100 Thieves announce their appointment of Nukeduck as the team’s head coach.
North-American organisation 100 Thieves have made some significant changes in the last hurdle of the 2023 LCS Spring Split. The said goodbye to ex-MAD Lions Assistant Coach Christophe “Kaas” van Oudheusden, who they signed before the start of the biggest NA League to promote Erlend “nukeduck” Vatevick Holm to lead the team to success, while also giving an opportunity to 100 Thieves Academy Coach Danny “Dan Dan” Le Comte as the Assistant Coach of the main roster.
100 Thieves have just clawed their way back up to the top last season since joining the LCS back in 2018. Originally a clothing brand, the League of Legends squad of 100 Thieves have finished the 2021 LCS Summer Season in second place after signing Felix “Abbedagge” Braun to be the midlaner of the team. They went on to win that year’s Championship, but failed to make it out of Worlds Group Stage at the end of the year. While they couldn’t dominate the competition last year, 100 Thieves has finished 3rd in the 2022 Spring Split, then got three 2nd places in the Spring Playoffs and the Summer Regular Season and Playoffs. Abbedagge and co. made it to the Worlds stage once again, but they had an even worse performance, only securing one victory before getting knocked out.
100 Thieves had to make changes, but nobody expected a star-studded roster lead by Soren “Bjergsen” Bjerg and Yiliang “Doublelift” Peng, also signing Milan “Tenacity” Oleksij and Alan “Busio” Cwalina, while keeping only Can “Sergen” Celik from the previous lineup. With the coaching staff changes, the Thieves were set out for success – but they couldn’t live up to their potential and the expectation of the community.
LCS Update: pic.twitter.com/pKqyg3Jzmu
— 100 Thieves Esports (@100T_Esports) March 5, 2023
The 100 Thieves got caught
100 Thieves currently sit at 7th place in the LCS tied with Team Liquid, after only winning 5 out 13 matches. While they managed to beat squads such as TSM, they only dominated teams that are doing even worse than 100 Thieves, and only Team Liquid had a similar fall from grace to them. While management is not quite ready or willing to say goodbye to the members of the team, they had to make some changes yet again, and decided that a shuffling of the coaching staffs is the correct approach.
Nukeduck was a household name in the European League of Legends scene, starting his career back in 2011, at the dawn of the game. He played for teams such as H2k-Gaming, Lemondogs, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Gambit Gaming, Team ROCCAT, Team Vitality, Origen, Astralis and Excel Esports before switching to coaching, so to say he’s extremely experienced is an understatement. While he only won the European Championship twice (2013 Summer, 2014 Spring) and made Worlds once, he is renowned for his tenacity and his work ethic. While he only started coaching a few months ago, maybe this was his calling all along, and the Year of the Duck commences in 2023.
He will also have Dan Dan at his side, who’s also a familiar face for fans of the EU scene. Dan Dan was a toplaner for orgs such as Origen, Team-LDLC and Misfits, the latter he played in the Academy and Main rosters as well. He joined 100 Thieves Academy as a coach back in 2021 December, but now has a shot to really prove himself with the main roster of the organisation.
While the odds are not looking great for the Thieves, they still have 5 matches to go before the end of the Regular Season, and only FlyQuest has locked in so far, so they still have 5 places open for Playoffs. You can catch Bjergsen, Doublelift, nukeduck and the rest of 100 Thieves this weekend in Week 7 of the 2023 LCS Spring Split!
