LCS 2021: Why Fans Should Be Excited for 100 Thieves
By Josh Tyler
Let’s look at why 100 Thieves fans should be excited for the coming LCS season.
Under a new manager in 2020, 100 Thieves started off the year strong but faded down the stretch. This offseason they merged their existing roster with another up-and-coming LCS team, hoping to make the perfect blend of LCS talent.
As a new season kicks off, 100 Thieves are among those teams that is vying for a top-three spot in North America. With this merged roster, their chances look better than ever to challenge for an LCS title.
Last Year
10-8 in the Spring Split, 7-11 in the Summer Split
100 Thieves were a solid, top-four team during the Spring Split, where they finished tied for second with Evil Geniuses and FlyQuest. Unfortunately, they were swept by the juggernaut that was Cloud9 and then fell in a surprising loss to TSM in the lower bracket.
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Then, in the summer, their fortunes changed for the worse. They barely slipped into the playoffs as the seventh seed and were immediately swept by TSM in the first round of the lower bracket.
The Offseason
Massive changes came to 100 Thieves in the offseason, as the team acquired four of the five former starters for Golden Guardians. Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho returns to their team as their star player, but he is joined with four new teammates.
Can “Closer” Çelik enters as the new jungler, paired with Tanner “Damonte” Damonte in the mid lane. For the bot lane, 100 Thieves reunited the duo of Ian Victor “FBI” Huang and Choi “huhi” Jae-hyun.
The Coach
The veteran coach Tony “Zikz” Gray takes the job of molding this brand new roster. Now on his second season with 100 Thieves, Zikz has had some mixed-to-middling results since leaving CLG in 2018, but a large reason for that was either underwhelming rosters or poor management structure.
Players to Be Excited About
There’s a reason that 100 Thieves chose to keep only Ssumday from the team last year. He’s one of the best top laners in the LCS, and has been for the last several years.
Season Prediction
Stylistically, 100 Thieves are a well-constructed roster. They have a strong top laner to play through, a supportive/enabling mid laner to assist the aggressive jungle/support duo, and an ADC who is able to play safe and just scale.
This is a team that a lot of people seem to be sleeping on. They four former GGS members already have existing synergy and are improving their fifth member. Though Hauntzer was no slouch, he isn’t near the player Ssumday is.
That four-man roster for GGS was one of the stronger, underrated teams last year. With another year together, all they really need to worry about is making sure there is synergy with Ssumday.
In terms of pure talent, this is not one of the best teams in the LCS. They’re going to have to win through their synergy, which shouldn’t be hard. If it all comes together, which seems quite likely 100 Thieves is easily a top-four team.
What are the Fans Excited About?
From the 100 Thieves subreddit:
"Ssumday with a proven team– Randomuser13480"
"Ssumday with lots of help. Hope these guys kill this season– majedharon"
"Another split to see kind boi perm power SSUMDADDDDDDDY!!!– gopitt23"
The fans definitely know that Ssumday is going to be the big key to the team’s success this year, but they are correct. This year, he has a lot more tools around him so that the burden won’t be on him to solo carry this team.
"To see what FBI can do.– PrinceOfSerendipity"
FBI is definitely going to be another key cog on this team, especially in those late game teamfights. He proved he’s among the top LCS ADCs last year, but he can cement himself atop the ranks if he plays well this year.
Why Fans Should Be Excited About CLG. dark. Next
"Honestly we just gotta hope the stars align this is a good team but we have to execute it coreectly and there is a good chamce that this is the team to do it.– the_realpresto"
100% agree, if everything works for this team they’re, at minimum, top five in the LCS. If the stars align and the players like FBI and Damonte continue to improve, we could definitely see 100 Thieves playing at Worlds 2021.