I don’t think he was that bad. Yes, he was not amazing, but I think he was mainly a victim of circumstance. The way TLN used him in this Kickoff was actually horrendous—they would just fling him into site by himself with little to no utility and almost never with teammates following him up. An actual main part of their strats was to run a 4-1 on attack, where Gov would just send it into a site by himself while the other four would slowly walk up into a different site. This wasn’t just a one-time thing, either. Time and time again, TLN treated Gov like a battering ram, expecting him to brute-force his way in with zero support. It’s no surprise that his individual performance suffered—no duelist in the world is going to look good when they’re being sacrificed for no real reason. The best duelists thrive when their team sets them up for success, using utility and coordination to create winnable fights. Instead, Gov was thrown into situations where even the best in the world would struggle to make an impact. It’s fair to say that Gov himself wasn’t playing his best, but it’s also clear that the system around him was completely flawed. If TLN wanted more out of him, they needed to play around him properly—flashes, proper spacing, trading, anything. Instead, he was left out to dry, and the results showed.
That being said, Gov did have a tendency to overheat, he would sometimes overextend after getting a pick or take unnecessary fights. But at the same time, that issue has been present for over two years now, and it’s on the coaching staff, particularly Fr0st, for failing to address it. A good coach should be able to refine a player’s tendencies, especially one with Gov’s potential, but instead, TLN just let these bad habits persist. If anything, the way they used him only made things worse—when you're constantly thrown into unwinnable situations, you're naturally going to develop a "send it" mentality because that's the only way you've been conditioned to play.
At some point, the blame has to shift from the player to the system around them. Gov was never given the tools to succeed, and rather than improving his weaknesses, TLN’s structure (or lack thereof) amplified them. If the team actually played around him properly, using utility and trading effectively, he could have been much more impactful. Instead, he was left in a broken system that never played to his strengths, and after two years of the same issues, that’s on the coach.
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