“I just have a lot of trust in my teammates” 100T Stellar talks about fragging as an IGL
At the VCT Americas Week 2, 100 Thieves faced Evil Geniuses. In an one-sided affair, 100 thieves took down Evil Geniuses to get their first win. The game featured Haven and Icebox, where 100 thieves displayed innovation and a new face after the loss against Sentinels in week 1. After the game, Strafe had an opportunity to interview 100T’s IGL Brenden “Stellar” McGrath. In an exclusive one-on-one interview, 100T Stellar talks about individual performance, the new map rotation, level of competition across leagues and more.
Q. Congratulations on your win. How are you feeling right now?
100T Stellar: “I am feeling good. We played a really good game. I think there were still somethings to learn and I am excited to play our next match”
Q. In the first half of Haven, despite the strong start you could not convert it into a dominant first half. What went wrong there?
100T Stellar: “I think we still had a good attack. I think we just started getting picked in a lot of the rounds that we lost. It was 5-3 and they brought it back and we were just getting picked really early in a lot of the rounds and it made it really hard for us to do the thing we kinda wanted to do. That’s pretty much it. There are maybe five rounds we look at closely and learn the most from them.
Q. What were the key takeaways from the Ascent loss?
100T Stellar: “I think the key takeaways that I can talk about will probably just be our comms. It was a little hectic during the Sentinels game so we focused on that over the week. Pretty much just making sure we are not playing too flat, making sure we aren’t standing still for too long, playing too static. Those were the main things”
Q. Being an IGL, your performance hasn’t been affected at all, If anything it has only improved especially at LOCK//IN and today’s match. How do you balance both calling and fragging?
100T Stellar: “I don’t know I just have a lot of trust in my teammates, It doesn’t really matter what I do. In the end, I just think they can win the round without me so that kinda enables me to make a lot of plays, do a lot of things I like to be doing and I think that’s pretty much it. It’s just a lot of confidence on my team”
Q. The innovative compositions from 100Thieves have been working well. You utilized Gekko today, was the agent playing as expected?
100T Stellar: I think it worked just how we’ve been playing it in practice. I think there were a few rounds where our Gekko got picked up really early so we couldn’t really show a lot of the stuff that we’ve been working on. But it definitely worked on the rounds we were winning so it definitely worked well”
Q. Icebox will be leaving and Bind will return. What are your(100T Stellar) thoughts on the Change?
100T Stellar: “I think it’s good. I do not like Icebox, personally hate the map. I don’t like it as a map, don’t like how it plays out, don’t think it is a good map in general. Personally, I have always liked Bind, I think a lot of teams I have played on have been good Bind teams. We (100 Thieves) when I joined started becoming good on Bind so it’s a good change. Obviously now it’s bittersweet because we started to get good on Icebox but yeah. But it’s a good tradeoff. I hope it makes the map a little-bit different. You know when they brought Split back, it wasn’t really a different map to-be honest and hopefully there are few Tweaks in Bind that will help it to be played differently.”
Q. Do you think these mid-season changes are good for the scene?
100T Stellar: “Yeah it’s definitely interesting to put in the middle of the season. I definitely think it doesn’t give teams enough time while they are also trying to prepare for the matches week in week out. But it’s not my decision so, Riot does what they want and we just have to deal with it and play.”
Q. Can we see more innovation from 100 Thieves on other maps?
100T Stellar: “Maybe, I don’t know yet. I need to play the map first before we make this decision. We have been trying to be little more open-minded without our compositions so we will see”
Q. In the first game, Did seeing Sentinels change their role around catch you off-guard?
100T Stellar: “Not too much. We saw the roles and I was like it kinda makes sense given the players they have. So it wasn’t really a shock”
Q. You’d face Cloud9 next, What are your(100T Stellar) thoughts on the matchup and the changes they made?
100T Stellar: “I don’t know. I have respect for Cloud9, a lot of my friends are on that team. It’s always a fun match against them. I know we played them last meta at the Red Bull tournament and we played them in LCQ and stuff. It’s always a fun match against them. They have a bunch of stuff to prove with their two new players, we have a lot to so It’d be a good time”
Q. Who do you(100T Stellar) think will be the toughest team to face moving forward?
100T Stellar: “LOUD always looks good, NRG is starting to pick it back up. Those two are always consistent. I think those two are probably the toughest. But I gotta see how the season plays out”
Q. What are your (100 Thieves) expectations from the season?
100T Stellar: “I mean we take it step by step, the first step is making play-offs obviously, qualifying for Tokyo is the end goal. But we will see how it happens”
Q. Where do you rank yourself (100 Thieves) then?
100T Stellar: “That’s tough but I think we are a top five team. I will just say that”
Q. What do you (100T Stellar) think about the level of competition in the Americas?
100T Stellar: “I have been watching the EMEA games and it’s been pretty competitive. They have blowout games but lot of unexpected teams are playing really well. I think a lot of people regard the Americas a tough league but the Pacific has the same amount of really good teams. It’s kinda the same across the regions.”
Q. Q. Hopefully, you (100 Thieves) qualify for Tokyo and meet Fnatic. What will be the changes you’d (100T Stellar) make to your game plan for facing them and equalizing the score?
100T Stellar: “We have reviewed our games against them. If we get to play them, they should expect us to get to the face and play super aggressive and hope it works”
100 Thieves will face Cloud9 next at the VCT Americas Week 3 match-up. Both teams are currently tied up to 1W-1L in the league stage. After the EG win, 100 Thieves look sharp as ever. Cloud9 themselves are a strong team as their loss to LOUD was a close one and they will definitely fix their mistakes and come back stronger.
VCT Americas action resumes today. You can follow VCT Americas Twitter for all the updates on VCT Americas.
Credits: Riot Games // VCT Americas
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