Although they still have one more chance to power through the 2023 LCS Spring Split playoffs, the 100 Thieves hype train was officially derailed last night at the hands of FlyQuest. The squad came into the postseason riding a seven-game win streak from the regular season but were immediately humbled by the second-best League of Legends team in the league.
FlyQuest swept 100 Thieves in dominant fashion yesterday by outmaneuvering them with superior teamfighting and better macro play, but their drafting was a huge reason for their success as well. Across the three games they played against the Thieves, FlyQuest banned the same three champions: Lee Sin, Viego, and Rakan.
During their latest win streak, 100 Thieves’ jungler Can “Closer” Çelik has played at a superstar level, helping enable the rest of his team with perfect engages and fearless attacks on opposing backlines. He has, however, won the most games on Viego over the course of this past split. It is well-known that Viego and Lee Sin are two of the 24-year-old’s best champions, and since he has been one of the best-performing players on the team, targeting him with bans was a perfect strategy for FlyQuest.
In a similar way, Busio had a relatively quiet—but successful—final regular season week and his best performances of the Spring Split have undoubtedly been on Rakan. The 19-year-old rookie has won four out of five games on the Charmer and has shown great proficiency on the champion. By banning his best champion, FlyQuest cut Busio’s effectiveness dramatically.
Together, Closer and Busio combined for 22 of 100 Thieves’ 47 team deaths in their 3-0 loss to FlyQuest, according to competitive League stats aggregate Oracle’s Elixir. Closer was forced to play Xin Zhao a couple of times, which is a champion he hadn’t even played this year. Meanwhile, Busio played three games of Thresh, and even though the Chain Warden is one of his most-played champions across his career, he had only played a single game of Thresh this season.
Looking ahead, 100 Thieves’ future opponents might consider banning the same three champions, so that Closer and Busio are pushed onto champions that they might not be as comfortable on. You can catch the Thieves in action when they take on Golden Guardians on Saturday, March 25.
