100 Thieves bench Valorant IGL steel and promote b0i to starting lineup

100 Thieves have moved Aaron ‘b0i’ Thao up to their starting Valorant lineup, while moving former starter Joshua ‘steel’ Nissan to the bench as a substitute.

Over the weekend, on September 25, it was reported that the Thieves would be cutting steel from their starting roster following VCT Stage 3 Masters Berlin.

Two days later, the org announced they were doing just that, removing steel from the starting lineup and promoting b0i to take his place, just as the leak predicted.

100 Thieves move b0i to Valorant starting lineup

The Thieves actually played pretty well at Masters Berlin, but they failed to do well enough to qualify for Champs, falling to Envy 0-2 in the Semifinals.

Now that the switch-up has been confirmed, it does have some very interesting implications for the VCT North America Last Chance qualifier tournament coming up on October 12.

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This leaves just 15 days from the official announcement for the new look 100T squad to practice together to get ready for that tournament, where they’ll be going up against teams who have a much longer time playing together.

Contrary to what was initially said in the report on September 25, though, steel is still listed as a member of the 100 Thieves Valorant roster as a substitute. However, he won’t be the main sub headed into the final competitions of 2021.

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According to the Thieves, Johann ‘seven’ Hernandez will be their “main substitute” for the rest of the tournaments this year, which does bring up the question of how long steel will actually remain with the team, now that he won’t be starting.

While it will be interesting to see if the CS veteran and former 100T IGL find a new home soon, in the meantime all eyes will be on this new-look 100 Thieves team, and how they perform in the Last Chance qualifier.