▲ Photo by Tina Jo for Riot Games

100 Thieves won its fifth game of the season on week 6, day 1 of the 2020 League of Legends Championship Series Spring Split. Behind the Rek'Sai of Jungler William "Meteos" Hartman, 100 Thieves defeated Evil Geniuses with the most aggressive, dominant performance the team had showcased all split. Meteos' performance earned him Player of the Game honors as 100 Thieves will look to carry its momentum into its match against Team Liquid on Sunday.

Meteos sat down with Inven Global's Nick Geracie to discuss his team's aggressive new mindset, the changes in 100 Thieves' culture since he last played for the organization, and shed some light on Zac as an emerging pick in the competitive meta.

Meteos, you earned Player of the Game honors in 100 Thieves win over Evil Geniuses today. How do you feel about your current form?

I would probably say this is the best win our team has had this season so far. One of the things we've been focusing on a lot was just trying to play more aggressively. We don't try to have long games but it definitely happens.

A lot of the time it will happen through indecision or us being overly respectful of threats within the game, so one thing we've been working on a lot in practice is being more aggressive. I was happy with our game today because teams are way more aggressive than they are on stage in general, but I feel like we all brought a good fighting mindset to the stage today, so it worked out.

A lot of your players are veterans with late game strengths. In terms of playing more aggressively, has it merely been draft adjustments or also adjustments in your team's play overall?

It's not so much draft-related, it's more focused on our playstyle. Let's say there's an opportunity where the other team has a numbers advantage on us — one way a team could handle that is having everyone back out because we could potentially be in a bad fight, but what a lot of the better teams do is force the team with the advantage to make the right decision.

The idea is that even though a team can potentially dos something good in a situation, we are going to call them on it. We call it 'keeping them honest', where even if there's a threat the opponent could execute upon us, we approach like we're going to outplay them. We're definitely trying to move toward that sort of idea and take more fights rather than just avoiding fights and winning through passive macro plays.

Do you think early game aggression is so important because of the value of early game objectives like the first Dragon and Rift Herald?

Yeah, I think that a lot of teams are just modeling themselves after Cloud9 because they are doing that so well this season. They play really aggressively for the objectives, and they're always looking to fight if the opponents on their screen.

We want to avoid situations where we're backing out, not fighting the opponent, and conceding control. Once you start letting the opponent push the wave in on you and take your vision, your situation starts getting worse and worse. It's better to be on the aggressing side where you're not giving up space.

Speaking of Cloud9, Evil Geniuses picked Zac in the top lane for Colin "Kumo" Zhao today. That was one of your legacy picks as C9's Jungler early on in your career, so I wanted to get your thoughts on top lane Zac.

I think Zac is definitely strong right now once he gets going, but one issue he as is that his early game is...so crazy bad. Most of the time, you're at a significant disadvantage right off the bat. I play Zac in the jungle in my solo queue game sometimes, and it's kind of easy when people are not respectful of ganks or don't properly punish his jungle clear. Once Zac starts getting items and gets rolling, he's really OP, but if the other team is playing to punish, he shouldn't get to that point.

We knew Kumo had been spamming Zac in solo queue, and so we thought they would maybe try to leave up Ornn for us to get a more playable matchup for Zac. Once we picked Sett, we knew there was still a possibility that Kumo would still pick Zac, but we didn't think he would commit to it because it's just such a bad matchup.

Kumo got pounded by Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho in that matchup today, which was fairly expected. *laughs* I don't really know what else is going to happen there, it's definitely not a good matchup for him. I think Zac is strong when you can make him work, but it's hard to find a situation where he is going to work because of how weak he is early.

With Sejuani in the meta, the jungle is a bit more friendly towards scaling champions. Might we perhaps see you take Zac into the jungle for 100 Thieves?

It's possible, he's definitely a champion I enjoy playing. I think he's pretty fun, but his early game is just so bad. You can pick him if the opponent blind picks Sejuani without getting punished too hard, but at the same time, you could just pick something that's good early on and punish the Sejuani.

Zac is a more scaling-focused option, and the jungle isn't really a place to scale. Almost every Jungler is going to fall off because you don't have time to farm with the way the game is now. You should pretty much always try to be somewhere for a play, so when it comes to picking Jarvan, who can start pressuring right from the start of the game, or Zac, you usually don't go for the scaling jungle option.

▲ Photo by Tina Jo for Riot Games

You qualified for the 2019 LCS Summer Playoffs as the starting Jungler for OpTic Gaming, but your season ended in the Quarterfinals. How did you find your way back to 100 Thieves?

I always liked this brand a lot, and I think 100 Thieves is a really cool organization. When I was traded in the summer of 2018, I was kind of sad in that regard, and also because there's a ton of people on 100 Thieves that I like. Our owner Matthew "Nadeshot" Haag is super cool, and I'm friends with a lot of the 100 Thieves staff. That was definitely one thing that pulled me back here when I was contacted.

Also, the addition of Chris "PapaSmithy" Smith as General Manager and Tony "Zikz" Gray as Head Coach was exciting. They were both people I wanted to work with because they understand the game, but they also understand how to communicate and get along with people well, which is also really important. It seemed like a really good mix. I had a good amount of offers this off-season, but 100 Thieves stood out to me the most.

In our last interview, you mentioned you felt that the 100 Thieves culture in 2018, despite reaching the 2018 NA LCS Summer Finals, was not a healthy fit for you. Both Sun "Cody SunLi-Yu and Ssumday were your teammates on that squad as well as this one, so what has changed in the culture since that first split two years ago?

The culture is mixed, but it's definitely a lot more light-hearted than before. I think everyone on the team is kind of a troll, specifically Zikz. We have a very similar sense of humor, so we joke a lot, and then our Mid Laner Tommy "Ryoma" Le will pick up on that because he's a huge troll as well. Our Assistant Coach Joseph Jang is also a super funny dude, so there's just a lot of funny people on the team and a lot of jokes going around.

That being said, everyone is pretty serious when we are practicing. We have different modes, but overall, I'd say it's a pretty positive atmosphere even when things aren't going well for us. Every once in a while, there may be an argument or something like that, but that's going to happen on literally any team.

All teams struggle, it's about being able to reset based on the foundation that your culture is built upon to progress.

Right, so I think it's definitely really good. I've enjoyed my time on the team, and it's been good to continue to work through stuff.

Thanks for the interview, Meteos. Is there anything you'd like to say to your fans?

As always, thank you for the continued support, it means a lot to me. Some of my fans have been asking me to stream more, and I feel kind of bad because there have been some people still subscribed to me even though I haven't streamed for like four months.

I just want to people know that I do plan to go back to streaming at some point, but right now, I've been super focused on team stuff and working on my own gameplay, so I'm trying to avoid distractions. I haven't given up on streaming, so I do see myself coming back to it sometime.