100 Thieves finally collected their first win. The first victory of their Spring Split came to a lot later than expected; in week 2, during their fourth match against the Golden Guardians. Kim “Ssumday” Chan-ho had a look of relief on his face when he arrived for the interview. He was eager to greet the fans and assured them that the team will be delivering better performance.

Below is our interview with Ssumday.

Q. The first win was really hard to achieve. You started off with a 3-game losing streak; what do you think the reason was?

The scrim results were pretty good. I think the reason we weren’t able to get good results was that the picks & bans didn’t go as we practiced and our opponents were different. We had a bad flow in the early game during the three games we lost. I think that’s the issue that we most urgently need to solve.


Q. Against Team Liquid, you used Yorick and had good performance but lost. How did you feel? 

Yorick is a good pick against Sion so I prepared that. To utilize Yorick well, we needed to disperse the opponent’s attention, but the game didn’t go as we intended. The only person who was able to do something was me; as for Team Liquid, they only had to stop me so it was a lot easier for them to deal with.

Q. You got your first win against the Golden Guardians. Did the team atmosphere get a lot better? 

Actually, the team atmosphere was very positive considering we were a team that was down 0-3. We’ll put in more effort so that we can get good results in future games as well.

Q. How are the newcomers on the team? Do Bang and Aphromoo get along well?

Bang said that he learned English because he went to international events often. When I first saw him speak English, I was really surprised. Huhi is very meticulous so he looks after the others a lot. Bang and Aphromoo get along very well with each other. Aprhomoo uses a lot of slang and he has been teaching Bang. I tried too, but I wasn’t able to imitate his way of talking that well.

Q. I’ve been wondering if you were satisfied with the roster 100 Thieves put together during the offseason.

I thought that we could aim for winning the championship. Anda was called up during the summer season last year and delivered excellent performance at Worlds. Besides Anda, everybody has experience in claiming the trophy at least once. Huhi didn’t have very good results while he was in CLG, but the fact that he has experienced winning a championship means that he knows how to read the game. No words are needed for Bang since he has won Worlds twice, and Aphromoo has always been pretty good.

Q. How long do you think it’ll take for 100 Thieves to show top-tier performance?

I can’t say how long exactly, but I think it will take quite a long time. It'll take quite long to reach the standards we have regarding performance since we have extremely high standards. Obviously, our goal is winning the championship.

Q. You’ve been in NA as an LCS player for two years and are starting your third. How has it been up to now?

I often think ‘Would I ever have a chance to live in the US? Would I have another chance to set foot on the land of America if it isn’t now?’ It’s a bit regretful though since I haven’t planned to go around places myself. It’s also a bit lonely since I don’t have anyone to meet on my off days.

Q. You’ve been to Worlds, the dream stage, again last year.

It was my second Worlds. It felt good to play again in Korea after such a long time and I was really happy because there were more fans than I thought that remembered and greeted me enthusiastically. It’s regretful that we were eliminated earlier than we thought we’d be. Competing in big stages really does make the heart beat fast.

Q. Are you confident you’ll reach Worlds this year as well?

Before the season started, I really was. I’m not sure what our problem is yet; the season isn’t that long, so we need to find an answer ASAP. I believe that we have nowhere to fall; the only direction we can go is up.

Q. Any final comments?

We finally got our first win. From now on, we’ll be winning a lot more often. I’d also like to say thank you to our sponsor Rocket and 100 Thieves owner Nadeshot.