The 2018 League of Legends World Championships have delighted and captivated fans across the major regions, with stunning upsets and superb matches that showcase the skill and ability of the teams present at the event. So, why are North American fans so angry at 100 Thieves?

Ultimately, this is a problem that comes down to communication. A lot of fans felt that the situation that unfolded with former jungler William "Meteos" Hartman went very poorly, with not a lot of communication between the organization, players, and fans. Whether or not this is really worth getting upset about is debatable, however what’s not up for debate is that 100 Thieves, through their lack of communication with fans, allowed Meteos to control the narrative.

One of the more unique factors about esports, compared to traditional sports, is the connectiveness the players have with the community. It’s not uncommon to see some of the top players in their league regularly streaming and interacting with their fans directly, in an analogy that would need to see someone like LeBron James or Michael Phelps spending up to eight hours a day practicing, with fans sitting on the sidelines chatting with each other and the athlete. An extreme example to be sure, but not an inaccurate one. The point being, when it comes to trade disputes, or players wanting to leave teams, often the fans will side with the player no matter what, regardless of the facts. The same can be said for other fans supporting the organization no matter what as well, but it would be more common to see fans follow a player to a new team than stick around.

Communication is definitely one of the areas where we can improve. Communication is tough for many different reasons, especially when it comes to why roster changes were made. Protecting our players & coaches, whether they’ve come or gone, is important to us so messaging is key.

— 100T Nadeshot (@Nadeshot) October 17, 2018

So, what does this have to do with 100 Thieves, and the backlash they face now after the 2018 Worlds group stage is finished. The bottom line is, a lot of fans feel that the communication from the organization, regarding why they have made the roster changes they did, is lacking. To be precise, it’s practically non-existent. To be fair to 100 Thieves, they are in a difficult situation. For whatever reason, during the NA LCS Summer playoffs, 100 Thieves opted to use academy AD Carry Richard "Rikara" Samuel Oh, instead of their usual Cody "Cody Sun" Sun. From a purely mechanical standpoint, this is a less than optimal choice. Rikara has not had to face players of the caliber you’d see in the NA LCS, and he suffered for it. Additionally, with 100 Thieves again opting to use Rikara instead of Cody Sun during their World Championship campaign, many fans were understandably upset that a seemingly much better AD Carry was sitting on the bench while 100 Thieves seemed content to lose their matches.

Obviously, this is not the case, the decision to bench Cody Sun would not have been made lightly, and fans are never going to have a great amount of insight into what happens behind the scenes when all they get is a highlights reel once a week. The true problem, in this case, can be easily discovered by comparing 100 Thieves to another League of Legends organization, Cloud9. Cloud9 is an established brand, with its own core group of dedicated fans that will stick by the team no matter what. Additionally, they boast players with some of the most enthusiastic fan bases out there, meaning they enjoy a lot of support both in North America and internationally. They similarly made roster changes that left a lot of fans scratching their heads, when they seemingly benched some of their best players in favor of their academy line-up.

So, what happened to Cloud9 that was different to 100 Thieves? Well, for starters, Cloud9 representatives made regular comments on the situation to explain their decision. CEO Jack Etienne and head coach Bok "Reapered" Han-gyu even filmed a video where they explained their reasoning and asked the community for patience while they worked through the problem. Ultimately, the key difference between Cloud9 and 100 Thieves comes down to two factors: Communication, and Longevity.

As we’ve said, Cloud9 is an established organization, with quite a few accolades under their belt. Fans are more willing to give them a bit of leniency when it comes to big calls, like benching their popular players. That doesn’t mean they didn’t face any criticism, which they did, but it was short lived and blunted by the communication the Cloud9 put out. Fans had more of an understanding of the situation, and therefore were less likely to lash out in their confusion. In contrast, 100 Thieves has said very little about the situation, leaving fans in the dark about what’s happening and why.

So how is this a problem, and why does it tie back to their earlier troubles with Meteos? By not providing updates to the fans, 100 Thieves have effectively given up control of the narrative surrounding the problems. There is no official answer to satisfy fan confusion, and in the absence of an official answer, fan speculation runs rampant. The players themselves have not spoken about the situation, which could be considered a good thing given the circumstances, however that just leaves every single detail up for scrutiny by the fans. Every vlog made by the team, every tweet sent by a player, every comment on stream, it all becomes a potential lead to answers, in the eyes of the fans, and with so many people poring over every detail and coming up with theories, eventually some truly bad ones float to the surface.

So how do 100 Thieves fix this problem? Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. 100 Thieves is a new organization, and while they have done an admirable job of building their fan-base, there isn’t that same level of trust that older, more established organizations enjoy. It’s a painful lesson to learn, but most of the organizations in the NA LCS and EU LCS have had to learn it at some stage. While 100 Thieves obviously doesn’t wish to come out and directly state what the problems are, staying silent in the face of such fan backlash is also probably not the best option to take. But again, these are hard lessons to learn, and even harder ones to teach without having the organization undergo this kind of problem.

Ultimately, the best bet for 100 Thieves would be to find some middle ground, between wanting to keep the situation private, and revealing everything the fans want to know. There will be some fans who are never going to be satisfied with an answer, and some who will stop thinking about the problem the second some new drama awakens. As long as something happens soon, before all the goodwill generated by the hard work Nadeshot and the other members of the 100 Thieves organization have put in is completely erased by the fans. After all, the NA LCS is franchised now, and it’ll be a rough couple of years if the fans are actively boycotting your team.

For more League of Legends action, check out the breakdown of the top eight teams left at Worlds 2018, here.