Esports content creator and journalist Kelsey Moser took a different path in her career recently, moving from the world of articles and analytical videos to the back-stage role of coaching.





Moser first transitioned into the League of Legends esports backroom as an analyst with Europe’s H2k Gaming, before making the switch in 2019 to 100 Thieves in North America. When the NA Academy 2019 season kicked off, Moser took the helm of the 100T Academy squad.





In the final week of the 2019 Spring Split, 100 Thieves made the call to bring the majority of Moser’s development squad onto the main stage. Kristopher “Fragas” Myhal, Aaron “FakeGod” Lee, and William “Stunt” Chen were promoted, joining Max “Soligo” Soong and import bot laner Jun-sik “Bang” Bae in the final two games of the season.





Upcomer spoke to the 100T Academy coach about the move to give the org’s academy stars time on the LCS stage, and how she feels about the development system as a whole in NA.





Interview performed by Aaron Mickunas; article written by Isaac McIntyre.





How did it feel to see your team up there on the big stage?





Moser: It was nerve-wracking. We tried to emphasize to the team that this is just experience, especially for at least three of them that have literally just come from Scouting Grounds. In general, I knew that at least some of them would do really well, and I think that that showed.





Do you think there’s anyone in the 100T Academy roster that could make the step up to the LCS after this split?





Without naming names, I’m fairly confident some of these guys in the team are immediately ready. Some of the other ones might need a bit more time, so you’d have to check back in with me at the end of the year.





Stunt obviously is my veteran player, and he’s been in the LCS before. Some of the other ones accelerated very fast, and the rest of the roster have made demonstrable growth. They can easily be LCS-ready by the end of the year.





Photo via Riot Games





Is the goal to eventually have a working 10-man roster for the 100T LCS squad?





I’m not sure what the overall 100 Thieves goal is. I think right now the main goal is to find a roster that is not going to be last place in the LCS. They want to eventually win championships. We’re working on how that’s going to look, maybe it’s going to be able to incorporate more Academy, maybe it’s going to be something completely different. It’s still a little bit up in the air right now.





So would you say the team playing on the LCS stage in the final week was an overall success? What are your thoughts after the game?





I think we could have won for sure, the team was definitely disappointed with their performance, and I think they should be. They’re good players and they could have come away with the win.





There were pressure points we could have exploited better, so I think overall it’s fair to say it wasn’t a success and that will drive them further, hopefully. They’ll react positively to that, and it won’t be something that discourages them moving forward.





Is the roster that you have generally good at dealing with negative outcomes and turning them into learning experiences?





I think so, yeah. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs this year, swapping out players, and we have been a very loss-win-loss-win academy team. We made playoffs, which was good, but overall, it was a learning experience for me as a new head coach and a learning experience for them. I think we channeled those experiences well.





Photo via Riot Games

Never miss a moment in esports. Match notifications, latest esports news, and more. Get the Upcomer app now.





When the decision was made by 100 Thieves management to swap mid laners in the LCS, do you think Soligo was ready for the move?





I think he was ready to be in the LCS and take the experience in-stride. I believe if you look at the games, there were ones where he performed pretty well. There were also some that you thought “Okay, maybe he needs a little more time.” Overall, he’s a very motivated player, and if he’s given the opportunity to be in the LCS, he can take it. The question of being LCS-ready is really nebulous.





There was that video 100 Thieves did that was titled “Is 100 Thieves Academy LCS-ready?” that came out, and it’s kind of an inside joke for us as a team. If the players do well against an LCS player in solo queue they come back saying “I’m LCS ready” and it’s a bit of a laugh.





The question of being ready for that level is more about whether you have the fortitude and the stamina to learn on the job, because a lot of esports, especially in NA where our amateur scene is very small compared to developed scenes like Europe or China, are based around whether you’re actually at that level or not. If you ask from that perspective, than of course Soligo is LCS ready. More of that kind of experience will improve his overall level.





You have recently taken a return to more content, working with Thorin on YouTube and putting out game breakdowns on your personal YouTube channel. What led to that accelerated content creation?





2014 was when I was doing a lot of content creation, and then I was a full-time content creator with theScore Esports in 2015 and 2016, and then I was part of the Yahoo project with [Travis Gafford]. In 2017, I was full-time freelance for ESPN, The Shotcaller, and a bunch of other publications.





Now, the YouTube stuff has been a growing project. I think any aspiring content creator realizes at a point that text-only is not how analysis in esports works. If you want to do well in that space, you have to work in the video side of things.





I love being involved in League of Legends, so last year when H2k Gaming didn’t do well, there was this huge break. I sat back and thought “What will make me do better at X, Y, Z”, and I decided I wanted to have the ability to have an on-camera presence, and demonstrate some level of game knowledge to the public.





Anything like that is going to benefit me, and at that time I was still considering whether I wanted to go forward with coaching. I felt that if I was going to keep coaching it had to be the perfect scenario, which the 100T Academy opportunity was. After this weekend’s results, I’m going to have another break, so you’ll be seeing more stuff from me soon.





Photo via i-League





What’s it like working alongside someone controversial like Thorin, who divides the community with his ideas and views?





Thorin is kind of a nice guy, one-on-one, he has a big presence online and any personality knows they have to have that style, because it’s literally in the job description. His personality isn’t untrue to how he is, it’s just bigger when he’s on camera. More of a caricature. Very few people do as much as Thorin does for aspiring content creators, helping them build their audience and putting them in the public eye.





And you still have a show with him at the moment don’t you?





Technically yes, my schedule now is that if anyone wants to do a show for me it would have to be in the middle of the night. I can do Raz’s show because it’s about China because that’s his timezone. Maybe something different will come out in the offseason now that I have a little bit more time up my sleeve.





Photo via Riot Games





Do you see the Academy system being integrated more closely with LCS squads, like Cloud9 last year, and Optic this year?





Academy is a really new thing, so it’s hard to see where it will go. I think it’s good, because honestly North American teams have spent a really long time neglecting the building of their own talent. Any Academy systems that are really focused on that can only really add to the LCS and NA’s overall competitiveness.





If C9 love their seven-man roster, that’s great. Optic’s felt a little bit more like an accident, and you could argue the same thing for 100 Thieves. Any kind of integration that is positive for the players is good, though.





I think the eventual goal is to have the main team and academy team speak about their roles without any weird feelings about potentially being replaced. That’s the goal for what an Academy system should eventually end up as. There might be some people who have an idealistic view of what the second league should be, but we’ll see how it all develops.