Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider had been awake about 18 hours before stepping onto the League of Legends Championship Series Arena stage in Santa Monica on Saturday.
The 100 Thieves jungler, fresh a cross-continental flight from Europe and a lengthy trip through U.S. customs, came straight to the studio for his first match with his LCS squad.
It was a loss, the first of two for 100 Thieves in the opening weekend of the summer split.
"Today obviously it was a bit weird," Amazing said after his first game onstage with the team. "I felt a bit of a disconnect, like I was lagging behind maybe because I am actually lagging behind in real life right now."
He shrugged, laughed and left the LCS Arena press box 15 minutes or so later to, presumably, go get some well-earned rest. Even while jet-lagged, though, Amazing seemed optimistic about his arrival and the summer fate of 100 Thieves.
To LCS viewers, the demise of 100 Thieves this past spring split simultaneously felt like a sudden drop from a precipitous cliff and a slow-motion accident. After a rocky end to a strong start that brought the new LCS franchise to the LCS summer finals in 2018, 100 Thieves picked up former SK Telecom T1 bot laner Bae "Bang" Jun-sik while also retaining top laner Kim "Ssumday" Chan-ho. The former was a two-time world champion, and the latter had been a top performer for the team during their 2018 success (along with being a former OGN Champions title holder during his time with KT Rolster).
Despite their talent on-paper, 100 Thieves finished with the worst record in the LCS at 4-14.
Recently in his career, most notably on FC Schalke 04, Amazing has become known for his veteran presence and ability to lead rosters to at least some modicum of success. When he wasn't signed as a jungler to a League European Championship team in spring, more than a few analysts commented that he would certainly be picked up by summer, presumably to "fix" an LEC team that had fallen in the standings. In the meantime, Amazing became a strategic coach for FC Schalke 04 Evolution.
The team that came calling before the summer split, though, was not an LEC squad. His first interview with 100 Thieves coach Neil "pr0lly" Hammad was scheduled for 30 minutes. They talked for three hours instead.
"We kind of connected," Amazing said. "It kind of seemed like it was clicking for him and the team too, that I was the best option for them. I feel like 100 Thieves out of all of the teams in NA represent what I want the most out of esports right now. It was a mutual thing where I want to be someone who creates a brand to a certain extent but also someone who wants to win and wants to have some fun to boot. I'm happy where I'm at."
Amazing has now stepped into the puzzle that has been 100 Thieves' performance for the past split. While it's not his job to fix the team, he will be relied upon as another veteran voice to move the team forward.
"He's a super outgoing guy," 100 Thieves support Zaqueri "aphromoo" Black said. "Always speaks his honest opinion, and I like that, especially for the jungle position because jungle and support have to group up for some plays and finish plays. He puts in a lot of hard work, and I appreciate that about him."
Despite having played League of Legends in at least an amateur competitive capacity since 2012, Amazing isn't even the most seasoned veteran on his new team. That title belongs to aphromoo, who has been playing since 2011. Ssumday made his competitive debut in 2012 before coming into his own with KT Rolster Arrows in 2014. Bang also started playing competitively in 2012 with NaJin White Shield before later becoming a superstar with SKT.
Then there's mid laner Max "Soligo" Soong, a rookie who made the jump from Scouting Grounds to Academy to the LCS in less than a year. It's an odd mix of veterans with Soligo in the center, both figuratively and literally on the Rift.
"It's interesting to just have conversations with everyone about their pasts, about their careers," Amazing said. "Honestly seeing them interact in the game too, you can see where those past experiences come in. We've had such really fruitful discussions after the games, which I've really enjoyed. I think most things are not solved within a game or within the scrims themselves but afterwards, especially when you have a cooldown period where you're distant from the game and can think about it from a third-person view almost and become more objective about what you're doing wrong."
Taking those discussions and translating them into onstage victories will be the key for Amazing and 100 Thieves. That's something the team was unable to do last split and this past weekend as the team went 0-2 with losses to OpTic Gaming and Counter Logic Gaming.
"For scrims to stage, I think it's mostly mental," aphromoo said. "We play a little more scared for sure, and I think it's a matter of getting over that confidence barrier. Going forward, it's going to be about keeping honest, saying what you think, and by the end of it we should be able to play really well as a team.
"The main thing is that we need everyone to say what they think, especially the players, so we can learn how to play the game how we want to play the game."
It sounds simple, but players need to consider the intricacies of how people give information to others, how they receive feedback from others and a myriad of other nuances. This is a challenge for even the most seasoned of lineups with players who have played together for years.
Now that his overseas trip is over, Amazing's next task has begun. The jungler must help 100 Thieves solve their communication issues and help his team build the synergy the top teams in the world enjoy.
"For example, Team Liquid, or let's say in Europe, Origen, they're teams that are going to play OK or fine in scrims probably, but also when they come to stage, they realize what they learned in scrims and have the potential to elevate it because their communication patterns are already in place," Amazing said. "They can deviate from whatever plan they had in the moment if it's the better call because they already have a baseline of communication."