100 Thieves is an organization that just came into existence in 2018 after the North American League Championship Series decided to go to the franchise model. The franchise was founded by former COD professional, Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag. Nadeshot partnered with the Cleveland Cavaliers organization when he applied for franchising. Their initial League of Legends roster consisted of jungler Meteos, mid laner Ryu, top laner Ssumday, bottom laner Cody Sun, and support Aphromoo.
In their inaugural split, they had a mediocre start going 4-5 in the 1st half of the split, but a shift in the meta saw them go 8-1 in the 2nd half of the split and finished tied for 1st at 12-6. They played a 1 game tiebreaker against Echo Fox, which they won to secure the 1st seed. As the 1st seed, they waited for the lowest seeded team in the semifinals and surprisingly it was the 6th seed Clutch Gaming who were their opponent. Clutch Gaming had shocked Team SoloMid in the quarterfinals. The semifinals went all 5 games that the 100 Thieves barely won, but they still earned their spot in the Spring Finals against Team Liquid. Team Liquid showed everyone that they were truly above and beyond the competition by sweeping the finals.
The summer split started off with some drama for the team going into their second split as an organization. They went 0-2 in Week 1, but then slowly came together to finish 4-2 by the end of Week 3. In a surprising move that was already executed earlier that week, jungler Meteos was traded to FlyQuest for jungler AnDa. There had been turmoil brewing between Meteos, the coaching, and the organization and after Meteos was granted permission to talk to other teams, the organization took it upon themselves to find their best option. They continued to find success with their new jungler and were 2nd for the majority of the split until the final week. They lost their final 3 games to finish 10-8 and in a 4-way tie for 3rd-6th. They won both their tiebreaker games to finish as the 3rd seed. They faced 6th seed FlyQuest, who they swept 3-0. In the new playoff format, 1st seed Team Liquid got to choose their opponent and they chose 3rd seed 100 Thieves instead of 5th seed Team SoloMid. Team Liquid once again handled 100 Thieves 3-1. 100 Thieves faced Team SoloMid for 3rd place and lost in a close 3-2 series. With their 2nd and 4th place finish, they finished with the most championship points after Team Liquid won their 2nd split in a row. Some may say that they don't deserve to be at Worlds, but points don't lie and it was the other team's inconsistencies that allowed 100 Thieves to earn their spot with the most championship points as the 2nd seed representative for North America at Worlds 2018.
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