake. Another ace at the 20-minute mark pretty much secured the victory in Game 2 and gave 100X a 2-0 series win.

I was very impressed by what I saw from this team. The top and Jungle synergy was on point and was a major reason why the scored early leads that they could snowball. Kenv also took many objectives to help further the onslaught. Tenacity was a one-man wrecking crew, especially in-game one on Sett and wouldn’t be surprised if he draws bans on it in the future.

Copy was reliable in the mid lane and had a big triple kill, he was on Syndra both games and played well if a bit overshadowed by the play of his top lane and jungle. Poome and Auto performed well too, but also seemed to take a backseat to the opposite side of the map.

I think if you’re 100X you couldn’t have asked for a better start to the season. If this team keeps winning big it won’t surprise me if the rest of the LCS gets on board with having an amateur team to compete in leagues under the academy league.

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The win puts them at 1-0 and tied for first place in the Ocean division of the UPL with Horizon esports. 100 Thieves Next’s next match will be on Tuesday, February 11th, 2020 at 8 pm EST against Rise Black, which you can watch here.

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