We know this is the second week in a row we’re talking about them, but we’re starting to really like 100 Thieves.

Only about eight days out from the team’s competitive debut, this mix of experience and youth can be pretty happy with themselves, having stormed through DraculaN in Bucharest to finish in second place.

After an early stumble to ENCE, the rain-led side managed to dominate the lower bracket, knocking out the likes of Eternal Fire and FlyQuest before arriving to the grand final against HEROIC. Even here they got close to a win, but had to settle for the silver medal.

You’d think this run of form in LAN tournaments would come from the most experienced players, rain and device, finally activating and carrying the youngsters into relevancy, but au contraire mon petit croissant - device is still playing like merde.

Instead it’s actually the core of younger riflers who lead the pack, with poiii, sirah, and Ag1l all dropping high ratings, and already the decision not to pay millions for a ranked core has paid off big time.

VRS experts now give 100 Thieves a significantly better chance of making the Cologne Major than BC.Game, who instead opted to buy three players from SAW to leapfrog the ranking. Considering BC.Game reportedly spent a significant chunk of money on that core, especially compared to what 100T spent, that’s a big win for gla1ve’s camp.

A big part of this rise is thanks to 100 Thieves filling up their LAN bucket with ten recent won matches, something BC.Game and Liquid, among others, are struggling to do, which may leave them out of the Cologne Major in a month’s time.

There’s still a long way to go until we can truly consider 100 Thieves relevant on the world stage, however, and next up they still have a few more small VRS cups to play. We’d also like to see some better stuff out of device before they step into the elite, or we suspect it will be a very short lived endeavor.

For now, we’re perfectly happy watching the youngsters prove themselves, game after game.