100T River: “I don’t think lane swaps are gone.”

100 Thieves LTA North jungler River sat down with HotSpawn ahead of Split 2 to break down the offseason and reveal some preseason meta secrets.

100 Thieves were the unexpected darlings of Split 1 in the LTA North. The team surged to a first-place regular season placement, and managed to shellac their way to the finals of the inter-conference event between LTA North and LTA Sul. The dream run was not to be, however, and 100T fell in a one-sided 0-3 series to pre-split favorites Team Liquid, in refreshed form. Split 1 is done, First Stand is concluded, and Hanwha Life stand triumphant, and now we’re checking back in with those domestic heroes. 100T River sat down with HotSpawn at Media Day for Split 2 to chat Fearless Draft being here to stay, the Naafiri rework, offseason struggles, and more.

Nick: The big news coming into Split 2 is the fact that Riot Games has decided to keep Fearless Draft as the only format for all of Tier 1 LoL Esports for 2025. You got the chance to trial Fearless in Split 1, and in multi-game series at the inter-conference event…

How do you feel about the mid-year swap to Fearless for the rest of the year?

River: Hmmm…I like Fearless Draft. I think I like Fearless Draft because I don’t want to see, like, Azir and Corki every game. And then I don’t want to play Sejuani every game. Yeah, that’s why I really like Fearless Draft, and it seems like fans like Fearless Draft too, so I think it’s good.

Nick: The other big announcement is the Split 2 and 3 formats for LTA. We’ve got Bo1s transitioning into B03s and B05s, in combination with the Fearless change. How do you feel about the mixed best-of split format?

River: For me, I like Bo3 regular season, and then playoffs being B05. Bo1 is kind of weird for me, because you can prepare for only like, a Bo1 draft. So, I don’t really like Bo1, but we’ve only got a few weeks of Bo1, then we swap to B03 so it’s fine for me.

Nick: You guys didn’t do a Korean boot camp, did you?

River: No, we didn’t go to Korea.

How has it been trying to get good practice since the inter-conference event if you’re not in Korea? A lot of the LTA teams went, what has the process of trying to stay sharp during this gap between Split 1 and 2?

River: In Brazil, we played against some LTA North teams. It feels like LTA North and LTA Sul, the gap is too big, something like that. After Brazil we came back to LA and we didn’t do a Korea bootcamp, so we could not find scrims. We got like three weeks of off-season, then two days ago was our first scrims day. We’re playing so bad now, but we’re gonna figure it out and play better.

Nick: The big news on the live server is the Naafiri rework, which has remade her for jungle, and she’s absolutely tearing things up. Have you had a chance to try the Naafiri rework? Do you think it’s also strong in pro?

River: So we started scrims two days ago, right? And I said to my coaches, “Naafiri jungle is broken, and I want to play some in scrims. In solo queue everyone is banning Naafiri, so I can’t practice, so I want to play Naafiri in scrims.” It works pretty good, but I think in the early game she’s pretty weak. So, I don’t really know now but I like her. But, it seems like other jungle champions will be stronger.

Nick: Yeah, the common criticism pros have seems to be that her early game, especially her first clear, is really weak, and she doesn’t pack CC like tank junglers.

River: Yeah, yeah.

Nick: How are you feeling coming into the split? You guys went on a tear last split, even though you lost to Team Liquid in the finals.

How are you feeling about last split, and when you look forward to Split 2, what are your goals?

River: Before we played Team Liquid in finals. I thought we were gonna [beat] Team Liquid because we won Bo3 and I didn’t think they were that strong. But, we lost really bad, like 0-3. We are a good team, but everyone thought we were going to win against Team Liquid, like, so easily. That’s why we lost 0-3. So, we have to respect them. And, this split is gonna be like…if you win first or second, you go to Saudi Cup (EWC) too. So, we’ll have to play well, but we’re gonna win too.

River: No, I still think FlyQuest is stronger than us.

Now for a question unrelated to pro play, but I always enjoy hearing pros answers. To preface, have you watched Arcane?

River: I only watched, uh, season one. I liked Jayce.

Nick: Was Jayce your favorite character?

River: Yeah.

If you could decide which champion got an animated show about them, who would you want to see?

River: Hmmm…Gwen

Nick: So a Shadow Isles season, maybe some Viego stuff? 

River: I don’t know about [the champions’ lore]

Nick: Totally fair, it’s not really required for pro play. Finally, I’m curious to know about your thoughts on the lane swap changes. Riot implemented the Lane Swap Detection system, and it’s meant to stop the swaps that we’ve seen for almost a year.

Are lane swaps finally gone, and do you think the changes help you guys at 100 Thieves specifically?

River: The first thing is that I don’t think lane swaps are gone. For our team, I think it’s worth because I think that it’s good for us. The changes were only for like, dives. But you don’t have to dive, we can just lane swap. You can laneswap still.

Interesting, so you think we’ll still see a lot of lane swapping, just it won’t be from level one.

River: Yeah, yeah.

Nick: Thanks for taking the time, River. Looking forward to seeing you play, and best of luck this split!

River: Thank you!

We’ll get to see 100 Thieves face off in a repeat of their one-sided semifinals match from Split 1 against none other than Cloud9. Cloud9 vs 100 Thieves will take place on Day 1 of Split 2, at 3:00 PM PST, on April 5. Directly afterwards, a finals rematch with Team Liquid squaring off against 100 Thieves on April 6 at 2PM PST.