[EXCLUSIVE] “I think the season is too crammed” 100 Thieves Zikz advocates for a longer VCT season

The VCT Americas Kickoff 2024 is on the horizon and as a prelude to the new season, Riot Games organized a Pre-Season Media Day featuring 1-on-1 interviews and press conferences.

During the aforementioned Pre-season Media Day, Strafe had the opportunity to converse exclusively with 100 Thieves' Head Coach Anthony "Zikz" Gray.

The former decorated League of Legends coach switched to Valorant, joining NRG as the Assistant Coach and later joined EG in 2023 and won Valorant Champions as Asst. Coach.

The Off-Season

For 2024, he joined 100 Thieves' efforts to rejuvenate their roster as the new Head Coach. They further bolstered their team with Eeiu from M80 and the EG IGL, Boostio. For Zikz, the decision to transition to 100 Thieves was easier as he had previously worked with the team as their LCS Head Coach.

Taking the reins of the Valorant roster now, he was appreciative of the pieces he had.

 " Asuna, Bang and Cryo have a ton of potential "

[Interviewer] You joined 100 Thieves as a team in the off-season. What do you think about the team? What are your expectations?

My current thoughts on the team, I think the team's been playing extremely well. Obviously we've played in two international tournaments during the off season.

Honestly, we had a focus just to get as much experience as we can in terms of playing with one another.

I mean, I needed to experience how they play the game, in a match setting, what changes between scrims to match, and I feel like I got a pretty good read of that.

I was able to, you know, Boostio in the second tournament was able to finally be there with us and that was overall a really, really good experience for the both of us.

I'd say overall expectations, I'm a really process oriented person. I think that the most important thing for me is that we're improving day by day and setting goals day by day that we're able to work on and improve on.

It's definitely something that this team has not shied away from everything in terms of our culture and improvement that guys have had flying colors on.

So we'll have days where we're like super super on, we'll have days where we're super, you know, like off not doing, not playing well in terms of shooting.

But, you know, those are few and far between, and the guys team wise are working much better together than when we first started, a lot more like proactivity, a lot more aggression. which is, you know, the contrast to last year's passivity bit that we had. So that's one of the big changes that we're looking to add into this year.

[Interviewer] Obviously Asuna, Bang and Cryocells have been playing together for a while. Then you came in, eeiu came in, Boostio came in. You have worked with Boostio for a while, did that make your job easier while integrating all of these parts and play styles together.

Yeah, One of my, my like, main things I talk about culture wise is that I want people to be open and honest. When it comes to the team environment, I want people to be able to call each other out or, you know, talk about what they think perspective-wise and get everybody's full opinion so that we're able to like, improve on everything that we can.

And it's really easy to do that when you have a person like Boostio on your team who kind of lives by that, he makes sure that if he sees things that could be improved on that, he's like bringing it up to people.

And that's definitely something that I've seen more of out of everybody within our group, which has been super, super good and it's always, you know, there, there's gonna be times where it gets heated, but it's just part of the process and something that everybody kind of understands within the team is, you know, there's gonna be heated moments.

But, at the end of the day, the most important thing is that we're all here trying to win and everybody kind of recognizes that and that we do what we can on a day by day to make sure that we get there.

[Interviewer] Was there a reason you chose to come to 100 Thieves?

Honestly, for me, 100 Thieves in my league career was also one of the one of my favorite orgs I was ever a part of. I feel like they're just one of the most put-together orgs in terms of support or like whatever you want to do.

If you need something, they won't hesitate to try to get it for you. I mean, obviously there’s merchandise or apparel, it looks super, super good and those are the additional factors to add to it.

But I think joining into this core, I was super excited to work with all three of these players. Asuna, Bang and Cryo have a ton of potential and they, the way I see it, just need a system that best supports them as individuals.

And that's like a lot of what I wanted to bring into this team and this is what I generally do with teams as well. If you have to understand the identity of the person and make sure that they're comfortable, that's how you get the most value out of them.

Like each person has their own individual strengths and weaknesses and you have to kind of build a system that supports that.

[Interviewer] How much control do you have over the roster?

My official role with 100 Thieves is that I'm the General Manager and Head Coach of the Valorant roster. So I had full decision-making power over all of that.

[Interviewer] You were a NA LCS champion and previously coached in League of Legends and later transitioned to Valorant. How does that help you?

Well, So what I will say is, there's a lot of interesting perspectives that I'll bring that probably no other coach will be able to bring because I've coached at the top level of another game.

There's just like a different macro understanding. I'd say most people that come to this game came from counter-strike, whereas the utility is a lot more like league of legends.

So I'd say a lot of my concepts like macros related to utilities translate pretty well from League of Legends to Valorant, which is one of my bigger advantages. It's just a different perspective entirely in terms of how the strategy works within the game.

The META shift

Since the last official, Valorant has undergone a lot of changes. Multiple agents have been tweaked, nerfed, buffed. Talking about the agents that will be played the most, Zikz had an insighful comment.

"A lot of teams that are starting to recognize that it's not always about what's the absolute strongest, but what is the absolute strongest for yourself"

[Interviewer] What do you think would be the meta heading into 2024?

I would say the biggest change they made recently was the Skye change. A ton of teams were putting Skye into a lot of the different maps and that was definitely probably a really big curveball for a lot of teams.

So I think a lot of teams are still trying to figure out exactly what their place is in the meta, which I think is cool because, you know, an agent like Skye was a very important agent in terms of, you know, on certain maps like Split. She was fully relied on as a solo initiator, same with Bind.

So a lot of people are, you know, testing out new characters as solo initiators. And they're testing out maybe trying a double initiator or dropping, dropping certain agents entirely. And it will be cool to see that in the early matches that we'll see in about two weeks from now [VCT Americas Kickoff]. It's gonna have everybody's first look at what the Meta is.

[Interviewer] What would be the key agents in 2024?

I'd say key agents that, you know, would probably pop up. KAY/O hasn't really gotten any changes. He's always been a powerhouse. So I think that you'll probably see more of that.

And I would definitely say Yoru as well is like another one that it's like a very, very strong agent. He's been continuously, you know, getting buffs or not being changed.

And a lot of characters have been getting nerfed. So you'll see a lot of interesting solutions for sure to these like maps that had Skye as a solo initiator.

But yeah, it'll be different team by team because I do think identity is super important and I think there's a lot of teams that are starting to recognize that it's not always about what's the absolute strongest, but what is the absolute strongest for yourself.

[Interviewer] Following up with the ‘Strongest for yourself’, Cryocells was absolutely amazing on Chamber. What are your thoughts on the agent's current state? Would you experiment with it after the Killjoy nerfs?

Yeah, I mean, even in our match that we played in the Ludwig X Tarik Invitational, we played Chamber, I mean, I think Chambers in a fine spot for sure.

I think given changes to, you know, agents, given changes to the map pool, I would say he's definitely not an agent to be ignored. He's not gonna be the perfect agent for every map.

But yeah, we're constantly thinking about how we can get people on comfort roles where they're gonna just be able to focus on exactly there, how they're comfortable playing the game and enabling the people as supports to get people more kills.

[Interviewer] What are your thoughts on the current map pool? Starting with Icebox, what do you think about the changes

I think the map is played more or less the same. I think the changes are definitely things that people have to account for.

And overall, I'd say with both Icebox and Breeze, one of their goals seemed to make things a bit less open and a bit more controlled.

So it's a bit easier when it comes to things like, for example, the orange area on Icebox, they simplified it a bit so that there's no two hallway kind of section.

And I think that that change at least simplifies the amount of angles that you have to clear.

And it just makes the map feel a lot simpler, which is kind of nice. I'd say from a prep standpoint, it feels nice. From a playing standpoint, I feel like it really hasn't changed that much.

Now, angles feel a bit easier to hold mid, and feel pretty similar. Main, like there's like a new angle, just one new angle. It's like there's really not too much that's different. Yeah, there's, there isn't too much that's changed with the map. I think overall I understand why people don't like the map.

It really just is one of those maps that you could not, you could potentially not hold the bomb site of four people there where most maps don't really act that way. So, yeah, it is definitely a map that I can see why a lot of people wouldn't like it.

[Interviewer] Do you think there will ever be a time in competitive Valorant when we see agents other than Jett or Raze?

I think if not Jett or Raze, it would have to be a Neon or a year for sure. If you're ever to play single duelist, I know as you were saying with Icebox, the Chokes don't really matter on Icebox as much. So, a lot of teams stray away from even playing Jett on the map.

So it just kind of comes down to their identity and what they think they're gonna, you know, do the best with on the map or how they best see the map. Because Icebox has always kind of been a map where you feel like you just need one more character slot, you always have to kind of give something up.

So some teams you're going with, they're giving up the duelist slot and playing more utility and some teams give up some of their utility to make sure they have a duelist slot. So it'll be different team by team.

[Interviewer] Haven’s out of the map pool. What are your thoughts on Riot removing Haven from the map pool?

I mean, the easy answer for us. For me, Boostie (Boostio), Ethan, Jaw(gemo), Potter, all of us.

Well, thank God because we had it as a Perma ban at the end of last year and it was a map that we just didn't want to, we didn't want to think about, the meta was kind of evolving in a way that it didn't best suit our team identity.

So we're kind of like, fortunate in that sense that we're able to kind of dodge it this time around.

I think Haven is a pretty balanced map. There's a lot of different theories on how you can play the map. But I mean, yeah, from my perspective, we spent pretty much six months last year, not touching the map. So I'm down for it to not be in the pool this year.

[Interviewer] Which map do you think would be the best map for your team this year?

I definitely wouldn't want to give that one away.

[Interviewer] Lotus saw some significant changes recently, do you think these changes affect the approach the teams will have to the map?

I think it'll affect it, it'll for sure affect the map.

There's a lot of theories about how exactly people will play it. I mean, before there were two attack side focused orbs which definitely played into the reason why the map was like, attacker favored.

Usually teams were just spam getting KJ ult orbs and just slamming KJ ULTs in the ground and then you just keep bomb sites for free. And now because there's only one, I mean, most teams it seems like from what I've watched, the Macro hasn't changed too much.

People do a lot of the same that they're doing on the previous Lotus, I think just Riot added a lot more fifty-fifties on the bomb sites to try to make sure that the map felt at least a bit more balanced on the defensive side which feels like a good change.

The VCT 2024 Season

Lastly talking about the season ahead and the overall format, Zikz advocates for a longer season with more games, similar to the LCS.

"I think the season is too crammed"

[Interviewer] Who do you think the strongest opponent would be?

I think NRG will have a lot of potential, that, I mean, we'll see, I mean, if you look at the roster and like the names on it, you would expect that they would have the highest, baseline coming in and that they would be the ones that click really well together.

A lot of those people are from the same, like friend group as well. So they'll spend a lot of time after prac, I'm sure, hanging out talking about the game, even like 5-stacks. I know a lot of that, that friend group likes to do that.

So, I would say those are the guys that I'm keeping my eyes on the most. And we've been practicing against them a fair bit and I think that they're a very strong team. So I'd say probably NRG.

[Interview] Lastly, There are a lot of opinions of there being two less matches, the season being too crammed up. What are your thoughts on the format?

I would just say that I agree.I think the season is too crammed.

I come from LCS where, you know, we were starting the second week of January and we were going all the way until the end of October depending on, you know, how many events you qualify for. And that's a 10 month long season.

Versus, Valorant, We're starting the second week of February and I believe we're ending somewhere around the beginning of August.

So, I mean, given that's such a small time frame to be competing when the entire year, you know, comes down to only, you know, the 10 matches plus playoffs.

I think the amount of matches doesn't bother me too much. I think it's just like how, how long of a season we have, I think the longer season we would end up having more matches anyway.

Honestly, I like the league format in the sense that you have a big stretch where you're grinding super hard and then a break period for like a month or so.

And then you go back to it again. I like that format a bit more with two breaks rather than just, you know, no break go all the way through.

I think it's just, yeah, it's just gonna promote more burnout in the current setting that we have here this week.

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100 Thieves were eliminated from VCT Americas Kickoff after a hard fought loss to Sentinels.

Follow the VCT 2024 action on Strafe.

For more information on the VCT Americas Kickoff, check out Strafe Esports' piece on the Format, Schedule, Teams and more. If one of the other Kickoffs catches your fancy, we also have previews for EMEA, Pacific, and China.

As an additional bonus, you can catch the VOD for the interview on our new YouTube channel. Also, check out our tier list for the 33 partnered teams (VCT China notwithstanding) heading into 2024's season.

Featured Image Credits: Colin Young-Wolff // Riot Games

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