100 Thieves have their eyes set on Valorant Champions in 2022. They have made several changes to their roster. Can they prove their potential?
100 Thieves failed to qualify for VALORANT Champions despite impressive performances throughout 2021. In the offseason, the organization decided to make changes. Which involved bringing up former analyst Jovanni “Jovi” Vera to the head coach position. Jovi spoke about his transition, how he picked up “ec1s” and “BabyJ” and how his background has helped.
Jovi said that the transition to head coach was interesting because he had been the one looking into other teams and relaying information to the former 100T head coach “FrosT”. He believes that the behind-the-scenes work he did helped him become the coach he is today.
One of the challenges in the transition is the amount of work that is necessary when taking over the role as a coach. For Jovi, while his work as an analyst helped him gather more information on the opposing teams, he now has a lot more tasks to oversee as the coach.
“It’s a lot more on the plate, but it’s a lot of fun,” Jovi said.
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100 Thieves pick up two new players in the offseason
Outside of getting a new coach, 100 Thieves also fielded replacements for “steel” and “nitr0” during the offseason. While nitr0 returned to Counter-Strike after a year in VALORANT, steel was transferred to T1 for the upcoming 2022 season. Many rumours surfaced as to who 100 Thieves would be picking up. Sources said that the team went after former VALORANT Champions winner Mehmet Yağız “cNed” İpek. Reports also said they were trailing with Ethan Arnold’s former teammate Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte, who inevitably stayed in Counter-Strike.
“It was a long process,” Jovi said. “From the moment when I became head coach, and when I started becoming involved, we had a list of prospects that we wanted to reach out to. There were a few prospects that we were in communication with and then being able to bring them into the server and then seeing how they did. It was a fun process, but a long process.”
Captain America, Nitr0, left 100T Valorant roster for Team Liquid CSGO.
Jovi explained that the team had an idea of what style of play they wanted to do. That is how the team ended up with former Team Liquid in-game leader ec1s and player formerly of FaZe Clan. These names may not have been as prestigious as cNed and Brehze, but are still top-tier talent.
“So, BabyJ was an interesting pickup,” Jovi said. “We were eyeing him for a while and we knew the potential that he had and we knew what he was capable of. I, for sure, knew that he is the best Sentinel in North America, and easily top three in the world. So, for us, it was a no-brainer pick up. We were just hesitant to see what kind of team comp we were trying to run by picking up a Sentinel main, you’re going to slow down your playstyle.”
One of the challenges with having a player from the United Kingdom is the high internet ping. Despite these ping differences, ec1s has still been deemed a worthy replacement for the team. Ec1s was playing on upwards of 120 ping while practising, according to his Twitch streams. However, ec1s was finally able to get a visa and was able to attend the boot camp with the team.
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