Thieves Don't Stop After Their Heist, 100T Oughta Win Again

It’s no secret that winning a League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) title is no easy feat. In a league that has had a total of five different champions across what is now nearing a decade of play in North America, only a select few have been able to hoist the trophy. 

There are the likes of the Team SoloMids, Cloud9s, and Team Liquids of the world who have gone on to win multiple titles, engraving themselves into the LCS pantheon while also further cementing themselves in the small group of the league’s dynasty teams. There is also Counter Logic Gaming who, although hasn’t had much success in recent years, managed to hang up not one but two banners in the LCS studio as well. 

A team like 100 Thieves on the other hand is different. They are the only organisation of the new ones that joined with the LCS franchise system to start the 2018 season who have won a title—the fifth team to ever do it. Not only did this title distinguish them from that group but helped them step a foot into the aforementioned “dynasty” one. This act in itself is a great accomplishment, one that many other organisations, regardless of whether they were in these groups or not, would dream of. All of the organisations that have come and gone, managed to join the league through its old promotion system or were kicked out due to relegation all wanted to taste this glory. 

But a league like the LCS who has been ruled by the three kings known as Team SoloMid, Cloud9 and Team Liquid won’t quickly change its kingdom by having another begin to rise in the hierarchy, not a chance. That’s why 100 Thieves need to win again.

Prior to even joining the league and making their first signings, co-owner and CEO of the organisation, Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag always made it clear that the reasoning behind the 100 Thieves name was his sense of how thieves “take what’s not given”. Oddly enough, this sort of slogan he so adequately put ended up fitting their League of Legends program all too well. 

From its flashy beginnings of making not one, not two but three big-name signings for their inaugural season with Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho, William “Meteos” Hartman and Zaqueri “aphromoo” Black that led to a finals visit in their first year, the Thieves had clear intentions to not just partake in the league itself but to also enjoy its glory. And as everyone knows in this league, one of, if not the only way to enjoy the glory is by winning a championship. 

This organisation was just different, although they didn’t get the come-up story ala 2013’s Cloud9 of qualifying into the league to later be utterly dominant, cementing themselves as one of the organisations, they still had their own story to tell. This story of course, like any other good story, had its ups and downs, its disappointments but in the end still pulled through, giving readers a sense of satisfaction. This sense of satisfaction being their 2021 LCS title, of course.

Not only that, the Thieves have a chance to keep adding chapters to that story, hell, even make a whole sequel, they have all of the tools to do it. Going into the 2022 Lock In tournament, this is the team to beat, not only did they retain all of their members from their championship run, but 100 Thieves added to it even if it’s ever so slight. Normally after a team wins an LCS championship things change, sometimes players want to try a new home, or sometimes they want to get their money’s worth. There are also cases in which sometimes the team itself wants to make a swap that they feel is necessary to get them to the next level, take Team Liquid for example with the removal of Kim “Olleh” Joo-sung and the addition of Jo “CoreJJ” Yong-in.

In 100 Thieves' case, not only did they retain all of their players, they bolstered their coaching staff with Alfonso “Mithy” Aguirre Rodriguez and added Milan “Tenacity” Oleksij, a top laner who might take Ssumday’s reigns in the future. 

They are the favourites to win the 2022 Lock In tournament, for several reasons. Teams like Evil Geniuses will need their rosters to have time to gel, while others like Team SoloMid and Cloud9 won’t be able to field their full rosters. Normally the Thieves start out strong and either fizzle out by the year’s end or don’t manage to complete what they tasked themselves to do. This time around though, they have everything in place to succeed throughout the whole 2022 season.

100 Thieves can be the next team to join the pantheon but in order to do that they oughta win again.