4 Comments
Agreed.
His post for those that don't want to travel to reddit:
About me: I am currently a manager at a fortune 500 company and lead a team of managers under me. I also happen to have played/followed League of Legends since the beta.
I believe by using business team modeling concepts in conjunction with traditional sports team based strategies, the full potential of TSM will be unlocked. One way that LCS matches differ from traditional sports is the lack of a coach once the match starts. At that point, it is up to the players. This is where a team captain (as corny as that sounds) comes in. This team captain needs to be the leader on the team and respected as such. He needs to be the shot caller. The other players need to obey unconditionally. The other players must give informational feedback (such as vision on enemy jungler, summoner cooldowns, etc). However, they are not to call a play. This will provide leadership during the game in absence of the coach. It also provides a singular point of focus for improvement for the coaching staff. They can work with the team captain on shot calling vs working on all 5 players' shot calling. Mistakes can be funneled to a singular point of responsibility (outside of mechanical misplays).
Practice needs to consist of drills, similar to a basketball team. These drills will pit players against common lane matchups. Skill shots, input buffering, damage trades, wave control, etc will be repeated over and over until it becomes a muscle reflex in an actual match. Scrims would still be the core and most important part of practice, however. Pros in almost all sports still do drills, regardless of their ability. It should be no different in League (look at all the mechanical misplays that happen).
Individual player mistakes need to be identified and addressed individually with said player, not in a group setting. Corrective actions need to be provided to the player so that he may refrain from making the same mistakes again. There needs to be positive reinforcement when a player does exceedingly well. On the flip side, there needs to be accountability when a player is not performing to expectations.
Players need to be taught a set of win conditions. Every match should play out like a chess match. For example: If (condition A & B exists @ 20 minutes, then Action G must be taken. If only A exists, then Action H must be taken. All members of the team must know these conditions so they are all on the same page and know what to do next at Point A, B, C, and D in the game.
Every day needs structure and oversight. There needs to be a set routine for players. This routine should not be excessive though. More hours of work does not equate to better performance in the long run. It will result in players and coaches burning out.
The lack of these proven team based strategies are the reason you see the apparent "chaos" in TSM matches. Players appear to not be on the same page and in a state of frequent confusion. None of this is the fault of the players. The players have not been given the tools to succeed that they so much deserve. Their talent is being squandered. They can be so much more than what they are now.
I am financially responsible for the people I lead. I owe it to them to give them the tools to succeed. I am very confident that the same can be done for TSM. I have outlined a broad strategy and some key points. I guarantee that even following this broad overview will vastly improve TSM.
Here is something else people need to wrap their head around: Yellowstar is not the shotcalling god people were lead to believe. Its looking more and more like Reignover and Huni, and various other members of Fnatic, like Xpeke/Soaz, etc. Had quite a bit of input when it came to game decisions. Because, they are all succeeding without him. Xpeke comes back to Origen for 2 games, and they are a completely diff. team. Reignover and Huni go to NA, currently best team in NA. Yellow goes to a team with talent, but with a complete lack of shotcalling, team is failing.
So, if he isn't the shotcalling god, then we have a TSM with an even worse mechanical player than before, and then at least 2 other players who also make poor game decisions in Sven and Dlift (both are amazing mechanically, but both also make horrible mistakes at the same time). So that leave Hauntzer, for all we know just a quiet, decent player, possibly also prone to mistakes, and then Bjerg, doing the same job as before, just playing worse this season.
What does that leave? The mess we have now. Now, people are going to go, "They should just listen to Yellow!" You know what? Maybe they did. Maybe they listened to him in scrims, and his calls were simply bad. If he wasn't a dominating voice ala Hai, in his previous teams, and its looking like he wasn't, how long do you think players like Dlift and Bjerg are going to listen? Esp. with him being weak individually, too? I mean, you forget even the cancer Dlift won NA last year listening to Aphro's calls. Aphro was the shotcaller, and apparently Dlift at least listened to him.
I just think his shot-calling may have been overblown due to how good of a find Reignover and Huni were. I mean thats like drafting Tom Brady and Randy Moss in the same damn draft. It was probably just a fluke occurence. I mean, I like Yellow, but its looking more and more like his previous teammates had tons more say in the shotcalling then you were lead to believe. He even said it himself before, and so has his teammates. The bottom line is, I dont believe he is Hai, or even Aphro, when it comes to shotcalling. That might have been waht they thought they were getting, but it just wasn't. I'm sure with the right personnel he probably can work, not knocking him, but its looking like he got a bit more credit than he deserved. If you look at a shotcaller like Hai, he has a tangible, noticeable impact on his team. Even compared to another team's shotcaller. I mean they are the worst team in the league without him, and a worldclass team with him. Aphro is doing the Yellowstar treatment to CLG, by just picking up no-names and being world class. And, we can both argue that Huhi and Stixxay are nowhere in teh same stratosphere of talent that Reignover and Huni are. Yet, Aphro isn't getting talked up like a god-caller like Yellow did for his rookie building stuff last season.
All in all, its looking more like poor scouting/recruiting issues put together a team with poor decision making abilities. Couple that with the fact that their worst mechanical player is only there for his ability to shotcall, and you get what you have now.
And again, no one outside of TSM has any idea exactly how the scrims go. Yellow could have called a ton of them and they performed poorly. And, that leads to what we have now. Its not as cut and dry as "Oh these egos are too big and they refuse to listen!" That barely makes any sense considering the biggest ego on the team, Dlift, pretty much shined Aphro's boots to worlds last year. So, even the biggest ego does listen.