Jungler William “Meteos” Hartman jump-started the next chapter of his League of Legends career last weekend, rocking his fresh 100 Thieves threads as he led his new team to an undefeated start.
Following his team’s impressive weekend, Meteos sat down with The Game Haus for a quick interview.
In recent years you’ve been in and out of lineups, and you haven’t competed for an entire season since Season 4. What has changed for you to want to start competing again full-time?
“I’ve always enjoyed playing, first of all. Usually when I’ve taken a break from playing it was because I didn’t feel like I could play well at the time. I wouldn’t want to play for the sake of being a pro player if I didn’t think I could do a good job.
I went through some personal non-game related stuff that was messing with my head. I just wanted to take a break and some time off, that was what 2017 was for me. I told myself I’m going to take this year to chill: stream, and do things that are non-game related, and try to have a more balanced lifestyle. I felt like going so hard for years straight of League 24/7 all the time was going to burn me out and lower my overall happiness level. That was what 2017 was going to be for me.”
What specifically about 100 Thieves sold you on playing for them?
“I had a few offers in the offseason for a few different LCS teams. And the biggest reason I went with 100 Thieves was because Ryu had signed with them. I had talked to Ryu before the free agency happened saying, ‘Hey dude I really enjoyed playing with you on Phoenix1, if you want to play together, I’m open to it.’
He signed with 100 Thieves, and I was down.”
During your competitive break, other North American junglers (Svenskeren, Akaadian, Contractz etc.) stepped up in your place. How would you compare yourself to the new crop of junglers? And what advantages or disadvantages do you feel you have coming off a hiatus?
“Generally, in my experience jungling, it’s more about how well your team functions as a whole over an individual team’s performance. Players like Svenskeren, Akaadian and Contractz, they’re really good.
I don’t think there are any junglers you can say flat out aren’t good, they’re all pretty good. A lot of stuff that can be hard about jungling is just getting on the same page with all your team. People will look at junglers and just say, ‘this guy just farms all the time or this guy just ganks one lane.’
The thing to think about is anytime you gank top, you have to tell your bot lane to play safe. League of Legends players all want to win their lane. Every laner is like, ‘I wanna shit on this guy,’ so it can be hard when you have to tell guys ‘Play safe, I’m going to pressure here,’ and just figure out how to be in the right place at the right time. A lot of it comes down to team cohesion and how well it functions as a whole.”
What are your expectations for this specific roster? And how would you compare the lineup against some of your Cloud9 rosters?
“I feel really good about this roster. I think everyone is a good mixture of dedication to improving and kinda laid back. No one has a super close mind or really big ego that can be hard to work with. As far as how I’d compare it to other teams, I usually try to leave that stuff up to the fans because it really doesn’t matter that much to me. I’m mostly focused on trying to improve myself and working on our own team. We’ll see how it goes when we play against them.”
Featured image: Riot Games
You can like The Game Haus on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for more sports and esports articles from other great TGH writers along with David.
To continue enjoying great content from your favorite writers, please contribute to our Patreon account! Every little bit counts. We greatly appreciate all of your amazing support! #TGHPatreon