100T Eyla: “I played [TL] and I was like holy s—- they’re bad”

100 Thieves LTA North support Billy “Eyla” Nguyen sat down with HotSpawn to talk offseason, preseason, and why he’s still sad about Split 1. 100T pulled a near-perfect Cinderella run in Split 1, managing to surge to inter-conference finals for the chance to face Team Liquid for a ticket to First Stand. However, despite their best attempts, TL rallied back and 100T were sent on break while First Stand transpired. We sat down with the team’s support player to chat about all the new changes, how he views last split, and more.

Nick: I personally like Fearless, so pretty good news for me, at least. I think it makes competitive much more fun and you get to play a lot more different champions affects our factors because in scrims teams will adopt the fearless so, yeah, pretty happy with news. 

Eyla: Yeah, I mean I’m happy that we’re at least not having the whole split best of one. I think that was the plan before that, so best-of-one Fearless, I mean it’s not really Fearless, but like at least it’s not the whole split being best-of-one. So, I mean, better than nothing/ideally the host is just best of three but happy and then glad that playoffs is going to be more best-of-fives. I think last split… it was a pretty bad format, so the changes are pretty good news for everyone, hopefully.

Nick: The other announcement I’m polling everybody on is the swap to the mixed Bo1-into-Bo3, and B05s, format for Split 2 and 3.

How do you feel about the new format?

Eyla: Yeah, so I’m happy for changes, I don’t think it changes so likely too much. Anyone who’s going top early is pretty much griefing anyway. So, good that they prevent it, I think anyone who complains doesn’t really make sense to me. Because all they, Riot, are trying to do is get rid of lane swaps and you know, like, regardless of  “Well, what if I go top and there’s lanes wap detections.” Like, yeah, just don’t go top. Like, it doesn’t matter what they do top if you don’t go top there are, like, zero problems at all and it’ll be a, like, perfectly normal game.

Nick: The other big change that’s come between First Stand and now, though this one is in-game, is the Lane Swap Detection changes. Riot is doing a lot of work to stop the level one lane swap meta we’ve been dealing with for a while now, what do you think of the changes?

Do you think less level one lane swaps will be a good or bad thing for 100 Thieves’ style of play?

Eyla: Yeah, I mean Sniper didn’t like to lane swap all the time. It was pretty confusing for him so good thing but, yeah. I’ll just say well, uh, lane swaps still happen when people are like after the lane swap detection is gone people still do it. I think that’s, I mean, it’s not it’s not too weird. It’s like, if you have a bad matchup top or bad matchup bot, it’s pretty normal for pro teams to lane swap anyway and you weren’t gonna do it level one then you do it level three or four. It’s like a perfectly reasonable strategy for me or people to do. So, I have no problems with that and yeah I think it’s a good change. Overall, yeah, I mean all that stuff that was happening before this was fine, but I didn’t like that at all so it’s good, good it’s gone, yeah.

Nick: So, it sounds like you’re pretty positive coming into the split about your place in the meta. You guys went on a tear last split, up until inter-conference finals. So, what made you guys so good last split, looking back now.

Do you think that you can translate those strengths to Split 2?

Eyla: I mean, what made us so good…, I think we’re playing well, but, like, that’s not the big thing. I would say we are always capable of doing that. I think a lot of the players on 100 Thieves are inconsistent, they will be inconsistent in scrims, and then on stage usually we’re better. But, like, how much better [we are on stage] changes so like you never really know what we’re gonna get. So, I just say it was possible it’s just like would we do it and then we just kind of happened to do it in split one and I’d say even though people saw it as such a success I saw it as a failure because I thought we could have easily beat Team Liquid in the finals. I thought they were playing probably the worst they’ve ever been, like, I think they played really bad in the finals, so I see it as a failure.

Nick: I just spoke with River, and he said that going into inter-conference finals against Team Liquid, that you guys thought you’d beat Team Liquid easily, and that that was part of the reason the series ended up being so one-sided. Do you feel the same?

Was it wrong expectations about Liquids strengths that led to the 0-3, or do you think you guys just underperformed?

Eyla: Uh no, I thought if Team Liquid were going to beat C9 they were going to be good, so I thought the opposite. I thought they were going to be good going to the finals and then I played them and I was like holy shit they’re bad but we lost anyway. So, I’d say they were pretty underwhelming in the finals and we just choked so, unlucky.

Nick: Any thoughts on the Naafiri rework that’s on live servers? She’s tearing things up in solo queue, and River was saying he thinks she’s quite strong.

Eyla: So I’d say probably teams have a different read on that I mean we just started streaming recently so yeah we don’t have a lot of info we didn’t go to Korea so all the Korean teams probably have a way better meta even us but I just, I mean, Naafiri’s definitely being played and she seems she’s not bad. Like I can’t tell if she’s broken or not, but she definitely seems to have some potential.

Nick: Turns out giving a less restrictive Fizz E to an Assassin makes them hard to deal with.

Eyla: Yeah, it’s pretty annoying as a support.

Nick: This question is unrelated to pro play, but I enjoy hearing peoples’ answers. Have you watched Arcane?

Eyla: Yeah no not a single bit, not a single episode.

Nick: Totally fine, but you get the gist – it’s an animated show about champions’ backstories.

Even if you don’t know the lore, what champions would you want to see an animated show like Arcane about, if you got to decide?

Eyla: Hmm…like, Ahri? I don’t know.

Nick: So the the Ionia show, nice! You might get what you want, then, Riot has said it’s investing in Ionia, Demacia, and Noxus.

Eyla: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know where she’s from but yeah.

Eyla: Yeah, I mean, We’re always trying so I think next split, and probably the rest of the year, will be fun for us. I mean, we’re never going to change we’re going to always keep fighting, so it’ll always be fun to watch, and hope you guys keep supporting us.

Nick: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat, Eyla. Best of luck this split, man, and have a good one!

Eyla: Thanks! Have a good one!

100 Thieves play their first series against fellow top-half talent Cloud 9 and Team Liquid on April 5, and 6, respectively, as LTA North kicks off Split 2.