Player to coach: Scarra & Locodoco

SK Telecom T1 K’s domination of All-Star Paris 2014 taught the Western League of Legends world that teams without infrastructure will be unable to compete. It wasn’t enough to have only five spectacular players anymore, they needed more. Teams rushed to build a support staff of coaches, analysts, and others around their five players as the 2014 LCS Summer Split kicked off. Team Dignitas moved longtime middle laner William “Scarra” Li into a coaching role, while Team SoloMid brought Yoonsup “Locodoco” Choi, who has a long history as AD carry for multiple top teams, over from Korea to coach the team. The professional experience that these two players enjoyed before taking on the coaching mantle brought a different mindset to their teams, and it has paid dividends thus far in the summer split.

Building the Process

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win - Sun Tzu ~400 BC Whether it’s a Fortune 500 company, an NFL franchise, or a League of Legends team, their success depends on their respective processes. In the case of a Korean LoL team’s process, it is heavily focused on planning. Every detail of a game is repeatedly scrutinized, and optimized. In order to handle the enormous workload required to work on the minutiae of League of Legends, top Korean teams employ multiple coaches. The extra analytical bandwidth lets teams work on a deeper level. Something minor like proper wave manipulation in a given matchup is able to be drilled into the players while other parts of the staff develop an overarching strategic plan for an upcoming game. By combining the ability to plan out the smallest detail, along with detailed strategic planning, T1 K learned how to win. In a very real sense, they won before they fought because they had confidence in their process. Locodoco knew all about that sort of process from having lived in Korea, competed on multiple professional teams, and having numerous contacts within the best teams in Korea. While it is impossible to rebuild Team SoloMid in a month, it is certainly within the realm of possibility to tweak the TSM process, and to bring a new level of planning and preparation from his time spent in Korea. A specific change Locodoco made dealt with social media. If the team lost, the players weren’t allowed to use social media, ostensibly to focus on practice and preparation. The real stroke of genius to that policy is that he got fans involved in policing the players so that fans would be more personally invested in the team’s success. The improved process have netted TSM a 7-3 record since Locodoco came onboard with the team, compared to 4-4 beforehand. While Scarra doesn’t have nearly the exposure to Korea that Locodoco has, he brings his own experience to coaching. Scarra has been around the professional League of Legends for many years, and has seen teams come and teams go so he has a wide knowledge base as to what works, and what does not work, in terms of a team’s process. Such extreme longevity also gives him a very diverse understanding of how certain matchups work. All of that knowledge has helped DIG improve their plans going into LCS games which have put them near the top of the league throughout the current split.

Developing Talent

Scouting reports for rookies in professional basketball are filled with the word “raw.” It means that a player has all of the physical tools needed to excel, but has to work on some of the nuances of the sport. LeBron James, arguably the greatest athlete on Earth, had to develop portions of his game during his time in the NBA. League of Legends professional players are no different. Each player has to tweak certain parts of how they play the game to succeed, and both Locodoco and Scarra have firsthand experience in this development since they’ve been through it themselves as professional players. Their unique perspective gives them a decided advantage in building their teams. Scarra spoke about one thing surrounding developing players in a recent lolesports YouTube video, he surmised that “We’ve (veteran players) understood that losses happen, and how to overcome them.” That understanding has been on display during the summer split. DIG has experienced some losses, but they have avoided any kind of protracted slump all while their refurbished roster gelled. A lot of that stability can be attributed to Scarra’s continued improvement of Dignitas through his experience. He went so far as comment on it during the Behind the Scenes with Team Dignitas video saying that “I won’t accept that (DIG falling under).” That attitude of refusing to accept a fall, coupled with Scarra’s ability to teach the team how to respond after a loss is a major reason behind Dignitas’s 11-7 LCS record. Locodoco’s contribution has been far more tactile than Scarra’s, specifically with regard to the continual improvement of TSM’s rookie support, Gleeb. While Gleeb was a fixture in the Challenger scene before joining the LCS, his game showed several weaknesses, particularly decision making. Those deficiencies were on display with missed Thresh Dark Passages, or awkwardly used ultimate abilities, but since Locodoco has arrived, many of those issues have fallen to the wayside. Locodoco was able to call on his extensive time in the bottom lane to turn WildTurtle/Gleeb from a weakness at the beginning of the summer into a strength by developing Gleeb into an LCS level support. Scarra and Locodoco, pro-players-turned-coaches, have already had a large impact on how their teams develop talent, and plan for each game. Their success at the highest level of the LCS opens the door for other former pros to get into coaching. Another pro, former TSM AD Carry Shan “Chaox” Huang has joined their ranks as the coach for the NA Challenger Series 1 winners, Team Coast. Given the trend of teams adding infrastructure around their players, it’s easy to see how this concept isn’t an anomaly, but instead is a trend.

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