100T Dhokla: “[Team Liquid] are just like passengers on the bus and there’s no bus driver”

100 Thieves are on one hell of a run in their final split, and the sudden recovery of the final heist is in no small part thanks to the sudden sub in the top lane, Niship “Dhokla” Doshi. We sat down with Big Dhokes to talk about his addition to the roster, his series against Team Liquid, and the road beyond.

Nick: I am here after a pretty crazy 3-0 series with uh the man himself, Big Dhokes, 100 Thieves Dhokla. I know you talked about it on the desk, but uh how are you feeling? With respect to your opponents in blue and white, you kind of just turbo stomped Team Liquid in three games.

Dhokla: Yeah, I’m feeling good. I think we were expecting to win, like very confident coming into this match this week. So it’s good that we got the 3-0 and it looked relatively clean. um We had some early game hiccups here and there, but overall a pretty solid game.

Nick: APA had an interview on stage, and I just spoke with Yeon, and they were talking about sort of what went wrong in this series and what’s been going wrong for Team Liquid.  What APA said in the interview was that Team Liquid was lacking conviction. They’d get OK set up around objectives and then they just sort of wander to the objective, wait around and let you guys have a teamfight into them. And then what Yeon was saying was that he felt like they didn’t understand their champions well enough to team fight confidently and that affected their setup and that they weren’t as practiced in what their comps wanted, especially in setting up for those fights around objectives.

So I’m just interested to hear what do you think went wrong for Team Liquid this series? And more broadly, what do you think’s been going wrong for Team Liquid this split?

Dhokla: Yeah, I think in this series, I’ll start off with that first. Yeah, for sure. They just don’t really have like a dog on their team. Like they need someone who’s like [decisive] and everyone just needs to go. Like, I feel like they’re not confident in their team fighting. At least that’s the vibe I got where it’s like, you know, they’re kind of just looking for something, but they’re not like actively making the play happen, if that makes sense.

They’re kind of just like passengers on the bus and there’s no bus driver, like you need someone leading and everyone being cohesive and you know behind one single plan of what you want to do. I just feel like that was lacking just from like playing out, even if they have a lead, they’re not really pressuring us like that hard. So it’s pretty easy to play if they just play like that.

Nick: [For] the full split? I’m not sure, because obviously they made it to the finals in the beginning, but um yeah, their fall off is kind of crazy. Feel like ump the situation, you know, that’s got to hurt the team morale. And then I don’t know if there’s how confident everyone is with each other in terms of like, I don’t know the vibe of the team. Like, I just don’t know, because I feel like you can get a good read on like how a team’s going to do based on their vibe. And if they’re not vibing, then that extra like X factor of like, you know, you’re going to make some magic happen on Team Fight just feels lacking and just felt lacking there.

So what I’m hearing is we don’t need results based analysis, we need vibes based analysis when it comes to LCS.

Dhokla: If there was a correlation, vibes could predict results, I would say it’s like 66 % accurate, I would feel.

Nick: And then is the other third of the time a “DIG season” thing where the vibes seem good upfront but it turns out the environment’s just hell?

Dhokla: Yeah, I don’t think vibes are good on DIG, let me tell you that. But yeah, I mean vibes definitely I feel like if you like your teammates you’re gonna just you know be more open with them Get through feedback a lot faster. They’re about it, and you guys can joke about like ‘oh This is one mistake you keep making’ and then you’re just…it’s easy to just speak freely and what’s on your mind and I feel like that’s a big, big bonus that we have here. It’s like [that for] everyone, and we’re all just talking, just making it [banter]. Even our coaches, like ‘we lost draft every single time. Just copy LCK.’ Yeah, we make a lot of fun, but we also are serious at the same time.

Nick: I got a bit of a goofy question, but it only really works if you like basketball. You a basketball guy at all?

Dhokla: Oh, big, big, big basketball guy.

Nick: Okay, so there’s this ongoing meme started by Inero where he said that he’s the LeBron James of drafting well 30 % of the time. And after Damonte and Shopify beat him, I asked him which basketball player that made Damonte in terms of being the X of drafting well 30 % of the time. So now I’ll ask you.

When it comes to Grayson, when it comes to GoldenGlue, which basketball player is he in the alternate sports universe of drafting well one third of the time?

Dhokla: Okay, Damonte…he’s more like a Dylan Brooks, you know, and he’s not really about that. And then for Domonte, what’s the closest?

Nick: He said Steph Curry for Damonte because he’s the LeBron of only drafting well 30 % of the time. Like, if the sport was missing two thirds of the time.

Dhokla: Tanner, let’s see, who’s Tanner? He’s a Jalen Brunson right now. Okay. Yeah. He’s in the meta. know, he’s not MVP. He’s not Goats, but he’s got some credit right now. And then for GoldenGlue. He’s SGA. He’s in his bag right now.

Nick: That’s great.

Dhokla: We’re not the all-time great. Let’s top with that. But you could be the all-time great of missing 2 thirds of the time, you know? Yeah, then. many to tell? 0 stat line? All right. All right. I like it. I like it.

Nick: I’ve been asking pros what skin line or region they think would be fun to theme a season around.

If you could choose the visual theme for a season, Summoner’s Rift skin, other skins, etc., which one would you choose?

Dhokla: What a [tough] question.

Nick: Yeah I know I know you’re EP on Seasons now, congrats on your promotion!

Dhokla: Let’s see, what project, what skins do I like most? We already did Spirit Blossom. What was the last one?

Nick: It was Noxus themed. It was all red and black and Mel and the Arena.

Dhokla: We need a KDA one. Bring back KDA for a season. That’s if Worlds is back in Korea, then we do KDA season. Since this is in China, some Chinese skin line. I’m not sure. know Xin Zhao has one, but I’m blanking on the name.

Nick: There’s the Chinese New Year skin line.

Dhokla: We can do that one.

Nick: Yeah. Lunar Revel.

Dhokla: I don’t know what year of the animal is, but whatever the year is, you know, closely align it with the skin and then boom, that’s your season. All right. Now, that’ll be however much my contract fee is, plus my consultations fee.

Nick: I think you’re cooking there. If you get a cut of these, I think those are money makers.

You’re scheduled next match against Inero who you just said is not about it. Talks the talk, but it’s not about it. So you’re facing down Cloud 9. What do you have to say to them?

Dhokla: You know, it’s going to be our Koreans versus their Koreans. It’s going to be a battle of the Koreans. We’re actually playing in LCK if you think about it. So my take is if I can neutralize their Korean and we have a Korean advantage in the jungle.

Nick: If you can make them have one Korean and then you have two Koreans, even if they cancel out your Korean then you still have one Korean to no Koreans if the two Koreans nullify in the mid lane.

Dhokla: Exactly, that’s way I’m thinking about it. Just neutralize the Koreans and then… Nah, joking aside, think… I think C9 for sure looked shaky, you know, they don’t look as like strong as everyone thought they would be given last split there were in game five and they had it in the bag. Yeah, so I think it’ll be a close series, but we are definitely on the come up, so I’m confident.

Nick: Last little question, but I have to get this one in here because I love my boy. When I think of Yorick in NA, I think of you on Optic with one of the funniest game end of all time.

Your boy is finally back in meta, and I don’t see you picking Yorick. Is it because you see these forbidden Yorick blind picks where people just get run down by Jax all over the world or is it something else? Why aren’t you showing love to our boy? Because like you were my guy for picking it first in LCS, but you’re not picking him now.

Dhokla: I’m synonymous with Yorick. I feel like every time people recognize me like”I loved you on Optic!” I’m like, “Yorick?” It’s like it just that with everyone. Yorick guy. I haven’t picked yet because there hasn’t been a great opportunity to because it’s typically a four, five game four and game five type of champion. And we just haven’t gone into game five yet. We’ve gone to game four in the LYON series. It’s coming.

Nick: Okay. Nobody’s good enough to take you to your Yorick is what I’m hearing. Nobody’s good enough to get you that deep in the champion pool. Thanks for the time, Dhokla.