After a 3-1 victory over Cloud9 in the lower bracket finals of the 2021 LCS Championship, 100 Thieves punched their ticket to the Grand Finals of the LCS postseason and the Group Stage of the 2021 League of Legends World Championship.
With today’s victory, 100 Thieves will advance to Worlds as no less than a Pool Two team. Should they defeat Team Liquid in tomorrow’s Grand Final, they’ll head to Worlds as a Pool One team alongside other major region champions from China, Korea, and Europe.
The second game of the series brought 100 Thieves’ most impressive victory of the day in a 49-minute back-and-forth affair, which served as one of the longest games of the LCS season. Across those 49 minutes, 100 Thieves did not hold the gold lead even once.
From start to finish in that one particular game (which served as a microcosm of the full series), Cloud9 held the edge in nearly every major category—gold, kills, and objectives—but 100 Thieves still eked out a win. With that in mind, it’s clear why Cloud9 struggled to truly hold onto any advantage they might have accrued over 100 Thieves during the course of today’s series.
If 100 Thieves want to continue racking up momentum and have a chance against a red-hot Team Liquid squad that beat them just a few weeks back, they’ll have to find a victory through the stellar play of their bottom lane. In the games that 100 Thieves won, FBI proved to be a decisive factor, posting a combined scoreline of 19/3/14 across the team’s three victories.
As for Cloud9, they’ll have to play through the Play-in Stage of the World Championship later this year. Cloud9’s loss cemented them as the second team in the world to confirm their place in the Play-ins of Worlds. Earlier today, Rogue of the LEC became one of the other western teams to secure their spot in the Play-ins after a lower bracket loss to Fnatic over in Europe.
Last season, Team Liquid represented North America at the Play-in Stage of Worlds, but the team circumvented the process altogether this year by beating both Cloud9 and 100 Thieves in earlier rounds of the postseason.
The 2021 LCS Championship Grand Finals between Team Liquid and 100 Thieves kick off tomorrow, Aug. 29, at 3pm CT.
Make sure to follow us on YouTube for more esports news and analysis.
Aug 28, 2021 4:55 pm LEAGUE OF LEGENDS
Nadeshot: ‘Everybody wants you to win right now, but they also want you to be fielding North American talent and giving young players a shot’
The 100 Thieves owner says that the upcoming NA talent in the scene still need a bit more time to develop.
Many League of Legends fans have called for organizations to field more resident NA talent, but this might not be as easy as people believe. In a recent owner’s press conference, 100 Thieves’ CEO Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag explained that at the end of the day, teams are set to build the best rosters possible to win. He would love to be able to field five North American players on his team, but “with the ecosystem that we’re in right now, it’s just not the case.”
“Everybody wants you to win right now, but they also want you to be fielding North American talent and giving young players a shot. But sometimes, you can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Nadeshot said. “It’s a difficult situation, [and] we’re trying to manage it as best as we possibly can. We’re proud to be a North American team, we’re proud of the player base that is competing in League of Legends, and hopefully, they’ll have their time to shine in the coming years as these programs that we have at 100 Thieves continue to develop.”
There are plenty of ways to stunt a players’ growth, and throwing a young player on stage too early “really hurts [the] chances of their career actually taking off and prospering in the right order,” Nadeshot said. The 100 Thieves CEO believes that every LCS team wants there to be more North American-born players and that organizations are willing to help foster new blood. “The talent is out there,” according to the 29-year-old, but it just needs time to develop.
Nadeshot shouted out the 100 Thieves’ Next and Academy programs 토토사이트 and how they’ve done a good job of identifying and building up young talent from the region. He did admit, however, that it simply takes more time to help develop these talents because of the nature of League of Legends.
Team Liquid’s general manager Dodo said it was “a bit disrespectful” to call some of these players “non-NA,” since a good majority of them have spent most of their career in the region. For example, he said that CoreJJ has been doing a ton of work to help build up the region with in-house matches, while Santorin and Jensen have been playing in the LCS for many years now.
The state of the League of Legends scene in North America has been a highly debated topic, especially among the people who think that the frequent use of imported players is a rising problem that could affect the growth of the esport in the region. Resident NA talent will ultimately need more time to develop, with the help of organizations that can help boost and elevate their names into the spotlight in the coming seasons.
