by 100 Thieves have unveiled their starting lineup for the Valorant Champions Tour 2023 season. The team were selected as part of the Americas VCT league and, unlike several selected teams, will go into the new season with a similar lineup from their 2022 season.
100 Thieves’ current roster consists of most of the players who won the 2022 NA Last Chance Qualifiers, with a lone addition. The North American esports organization previously signed former XSET superstar Matthew “Cryocells” Panganiban. The duelist/chamber player joined the rest of 100 Thieves’ core players from their 2022 roster going into 2023.
Cryocells replaced William “Will” Cheng in 100 Thieves, and while the two were known for their impressive play, the former XSET player proved more consistent. During his time with XSET, he helped the team finish in 5th–6th place in the 2022 Champions tournament.
100 Thieves also promoted former assistant coach Michael “Mikes” Hockom to the position of head coach after Sean “sgares” Gares parted ways with the organization last week. Besides the new coach and player, 100 Thieves’ current lineup is the same as the previous season’s.
The franchise released an announcement video on their Twitter page where the organization’s general manager, Daniel “ddk” Kapadia, confirmed that the former XSET duelist/Chamber player was an amazing fit for the team.
Ddk’s words aligned with those of the 100 Thieves founder, Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag, when he spoke about Cryocells in an earlier stream. At the time, the founder claimed that if the team invested in the player, he could, one day, rival Jaccob “yay” Whiteaker. The former OpTic Gaming player is arguably one of the best Valorant duelists in the world.
In the video, Ddk also addressed “public perception,” which accused the organization of signing Cryocells because they could not bring yay over to their side.
“We’re very excited regarding Cryo’s skillset,” Ddk said.
“He’s a player that can instantly react and has a very high mechanical skill ceiling. We’re looking for that increased pace in that position, and I think that will allow us to do a lot more with the team.”
Mikes also revealed that their top priority right now was to improve the player’s agent pool.
Ddk acknowledged other players on the 100 Thieves squad, revealing that Sean “bang” Bezerra was “in the conversation” for the top controller player in the North American region. The feat is an amazing one considering the fact that the player started in the role earlier this year.
The other players on the squad include Peter “Asuna” Mazuryk, Brenden “stellar” McGrath, and Derrek “Derrek” Ha.
The players showed grit during 100 Thieves’ performance in the NA LCQ in 2022 and helped the squad bounce back after a disappointing start to the season. 100 Thieves still needs one substitute player in order to finalize their roster fully.
While Cryocells may be a great addition to 100 Thieves on paper, it is yet to be seen if the player will help the NA squad perform as well as they did during the 2022 NA LCQ and Champions 2022 in the upcoming season.
Squads like XSET and OpTic Gaming were not given a slot in Riot Games’ 2023 franchising partnership, and as such, several of their top-tier players moved on to other partnered squads. Besides Cryocells, Zachary “zekken” Patrone from XSET joined Sentinels, and shortly after, OpTic’s duelist, yay, signed with Cloud9.
