Doublelift never failed to make an LCS Finals appearance in at least one of the splits since 2014. Will 2023 be the year the streak gets broken?
Not the 2023 100 Thieves fans have been looking for so far. Coming into the season by breaking apart the roster that won the first title in the org’s history, and made three consecutive finals, and by signing two of the most recognizable names in the LCS history, the expectations were sky high for the Thieves. But aside from a seven-game win streak toward the end of the regular season, 100 Thieves’ Spring Split definitely didn’t satisfy their fans.
Offseason also started out rough. The org got blindsided when Søren “Bjergsen” Bjerg announced that he was retiring, this time for good. 100T CEO Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag said they had no idea about the star player’s decision until he messaged them an hour before he put out a statement, all the while the rest of the squad was getting ready for a bootcamp in Korea.
gang’s all here pic.twitter.com/bFmOPSoIQj
— 100 Thieves Esports (@100T_Esports) May 13, 2023
100 Thieves LCS Roster for the 2023 Summer
- Top lane: Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho
- Jungle: Can “Closer” Çelik
- Mid lane: Lim “Quid” Hyeon-seung
- AD Carry: Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng
- Support: Alan “Busio” Cwalina
To find a replacement for Bjergsen, 100 Thieves held tryouts in Korea, eventually deciding on a young prospect from the Challengers team of Gen.G. Lim “Quid” Hyeon-seung is a 19-year-old player who has been a part of LCK’s developmental system since 2020. While he isn’t the most sought-after prospect coming out of the Korean Academy system, Quid is a player with a lot of potential. He even subbed in for the main Gen.G roster during the 2022 LCK Spring, winning a series against Kwangdong Freecs. 100 Thieves fans shouldn’t expect him to run the league from day one, but he is still an exciting rookie to have in the LCS. One big question mark though is about his visa situation, as in Quid currently doesn’t have one. He might be a little late to join the roster, and it’s not clear who would be subbing in for the Thieves in that case.
Quid also isn’t the only signing for 100T for the Summer. The longest-standing 100T player, and an organization hall of famer, Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho is back in red and black after a split with Evil Geniuses. Unfortunately, Ssumday did not have his best split individually on EG. The veteran top laner has been a regular on the best LCS top laners list most of his career, but he couldn’t find too much success this Spring. Not as a weak side player and not on carry picks.
Called up an old friend.
Welcome home, @Ssumday pic.twitter.com/Y9hcz1zfUR
— 100 Thieves Esports (@100T_Esports) May 12, 2023
Ssumday will need to step up his level a lot if this 100 Thieves team wants to get back to their glory days, and he is not the only one. 100T already had a lot of inconsistent games last Spring, and the performances of Busio and Closer were a big part of it. Both players had their champions that they performed on, but once they were banned out they were prone to looking invisible. One constant in all their wins was Doublelift carrying, and it might become a lot harder this split.
100 Thieves’ bot lane focused style of play might be a lot harder to execute with the massive changes of patch 13.10. While many ADCs Doublelift relied on still top tier, Riot showed their willingness to start nerfing the role while bringing power to other parts of the Rift. This might mean the other four players will need to step up and help carry the load. One big positive with the potential meta changes is the jungle picks. We said Closer struggled on some champions, but he always looked good when he had the resources on picks like Viego. So a more resource-heavy style might bring the hyper carry jungler back in him back out, which carried teams to finals before.
For more of our LCS and LoL Esports coverage, follow us on ESTNN.
estnn.com
