100 Thieves Falls Short Against Team Liquid
In their quest for their first win of the season, 100 Thieves faced off against Team Liquid with a new strategy featuring the buffed top lane champion Yorick.
Coach Neil “pr0lly” Hammad expressed satisfaction with the team’s composition, stating, “This is one of our random drafts that happened to work very well, and I’m really happy to pull it out this week on stage.” Yorick’s recent buffs have made him an even stronger splitpusher, contributing to their strategy.
The match started well for 100 Thieves as top laner Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho dominated the laning phase against Team Liquid’s Sion. However, Team Liquid quickly changed their focus, shutting down Ssumday with repeated ganks and multi-man roams.
The reason Team Liquid could focus on Ssumday was because their bottom lane had a strong start in the laning phase. With an early kill onto Bae “Bang” Jun-sik’s Viktor, 100 Thieves’ AD carry fell behind and struggled to catch up throughout the game.
Team Liquid’s AD carry, Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, explained the bot lane matchup, saying, “It was pretty over after [Bang] died one time but then our team was like also playing really well together so we dove their bot lane, made them lose tower, [and] then it was just game over.”
Team Liquid capitalized on their laning leads and easily transitioned them into successful teamfights. Meanwhile, 100 Thieves couldn’t make use of Yorick’s splitpushing potential due to the pressure from Team Liquid.
Team Liquid Continues to Dominate
Team Liquid will look to extend their win streak to four when they face Clutch Gaming on Feb. 3 at 4pm CT.