100 Thieves has claimed the last semifinals spot for themselves through an unexpected and messy 3-0 stomp versus Flyquest in the quarterfinals. Although most analysts and League of Legends fans expected the team to win, nobody thought the games would go down in the way that they did.
100 Thieves was the favored team as they finished third in the regular season and they had also beaten Flyquest during the tiebreakers, making them undoubtedly the stronger team. However, the team definitely had some trouble this summer split, especially after the departure of experienced jungler Meteos. These difficulties were very visible during the series as despite being a 3-0, the games were far from clean.
Game 1 started with Flyquest in the lead as their jungler Santorin was way stronger than 100 Thieves’ Anda. This resulted in a big lead for the team and they even managed to take down the baron. However, Flyquest never managed to close out the game and in the end, all it took was one good team fight for 100 Thieves in order to claim the victory.
.@FlyQuestSports take the Baron, but @100Thieves collapse and take down two in response! #NALCS pic.twitter.com/RPhwX6vp32
— lolesports (@lolesports) August 26, 2018
Game 2 was the most one-sided affair of these quarterfinal games. Although both teams drafted the exact same teams, the game was completely different. This time Santorin couldn’t find any kills on Nocturne in the early game, whereas 100 Thieves found kill after kill through smart map rotations. 100 Thieves got extremely far ahead and closed out the game with ease.
During game 3 we saw mostly a repeat of the first game. Although the compositions and strategies were different, Flyquest was way ahead during the game. Even going so far as to push 100 Thieves all the way into their own base. However, once again Flyquest couldn’t close out the game due to small individual mistakes and throws and thanks to 100 Thieves’ proper understanding of how to play from behind they managed to take the win once again, closing the series 3 to 0.
.@100Thieves make an epic comeback and sweep @FlyQuestSports to book their tickets to Oakland! #100WIN #NALCS pic.twitter.com/NbFduGKXcD
— lolesports (@lolesports) August 26, 2018
100 Thieves has been drafted to play against Team Liquid in the semifinals next week, which makes it a repeat of the spring split finals. The other semifinal that will take place is between Cloud9 and TSM. Although 100 Thieves went 3 in 0, they didn’t look like the clearly stronger team, which means that winning versus Team Liquid, the spring split champion, can prove to be a difficult task.
On a side note, due to Flyquest’s early elimination during the playoffs tournament, they have no accumulated more championship points than 9th place team Clutch Gaming as Clutch Gaming came in fourth during the spring split playoffs. This means that Clutch Gaming can still go to Worlds through the gauntlet whereas Flyquest is eliminated from Worlds contention.
