We sat down with 100 Thieves’ support, Bill “Eyla” Nguyen after their loss to Shopify Rebellion in Week 3 to chat the SR series, 100 Thieves’ farewell split, and why League of Legends should bring in DoTA’s beloved Ability Draft.

100T Eyla talks one last heist and Split 3 struggles

We’re coming off of a 2-1 series into SR, obviously not in your favor, not the result that you guys wanted going into this. You know, you chose this matchup. We’ll just start with the series, you know, and then work our way around from there. What went wrong here, do you think? Because you guys picked SR, you know, you clearly thought it was one of your best matchups that you could have. And then it ended up, you know, being very close and in their favor. So yeah, what do you think went wrong? What happened?

Yeah, so we lost games 2 and 3. And I think game 2 we had a pretty crazy dive. It might have worked if we played like really well. We would have had to try and just die and use his passive to dive in top. Which might have worked, but we obviously failed the execution. And then I think we messed up. We messed up quite a few other fights.

And it got to a point where it was kind of hard to face check them. Like they have Ezreal, Maokai, and we’re not really a dive comp, so we can’t go in and we just have to play range. But yeah, I mean, their pick was too much to do with. So that game was hard after we messed up. And then game 3, honestly, I think their draft was pretty good into us. They had like really good answers to our dive. We can’t really ignore their Trundle or Cho’Gath. But we have to dive in anyway. So we’d have to play well to win the game. And honestly, we didn’t. We lost quite a few early fights. And yeah, I mean, that ultimately led to the game just being really hard for us. Because our only choice is to go in. There’s no like playing slow and just farming or scaling or nothing. So yeah, once we mess up, it’s hard to come back from.

Sure. Yeah, yeah, no, I think that totally makes sense to me. Sort of talking about… The missed dive that happened at the top, you know, it was very close. It’s one of those dives that’s like, oh, you know, it looks fine. Then you get two turret shots and it’s like, oh, wait, is it fine? Was that… Did you guys just feel like you had to make the dive there to get the pressure through? What was the sort of logic behind why you felt you needed to force it as much as you did? Or was it just that you thought it would be less close than it was?

Yeah. So just my teammates were pretty confident on the call. So I kind of just trusted them, which, I mean, I don’t think we were forced to do it. We just thought it was an opportunity.

yeah, I mean, we messed up the execution. So yeah, it turned out really fine. It happens.

It happens. No worries. No worries. I wanted to talk a little bit about, obviously, Dhokla’s addition to the team. He looked pretty good, actually, in this series. You know, he was… He was getting pushed. He was trying to, you know, get the pressure and then open up the map a little bit with it. What has the process been like prepping to play with Dhokla? Because obviously Dhokla was a part of your process for a little bit, but not as a player. What has it been like sort of trying to get him in so that you have the second option for top laner?

I mean, he’s nice. We’ve been doing six-man roster, so they split scrims, him and Sniper. But, I mean, he’s a veteran. He’s played the game a lot. I played it with him in the past. Before, so… I mean, he’s easy to work around. He’s very good at 1v1.

I mean, yeah, I just think he’s been playing well. And, unfortunately, we lost today.

So, the next bit is just going to be, like, basically completely unrelated from pro. Totally unimportant questions, but just for fun. One that I’ve been asking a lot of people is, firstly, you know, obviously you had a little bit of an offseason between Splits 2 and 3. Do you have any other games that you enjoy playing? Any other hobbies that take up your time? What do you do for fun that’s not League of Legends in your free time when you have it?

Yeah. I mean, in the offseason, I played MapleStory. It’s a bit of a common league game for people to play. So, yeah, I played MapleStory. But, mean, during the season, you kind of just play. You spend most of your time playing league. Then, like, in that, like, one or two hours every night you have. You just… I just chill and do whatever I like to do. So, nothing special. I just play other games. Yeah, for fun.

Awesome. Awesome. The next question is… So, Riot has been doing these themed seasons, right? It’s sort of the new format for League. Three times a year, we get a makeover for Summoner’s Rift. And then there’s a theme. We’ve been to Ionia. We’ve been to Noxus. And what Riot has said is that it won’t just be regions of the world. Eventually, there will be the opportunity for Riot to explore new seasons that are possible. Maybe around, like, skin lines. Like, Project or High Noon or Star Guardian or whatever. And so, if Riot came to you and was like, Ayla, you get to decide the theme for a whole season. Is there a region of the world or a skin line that you think would, like, be a cool look for Summoner’s Rift or be a cool theme for a season?

Yeah. I’m a big fan of Star Guardian. So, definitely that. That skin line. And, yeah, that would be pretty cool. I think Riot’s been doing great with their events. If I was in a League pro, I would be really into it. Like, especially this current one, Riot Blossom. But I’m a League pro, so I stay focused.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Totally. Totally. I guess, sort of, if you’re a big Star Guardian fan, when I was at MSI, I was talking to MKOI Myrwn, who’s also a huge Star Guardian fan. He said that, back in the day, he played a ton of the Star Guardian, what was it, Star Guardian Invasion? The PvE mode where you had to, like, go from one side to the other. Did you ever play that?

No. No, I played that a bunch. I mean, I really love it when Riot does the kind of events. There was, like, the Odyssey event. That was really fun. There was Star Guardian. I don’t know what the most recent one was.

Swarm?

Swarm, yeah. That was fun. No, I like those. They’re great. I wish Riot did more of them. Or brought some of our older events back. That would be so cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, we can talk about that a little bit. Riot has also been doing these, in addition to, like, those events and stuff, they’re also doing these mini-games that are in the client. There was the card game last season. There’s, like, a side-scrolling brawler. Now, do you have a genre of games that you think would be fun to see ported into League of Legends? You know, Swarm was basically Vampire Survivors, but League. There was the card game. There’s the beat-em-up game. If you could see, like, another genre of game done inside the League client or as a League game mode, what do you think would be fun?

There’s this custom game mode in Dota. It’s called Ability Draft. At least for Dota 1. I don’t know about Dota 2. But, basically, you select… You start off with, like, selecting a champion. And then you select… From, like, a pool of random abilities, you select abilities from other champions. And you combine them all into one. And so, that stuff is really fun. I think it would be so cool if you, like, get, like, I don’t know, Ezreal Q into one champion but then add other stuff and, like, experiment. Those kind of game modes, I think that would be really fun.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Add Ambessa’s dash passive onto, like, some monstrosity of a champion. Yeah. All right. I guess we’re nearing the end of the interview. So, we’ll do one sort of more serious question. And that’s, like, obviously, the news is out that 100 Thieves is leaving League of Legends at the end of the year. And so, you will be, you know, as best we can tell, the last support to play in the black and red. Is there a goal or something that you’d like to accomplish? Or even just, like, you know, something within the team environment that you want to accomplish as a way to send it off? Because, you know, come next year, it’s very unlikely that this roster is together. You’re playing with these same five guys. Is there something you want to accomplish with them or just do with them in that time to feel like you sent 100 Thieves off the right way?

Yeah. I think same for everyone in the team, a very obvious goal is: Win the split. Get a title. We’ve been trying. Got really close. First split. Second place. So, we were almost there. And we want to get a title. We split. Make worlds, obviously, and do well. To kind of redeem ourselves from last year. So, those two things will be like a dream come true.

All right. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time, Eyla. You know, listen, I’ve been a 100 Thieves fan since the first split when there was Aphromoo on the team. And I’ve been very impressed by you with your time on the team. So, I’m really hoping that we can see you guys rally together and make a run at it this split. Okay. Awesome. Have a lovely one, man. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you.

Cheers.