Yiliang "Doublelift" Peng has grown up. The formerly cocky AD carry is now a grizzled veteran of professional League of Legends, and his mentality shows it. Even after a loss to longtime rivals TSM, he and the rest of Counter Logic Gaming were confident in bouncing back. "I think people really overestimated the effect it would have on us mentally," he says. "Honestly, we didn't really have to refocus at all. We were always focused. We're on a steady path of getting better every week, and we have a good system and structure to facilitate that. We don't think changing anything or going on tilt is really effective. It's not like all of us were really down and thinking we had to change everything after that match. It wasn't the end of the world. It was like any LCS game." The shift in mentality comes directly from the five players' experience in the scene. "Having veteran status, knowing what hardship is like, and having mental toughness is really important," says Doublelift. "With Cloud9, once they start losing, it's really hard to pick it back up. I think we're a lot more mature, and have the mental toughness that I think is unique to our team. Other teams have either always known success or always known failure, but there have been times where CLG has known we've been good, but choked at the last minute. We have a very special mentality, I'd say." Most notably, Doublelift now knows that he can't always be the guy at the front of the pack. "Even though I was on the team the longest, I was never born to be a leader," he says. A big part of their change in mentality has come from having coach William "Scarra" Li to help with interpersonal problems, says Doublelift:

"It's important to have a coach because you will inevitably damage relationships with your teammates. You're supposed to be equals on a team, no one is supposed to be higher than anyone else. But if you have an underperforming player, there's an elephant in the room. They're messing up, or making more mistakes relative to everyone else. And it's really dumb to have to point that out as an equal, because as soon as you do that, you're not their equal anymore, you're their superior. It damages relationships really badly. So, the coach is there to be that guy. Everyone knows that he's supposed to be that guy because he's above us in the hierarchy. We're players and we respect and follow the orders of the coach. This way, we can keep healthy relationships with each other and make sure, fundamentally, that we can mentally function as a team. The coach can settle a dispute between two players who think differently. Whether they like it or not, they're going to listen to them."

For him, now, it's all about staying focused and winning. And with their coach having an extensive professional past, CLG has all the tools to do just that. "Scarra's good as a coach because he's been a pro. You'll never have that in League right now. The players who are good enough to be pros are just going to be pros. Like, why would you want to be a coach? Except for Scarra. I think he's one of the few exceptions to that. Even if you have great knowledge about the game, you don't know what it's like to be a pro. You have no idea of the struggle, or how much mental toughness is needed to be a pro." Will CLG continue to improve? Keep your eyes on Lolesports for more LCS action. For any games you may have missed, check out the spoiler-free VODs page.

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