Meteos lashes out after 100 Thieves bench LCS star again

Andrew Amos

William ‘Meteos’ Hartman has found himself riding the bench for 100 Thieves again after a string of poor performances to kick off LCS Summer 2020. This time though he’s snapped, lashing out at management on Twitter for not listening to the players.

Meteos will not be taking to the Rift from Week 4 onwards for 100 Thieves in LCS Summer 2020. The two-time LCS champion is being benched for Academy jungler Juan ‘Contractz’ Arturo Garcia after a string of poor performances at the start of this split.

100 Thieves currently sit in tied-eighth on the ladder, with only one win to their name after six games. Meteos himself has had a less than stellar start, posting just a 1.5 KDA ⁠— the second worst out of any starting jungler.

Meteos playing LCS Summer 2020
Meteos has been benched for Week 4 of LCS Summer 2020.

It’s not the first time Meteos has found himself riding the bench either. However, this time, the star jungler snapped, lashing out at 100 Thieves management on Twitter after learning about his benching.

“This is gonna sound like a troll post but just got word that I’m being benched after Week 3 Summer again. Not sure why I expected anything different,” he said on Twitter.

He singled out LCS coaches Zikz and JungleJuice, as well as GM PapaSmithy, for making the call to bench him against his teammates’ requests.

“Pretty weird to hear the players on my team didn’t know about or agree with the decision. All credit goes to Zikz, JungleJuice, and Papasmithy! Clearly the people not on the team know what’s best for it,” he added in a now-deleted post.

100 Thieves and Meteos parted ways in 2018 under similar circumstances. Back then, Meteos was benched for Andy ‘AnDa’ Hoang just three weeks into the Summer season, citing “a lack of chemistry and cohesion between the players and the coaching staff.” He joined ⁠FlyQuest after being dropped.

100 Thieves then went on to come third in LCS Summer 2018, while Meteos was stuck on FlyQuest’s Academy development team.

The same then happened during his 2019 stint with OpTic Gaming in Spring, when he shared time with Joshua ‘Dardoch’ Hartnett. Meteos did start the majority of games, but his split time eventually brought him back to 100 Thieves in 2020.

Meteos did clear up his stance after the initial set of tweets, stating that he’s “not really sure how else to express [his] anger about the situation.”

“[It] sucks to be scapegoated after the amount of effort I put into the team. I’ve never cared much about my stats and have always played to put my teammates in good situations. Of course my stats will not look good if we aren’t winning.”

100 Thieves have confirmed Meteos’ benching late on June 28. Support William ‘Stunt’ Chen will also be joining him in Academy, with Philippe ‘Poome’ Lavoie-Giguere replacing him.

100 Thieves will face off against Golden Guardians and Dignitas in Week 4.

About The Author

Hailing from Perth, Andrew was formerly Dexerto's Australian Managing Editor. They love telling stories across all games and esports, but they have a soft spot for League of Legends and Rainbow Six. Oh, and they're also fascinated by the rise of VTubers.