Power of The Analyst: Why EU May Be Falling Behind
Riot·6/9/2014, 8:57:25 PM·0 votes·4,409 views
Esports organizations in Asia have maintained full supporting staffs to aid their starting roster of players for years. North American LCS teams started adopting similar infrastructure last Summer, hiring analysts and coaches. Almost every NA team has an analyst on staff by now, ready to help their teams find new strategies and prepare for each opponent.
And yet, EU teams have been slow to embrace analysts. Only a few exist in the entire region, and many players have been outspoken about not wanting one. At the same time, EU seems to have fallen to the bottom of the international scene.
Is EU's resistance to analysts a major contributing factor to the region's recent decline in international events? Let's take a look at the key questions involved.
"An analyst mainly contributes game knowledge," Alliance's AD carry Tabzz explains. "They dedicate time to watching other regions' gameplay and try to find new trends that might be useful to the team. Before LCS matches, our analyst helps us analyze our opponents' habits and determine how to get advantages in draft and strategy."
Analysts focus on the in-game choices of the team, like strategies, rotations, and team comps. Coaches, on the other hand, help with things outside of the game, such as communication, mindset, and practice regiments.
Jordan "Leviathan" Thwaites, Alliance's coach, has found tremendous value in having an analyst to work with, and has some specific expectations. "Analysts help keep up with trends and make sure our plays and strategies are fresh and innovative," Leviathan explains. "The analyst and I worry about collecting data and translating it into something the team can learn from. That way, the team can stay concentrated on how they play."
Double-dipping on the roles by hiring one person to be both coach and analyst seems to be the best many EU teams are willing to try so far. ROCCAT recently released their analyst and gave both duties to their coach Veggie. But that still leaves them with one of the more robust staffs in the EU region.
Veggie thinks every pro team should have an analyst and/or coach because of the time it takes to do those jobs. He explains: "Combining all of the practice pro players need to do with the will, intelligence, and free time required to properly analyze is basically impossible without making one of those aspects worse in quality. There's not enough time."
Not every player shares Tabzz's feelings, however, which could be a big part of the reason why EU teams are resisting analysts. Even Vander on ROCCAT is suspicious of an analyst's true value. "It's mostly not possible for an analyst to have complete data," he explains, "because players have a lot of secret smurf accounts that they use. There are certain situations that [dedicated] analysts are useful, but I think in our situation Veggie is enough for us."
Roccat's Xaxus is more convinced, however. "I agree with Tabzz," he explains, "that a structure behind the teams is a must. Currently a lot of the players in Europe especially have their egos high, and a lot of the time they won't listen to coaches or other players on the team."
Xaxus thinks every team needs a stable controlling body around it, but isn't sure that EU is ready for it, since the change will be drastic. He believes that it will take a new generation of players rising up before it can take place.
No team has been more vocally insistent that they didn't want an analyst than Fnatic, even after they entered their losing slump last split. Despite constant losses and criticisms from outside, the players repeatedly said in interviews that they didn't need an analyst and that they could solve the problems themselves.
However, after a disappointing performance at All-Stars that heralded cries from the community of EU's decline, Fnatic is finally looking to hire an analyst. Their jungler, Cyanide says that their performance at All-Stars is what finally convinced them that it was needed.
"We were finally shown the reality," he says, "that even if we're individually good players, we can't win just by that. We're just people after all, so we can't do everything by ourselves, and having a pair of eyes outside of the team can provide a very useful perspective."
"The game is more about the theory than people realize," he continues. "And I don't see a way that a skilled analyst wouldn't help at pointing out mistakes and offering solutions to fix those mistakes… I expect hiring an analyst to make a large impact on us. Having someone outside of the game who can break down each and every play is vital to a team's success."
As the level of professional play evolves, analysts are going to become necessary if EU wants to keep pace with, and hopefully even pass up, the other regions. "In the past, I feel like the theory behind the game didn't have that much impact," Cyanide says. "But with the meta shifting and players becoming more and more skilled, any small advantages counts more. Before, you could outplay the enemy, kill them and snowball the game, even if they had a group of a thousand analysts and you had zero."
That era, it seems, is now over.
Cloud9’s Hai issues a challenge to every team currently resisting analysts: "If they want to improve, they should look into getting an analyst. There's nothing to lose from getting an analyst, but everything to gain."
Time will tell if EU teams will give analysts a real chance. I hope they do.
Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Thresh, he's never enjoyed a Darius, and he will always go for the kill, even when he knows he shouldn't. He currently works as a game designer on EverQuest Next at Sony Online Entertainment. He’d love to talk with you on Twitter.
What Do Analysts Actually Do?
Esports organizations typically have two staff members focused primarily on helping teams play to their full potential: coaches and analysts. Alliance is one of the first EU teams to embrace a full supporting staff (and also the top team in Europe as of this writing, it should be noted).
"An analyst mainly contributes game knowledge," Alliance's AD carry Tabzz explains. "They dedicate time to watching other regions' gameplay and try to find new trends that might be useful to the team. Before LCS matches, our analyst helps us analyze our opponents' habits and determine how to get advantages in draft and strategy."
Analysts focus on the in-game choices of the team, like strategies, rotations, and team comps. Coaches, on the other hand, help with things outside of the game, such as communication, mindset, and practice regiments.
Jordan "Leviathan" Thwaites, Alliance's coach, has found tremendous value in having an analyst to work with, and has some specific expectations. "Analysts help keep up with trends and make sure our plays and strategies are fresh and innovative," Leviathan explains. "The analyst and I worry about collecting data and translating it into something the team can learn from. That way, the team can stay concentrated on how they play."
Do Analysts Make a Difference?
The members of Cloud9 - the team that pioneered analyst use in North America - believe they've benefited greatly from the objectivity their analyst Charlie provides. He's helped them focus on the big picture elements, which can be lost when focusing on your individual role, and helped settle arguments between players quickly so they can avoid conflict. Tabzz has also found that his team's analyst has helped them fix mistakes, and identify changes that can improve their chances of winning games, like how to secure key objectives. Alliance's results (currently No. 1 in EU) certainly seems to indicate that the analyst is helping. The most compelling argument, though, is Supa Hot Crew. Last split, the team faced relegation and now are third in the region. One of the team's big off-season upgrades was hiring former SC2 pro (and D1 Korea LoL player) LastShadow to be their full-time coach and analyst. LastShadow lived in a Korean gaming house for two years, enjoying the infrastructure provided to pro teams there and is doing his best to support SHC in a similar way.
Double-dipping on the roles by hiring one person to be both coach and analyst seems to be the best many EU teams are willing to try so far. ROCCAT recently released their analyst and gave both duties to their coach Veggie. But that still leaves them with one of the more robust staffs in the EU region.
Veggie thinks every pro team should have an analyst and/or coach because of the time it takes to do those jobs. He explains: "Combining all of the practice pro players need to do with the will, intelligence, and free time required to properly analyze is basically impossible without making one of those aspects worse in quality. There's not enough time."
Why is EU Not Hiring Them?
Tabzz recently ranted about what he calls "EU's terrible infrastructure", and told us that, "it's because the EU-based organizations are reluctant to invest more than they deem necessary in their team, even though such investments could help their team grow a lot."
Not every player shares Tabzz's feelings, however, which could be a big part of the reason why EU teams are resisting analysts. Even Vander on ROCCAT is suspicious of an analyst's true value. "It's mostly not possible for an analyst to have complete data," he explains, "because players have a lot of secret smurf accounts that they use. There are certain situations that [dedicated] analysts are useful, but I think in our situation Veggie is enough for us."
Roccat's Xaxus is more convinced, however. "I agree with Tabzz," he explains, "that a structure behind the teams is a must. Currently a lot of the players in Europe especially have their egos high, and a lot of the time they won't listen to coaches or other players on the team."
Xaxus thinks every team needs a stable controlling body around it, but isn't sure that EU is ready for it, since the change will be drastic. He believes that it will take a new generation of players rising up before it can take place.
No team has been more vocally insistent that they didn't want an analyst than Fnatic, even after they entered their losing slump last split. Despite constant losses and criticisms from outside, the players repeatedly said in interviews that they didn't need an analyst and that they could solve the problems themselves.
However, after a disappointing performance at All-Stars that heralded cries from the community of EU's decline, Fnatic is finally looking to hire an analyst. Their jungler, Cyanide says that their performance at All-Stars is what finally convinced them that it was needed.
"We were finally shown the reality," he says, "that even if we're individually good players, we can't win just by that. We're just people after all, so we can't do everything by ourselves, and having a pair of eyes outside of the team can provide a very useful perspective."
"The game is more about the theory than people realize," he continues. "And I don't see a way that a skilled analyst wouldn't help at pointing out mistakes and offering solutions to fix those mistakes… I expect hiring an analyst to make a large impact on us. Having someone outside of the game who can break down each and every play is vital to a team's success."
As the level of professional play evolves, analysts are going to become necessary if EU wants to keep pace with, and hopefully even pass up, the other regions. "In the past, I feel like the theory behind the game didn't have that much impact," Cyanide says. "But with the meta shifting and players becoming more and more skilled, any small advantages counts more. Before, you could outplay the enemy, kill them and snowball the game, even if they had a group of a thousand analysts and you had zero."
That era, it seems, is now over.
Closer
Despite more EU players beginning to acknowledge the value analysts can bring their teams, hiring an analyst is still considered a fairly brash move in the region. Whether caused by a resistance to cutting another paycheck or stubbornness to accepting outside advice, most teams seem content to let their players try to solve their own problems.
Cloud9’s Hai issues a challenge to every team currently resisting analysts: "If they want to improve, they should look into getting an analyst. There's nothing to lose from getting an analyst, but everything to gain."
Time will tell if EU teams will give analysts a real chance. I hope they do.
Josh Augustine's favorite champion is Thresh, he's never enjoyed a Darius, and he will always go for the kill, even when he knows he shouldn't. He currently works as a game designer on EverQuest Next at Sony Online Entertainment. He’d love to talk with you on Twitter.
