The future history of NRG Esports
The North American LCS can be surprising. Sometimes you get exactly what you order, while other times your waiter throws away the menu and drives a truck through your front door.
It’s these surprises that have come to define much of the journey that is the NA LCS. This Split has certainly coughed up a few, and none have stepped out onto the stage with as much suave as NRG Esports. One of the biggest surprises of the 2016 Spring Split, they find themselves tied for 2nd place at the end of Week 4, along with several of the older and more established organizations of the NA LCS. Teams like Cloud9, TSM, and Counter Logic Gaming.
Not only has NRG thrown punches with the best of them at the top, but they managed to secure one of the very few flawless victories (no deaths) in NA LCS history (against TSM no less). Though for all their success, they’ve still had their fair share of hurdles, and as we approach the middle of the Split, an omnipresent clock just started ticking. Teams looking to rise above the rest have only so much more time to do so.
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Will NRG be able to inject some lighting into the rest of the Split and win their way to Las Vegas? We caught up with Chad “History Teacher” Smeltz, the General Manager of NRG, to talk about what kind of future history they want to create for themselves.
It’s history time
Becoming the GM of an esports organization never seemed like it was in the cards for Chad. Originally, he was a streamer and a teacher who would talk about the game and throw in some history facts just for fun. “Streaming was natural, because I could talk to people, and that’s exactly what you’re doing when you’re teaching. It’s easy to be yourself, make jokes, explain the game at a relatively high level.” His education orientated stream made the transition into coaching relatively easy.
“Coaching is very similar. You’re explaining how to play the game. You’re communicating why certain champions are good or why you need to 2v1 or bounce the wave and getting the players to understand that.”
Originally Chad signed up to NRG as a coach. Though, as he became more involved with the organization, he saw just how much work the owners were putting in behind the scenes. Not only were they establishing the NRG League of Legends team, but they were also looking into other esports.
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It was here that Chad saw an opportunity. “I kind of came up to [the owners] one day and said, ‘Hey, you probably need another person helping you out doing all this stuff, especially if you want to move into other games.’” They started him off in the general manager role for a trial period that lasted a grand total of 24 hours. After which he was promptly signed on as general manager and hasn’t looked back since.
As general manager, Chad's had the opportunity to work with the co-owners of NRG Esports who have interesting stories behind them, too.
Gerard Kelly, the most hands on of the bunch according to Chad, is the former owner of the Challenger Series team Team Imagine. He currently lives in the NRG gaming house to make sure everything runs smoothly. Alongside him are Andy Miller and Mark Mastrov, who are part owners of the Sacramento Kings. They bring a wealth of traditional sporting experience and business acumen that helped get NRG off the ground.
The biggest Impact
According to Chad, the creation of the NRG roster as we know it today started with Eon-young “Impact” Jeong. He was the first piece of the puzzle, not just because of his status as a World Champion, but because of how he approaches the game. “He treats it like a job. He tries hard. He tries his best to be a good teammate. But most importantly, he’s willing to put in the effort to learn things and play champions that you might not think that he is either capable of or it just doesn’t seem like it’s his thing.”
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“He can compliment a lot of different types of people. He’s easy to get along with, so he’s kind of like a rock in that way. Then you find other parts and you just start putting pieces together,” Chad explains.
These other pieces would be former Gravity Gaming ADC Johnny "Altec" Ru, LCK star and former member of CJ Entus Frost and Jin Air Green Wings Chang-suk “GBM” Lee, and two rookies in Galen “Moon” Holgate and Kevin “KonKwon” Kwon.
On paper this doesn’t look like the kind of team that would hold 2nd place in the NA LCS, but here we are. Their creative picks (hello, Zilean) and great mental fortitude have seen them rise to the top of the table.
“Look at someone like Moon, who is almost completely new to the LCS. When we played against Liquid, we lost, and it was a game that the team thought they should have won. He’s somebody who you would expect, because he’s new and young, to let it overwhelm him. Then as a team on Sunday they all bounced back against TSM and played fantastic against them.”
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Chad credits much of their mental fortitude to the infrastructure they’ve built up around the team. Part of which comes in their excellent support staff, including coach Tadayoshi “Hermit” Littleton and his team of analysts.
“Hermit’s been doing a really good job with pick bans. We have two analysts that live with us who help him figure out the other team's weakness, what we should pick, and how do we get the team to recognize our own strengths and play to them while avoiding our weakness. I don’t think there’s been a time in pick ban where I’ve looked at the pick ban and been like, ‘shit.’”
A sense of style
There is a certain charm that comes from NRG when they step out onto the stage. It emanates from players like GBM with his bow tie and eye mask. It seems inherent to players like Impact, who consistently proves himself to be a class act on and off the Rift.
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After their win against TSM, someone called out from the crowd that they didn’t get to shake Impact's hand. Impact heard it as he was packing up his things. It would have been easy for him to ignore it and keep doing what he was doing. Instead he stopped and walked back out to the crowd, where he shook the waiting fan’s hand and spoke with him for a minute or two. It’s these little moments that are helping to define NRG as an organization.
“It’s easy to say that we want to be the best and win everything and be in a bunch of esports -- NRG does want to go in that direction. But I want to make sure it’s done right. It’s really about building a solid organization where if you take a loss or two you’re not going to crumble and fall like other teams might do,” Chad says.
NRG already seem well on their way to laying out the foundations for a truly great esports organization. They’ve branched out into a CS:GO team and the owners can have confidence in their League team not only to get wins, but also to know that their players are being looked after. It’s these foundations that make you think NRG will be around for a long time.
“We’re not necessarily going to be the same as TSM or CLG in the next couple of months or in the next six months," Chad says, "but NRG is going to be here to stay.”
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High hopes
As we step into the middle of the Split, NRG sit in a great position. Sure, it’s packed in 2nd place, and Liquid is nipping at their heels, but NRG has shown its talent with an incredible macro-game and the carry potential of stars like GBM and Altec. If they can continue to bounce back from their losses (like their one this Sunday against Cloud9) and give their rookies the support and space to grow, they could be a real contender at Playoffs.
Chad certainly seems to think so.
“I’d hope to be top two. I think that’s pretty realistic. Overarching I think top three is a fair assessment. If I was trying to be completely impartial I could see 1st, 2nd, or 3rd being very reasonable. The reason I say top two is that would put us into the Semifinals immediately I believe, which would send us to Vegas. That would be be pretty cool.”
However this Split plays out and whether or not they manage to make it to Sin City, the NA LCS is better off for having NRG as a part of that journey.
Share your favorite NRG Esports moment (or GBM bow tie) below and don’t forget to watch them on Lolesports this weekend in Week 5 of the NA LCS as they take on Counter Logic Gaming and Echo Fox.
