By securing their place in the finals, 100 Thieves defeated Clutch Gaming 3-2.

With the odds favoring 100 Thieves in the match against Clutch, the series seemed a lot closer than expected. Both teams unwilling to lose, it was a back and forth brawl. However, one player stepped up to push his team to the limits. That player is none other than Cody Sun. Dishing out almost 80% of his team’s overall damage by himself, Cody has exemplified why he is a World class ADC player.

After the win against Clutch, Inven Global interviewed Cody Sun. Let’s see what he has to say about Caitlyn/Ashe, being selfish as ADC, and Doublelift/Olleh.

¤ How do you feel Cody?

I’m just so tired. That game was the most exhausting game I’ve ever played.


¤ What was your mentality coming into the game series? More specifically these long drawn out games.

For me even when I was a rookie, I was always very confident in the really super late game scenarios. Somehow, I ended up in those long drawn out scenarios today. I knew that if I had Caitlyn and the opponent had Ezreal, I would do more damage in the teamfights. I was confident that as long as I didn’t make any big mistakes in the late game, we would win in the end.

¤ Although you did go to Worlds and have claimed you are confident in the late game, do you still ever get nervous or feel pressured in those high stake late game scenarios?

Yeah, I feel like anyone will feel the pressure. It is a lot. Especially in the games when it goes past 40-50 minutes and the AD sells boots for an extra damage item. Even though you do 1k per auto, you walk really slow. It was a dynamic of your whole team protecting you. I was just screaming at Aphro to Braum shield the Ornn ulti. I think Zac did a really good job leading the team in those late game situations. I was sure that we were able to win these teamfights just because we had the Braum and Caitlyn.

¤ Obviously, you played extremely well in today’s games. But if you had to pinpoint a few mistakes that you made in the series, what would it be?

I actually didn’t like my performance in the first few games. I felt that I was pretty nervous, especially in game 1. My team did a really good job carrying me through those games. I believe I made some uncharacteristic mistakes such as Caitlyn E-ing backwards (laughs). I was also following calls that I knew would get me killed (laughs). As an AD player, you do want to be selfish right? You need to make sure you don’t f*** up or mess up while the team plays around you. However, you also want to give back. You don’t want to take all the resources away from your team. Whenever my team makes a call, I feel obligated to follow just because I want to give back. I want to be there for them. Eventually, I talked to Aphro. He told me to play for myself. Aphro also told me that if I think the play is bad, I can say “No, just back.”.

A lot of my deaths in the first few games was because of those calls. Even though I knew it was a bad call or my positioning was in danger, I followed instead of calling the team back. I think eventually I was able to call them back in the last game. The last game went a lot better because of this.


¤ There is this mini meta forming with Caitlyn and Ashe. Walk us through why Ashe is picked into Caitlyn and what Caitlyn needs to do in order to maximize her power?

The reason why Caitlyn is such a power pick right now is because Tristana got nerfed. Previously with Tristana in NA, she was the safest AD with the longest range and good late game teamfighting. After the nerfs, Caitlyn naturally rose up in the tier. She has really strong laning phase, and there is really nothing that counters her. The three semi counter picks to her as of now are Varus, Ashe, and Jhin. This is mostly because, all these ADs can match her range in lane and force fights at lv 6. However if you have a safe support that can block the lv 6 such as Braum, Tahm, or Morgana, Caitlyn can just scale up and be this power house in the late game. The side that is vsing against Caitlyn has to use their early game advantage to either get a lead for the team or get a lead for themselves. You can then transition this lead to Baron control, etc.

All Caitlyn wants to do is farm up and get three items. It is really difficult to kill Caitlyn in these late game teamfights. This is why she is so high priority right now.

¤ Why is Caitlyn so higher up in the tier list compared to other ADCs?

Although Caitlyn does have counter picks, the counter picks do not provide enough of a lead in order to justify not picking Cait for her scaling. The headshots, alongside the range, just do too much damage. If Caitlyn’s late game wasen’t that strong, teams would rather pick Varus, Jhin, and Ashe. As long as the game goes 50-50, Cait will almost always be in a better spot.


¤ As of now, there is a lot of hype about you being one of the best ADs in North America. Coming into the final match against Doublelift and Olleh, what are your thoughts on the upcoming match?

I think TSM… oh wait I meant TL (laughs). Team Liquid is a really strong team right now. The only thing that I would say about TL is that everyone plays really heavily towards Doublelift. Therefore, it is going to be really difficult for me to get an advantage over him. But, I am not too worried just because TL’s playstyle is very one dimensional. I don’t know what Doublelift did to Olleh and the rest of the crew, but Olleh is not even the same player anymore (laughs). He is different from when I played with him. Olleh is playing to defend and cover for Doublelift. Previously for me, I didn’t care about my advantage. I did not mind Olleh roaming to help other people.

In general, I think it will be individually tough for me against Team Liquid. Since TL is going to spend all their resources for Doublelift to get the slightest CS lead, I am confident that we will get advantages in other places. I don’t mind if I am a couple of CS down as long as my team is ahead. I know that if I am on top of my game, I will be able to out teamfight him.

¤ What are some of Doublelift’s tendencies that you plan to exploit in the finals?

Obviously, I can’t say much. I always had in the back of my head last year that “Oh, it is going to be really difficult to win against him.”. Given the finals against TSM. Now that I have been playing for awhile, I guess I see Doublelift as just another competitor. Even though he is extremely good, I am confident that given time I can be better than him. I guess we will see in the finals right?

I am just pretty surprised that instead of playing with Olleh’s old playstyle when he was on Immortals, Doublelift changed Olleh to fit him. Personally, I would never do that. I wouldn’t force a support to change to accomodate me.


¤ Since Doublelift is notorious for trash talking, is there anything you want to say to Doublelift before the match in Miami?

I guess it is funny that Me and Aphromoo are playing against Doublelift and Olleh. As Olleh used to say, it is like facing against our ex girlfriends (laughs). The only thing I can say is, it seems like in the earlier parts of the split Doublelift was flaming Olleh pretty hard. It seems to me that he is not really treating my ex support very kindly so...(laughs). Maybe I need to get back at him for that. Show him that he can’t flame my ex support (laughs). Stop making Olleh feel bad (laughs).