Mithy Talks Joining 100 Thieves, LAN Play, And The Team's Goals For The Season
Going into the 2022 League of Legends Championship Series (LCS), 100 Thieves was the only team to keep their whole roster intact, this is a rarity in both the current LCS landscape with two league-altering offseasons but also in the fact that they kept its championship-winning roster together, a feat that hasn’t happened since the 2013 Cloud9 rosters.
Not only did 100 Thieves keep all of their star players, but they also went on to add another threat in the top lane in the form of top laner Milan "Tenacity" Oleksij after they moved him up from their Amateur squad as well as added a new Assistant Coach in Alfonso "Mithy" Aguirre Rodriguez who joined over from a one-year stint on Cloud9 in the 2021 season. This has made them the favourites to win the 2022 LCS Lock In tournament.
We had a chance to speak to Mithy after the team took after 100 Thieves match versus FlyQuest last weekend.
Last year, you made your way back to NA by joining Cloud9 as a coach. Throughout your tenure with them, you went from assistant coach to head coach, but with the new season, you’ve swapped teams. Can you touch a bit on why you joined 100 Thieves? Was it the idea of joining Reapered and the rest of the staff, was it the chance to coach a full roster? Or was it something completely different?
You sort of got that right, like. I coached for two years [and] I never really was an assistant coach before being a head coach. I mean, I had the player experience, but I felt like I was lacking a little bit with like some areas that I thought, you know, maybe joining another head coach that has been doing this for a long time, can give me like some more insight into how I can improve in those areas instead of just I don't know, doing it by feel, and just learning through doing. And at the same time, last year was a pretty stressful year overall. And I just thought altogether it would be way better for me to be an assistant coach and sort of take a year to reflect and learn from someone else, and I thought Reapered was the best candidate for that.
The other thing is, I sort of wanted to join—I mean, it's not like 100 Thieves is an underdog team. But I've usually been joining teams that have big names. And I thought it would be challenging to [in] be the team that beats TL. Or instead of being that, Cloud9 last year was like that, right? It was the team that's expected to win, and I thought it would be more fun to sort of challenge that this year. Instead of taking another big name team even though 100 Thieves is sort of a big name thing I mean, they want summer speed right, but you know there are some good up-and-coming themes coming up.
This is the second year in a row in which the offseason was very dramatic, bringing forth a lot of new faces and new rosters. Even though this tournament won’t see some of these new rosters be completed, who do you think are some of the strongest opposition that you guys will face?
I mean, it’s safe to say that TL and EG. And then I think it's very hard to say. I just don't have the knowledge to really make a good assessment of Cloud9 or TSM. I think TSM has some good players that I know, but I don't know about the Chinese Academy players coming in [and] the same for Cloud9. It's, it's just very hard to assess until I start to get a feeling for their team, like looking at our scrims and so on. Yeah, I think, for now, I'd say TL and EG are a safe bet.
Even though you mentioned that it’d be hard for you to assess the strength of other teams, is there any team that has made a surprise move in their roster in your opinion?
I think it's surprising that TSM and Cloud9 went the direction they did. It's also surprising, I guess, that TL managed to get a hold of all of the players that they did. But other than that, no, I don't think there's anything like Yeah, I mean, I guess that's already pretty crazy.
Click to enlargeWe’re approaching two years of the LCS being remote. Obviously, LAN has been implemented here and there, but as a coach how do you deal with this lack of steadiness for lack of a better word pertaining to how the games are being played?
The thing is, I guess the LAN part has been so belittled and there have been no fans anyway, that it's hard to even say that it was really LAN in some way. I mean, it does feel, I guess a little bit better to go to a studio But at the same time, it's not. You know, I think like just the fact that there's the crowd, and you can physically feel defence instead of everything being online. I think that's the biggest difference. And I don't think we've had the luxury of having that yet. And, you know, hopefully, things calm down a little bit.
Obviously, you guys kept the same roster and added Tenacity, can you maybe expand as to why you guys wanted to have this swapping of top laners for matches?
I don't think it's my place to say because I think that's more the core that—[I] think Reapered could give you a better answer, or PapaSmithy or like any of the people that were involved with Tenacity from the beginning. But you know, from what I've gathered, he's been doing really well, all across the academy teams that 100 Thieves has, and therefore he's been given the opportunity.
What’s the goal for 100 Thieves this season? Will Worlds be the main focus now that the org has got their championship and kept the roster they did it with or is there something else that the team is working towards to?
I think it's safe to say that we're looking to build a legacy. And you know, it's not just about making worlds it's about making a splash, winning as much as we can being the best thing we could be.
Mithy and the rest of 100 Thieves will look to keep playing to expectations when they play Cloud9 on Friday, January 21 to finish the tournament’s group play.