swap your IGL before stage 2

#1

I'm rewatching Platoon's videos about EDG's champs win, and just theorizing... is it meta to swap your IGL with an initiator/flex/easy to drop into role, and keep your IGL as coach/assistant coach? Haodong swap with S1mon was exactly this.

You need the IGL to help the team build strategy and cohesion and adapt to a meta. You can't not have an IGL at all, but once the team is comfortable, your second caller can probably handle it because they just have to copy what the IGL was doing. As long as you used to have an IGL, and maybe keep that IGL as a coach, you can swap without disaster.

Teams should try this. Boostio, Boaster, FNS etc. should stop playing before/during stage 2 and just put in someone else until the end of the year, then swap back for the next year/meta.

#2

Fal

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allat just to keep fenis around for another 4 years?

#3

catNmouse

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he said he’s gonna retire next year

#4

Fal

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good, i need my watchparty goat back

#6

babi

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I think he said that if he doesn't do well this year

#7

livefrmhollywood

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Oh I'm def tired of FNS, but if he's gonna play, he should consider this.

#5

catNmouse

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edgs case is unique though, they had role issues with haodong moving to a weird flex role with smoggy taking over his role as controller, it was evident in how uncomfortable haodong was in shanghai. they also changed their old coach after, teams like NRG or FNATIC don’t have that kind of problem so there is no real reason to do an IGL swap

#9

livefrmhollywood

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But teams are still squeezing out role compatibility, and IGLs are usually kinda bad at their "role" no matter what it is. You gain extra bandwidth to play the best roles with an extra flex/fragger. Yes, it requires having a decent second caller and picking up just the right player, but it seems like a decent compromise between finding a fragging IGL or having no IGL at all.

#11

catNmouse

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True, I just don’t think it’s exactly an ideal situation because depending on who’s picked up as the replacement, it’ll take time mentoring that player IF they’re new and getting them integrated into the teams system. It’s not something you can think off the rip, sure substitutes exist but chances are that the team has never practiced with the sub if they did at all. EDG are just that good considering they did all of that and won a world championship doing so, props to them.

Also can you clarify on what you mean by IGL’s are kind of bad at their “role”?

#13

livefrmhollywood

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Yea, this might be rare enough not to be worth it. Maybe S1mon was just that perfect of a pickup, and fragging IGLs are more and more common.

And I just meant that IGLs often play killjoy, viper, or breach, but not because they're the best at that role; they're just comparatively easier agents to play. Maybe you'd rather have say, Sayf play Cypher and someone else play Jett, but the IGL can only play Killjoy, so that's what you play. Or have Alfajer, and play Killjoy anyway. Of course, this does not apply at all to fragging IGLs.

#14

catNmouse

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IGL’s having an easier time calling on the initiator role, look at johnqt for example, he made the move because he lost that big voice in sacy who was a primary mid rounder for the team and all that

#8

finnwithtwons

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NRG 2024 is actually a perfect example for why this idea doesn't work - that team did not fail because they never had a true IGL with direction, they failed because they didn't have one in the server, in moments where they needed someone with the instinct and confidence to make those correct decisions. Having an IGL at the start of the season to lay groundwork wouldn't have helped them then, they needed one with them actively in the comms to make those decisions.

#10

livefrmhollywood

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No, it's because they expected Ethan to walk in and fill FNS's calling style when he had just spent the past year with Boostio's, and the optic core had spent the last ~3 with FNS's. The mid-year switch and remaining as a coach are important so the style doesn't change, and the IGL is still there every timeout.

Edit: also, Haodong had been with the core for years. So maybe FNS/Boostio are not good candidates, but Boaster is. No wait, they just moved players around this year 🤔 okay maybe this is even more edge case than I thought.

#12

finnwithtwons

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Doesn't matter if the IGL is in there for the timeouts when they can't be there in the comms midround to make those crucial decisions. You only get two a game, and you can't preset pre-round calls for 12 straight attack rounds from before the game starts. Ethan did not have the capability to be an IGL, which led to the source of a lot of the gaps in their decisions in rounds. I think you're likely underestimating the actual influence nobody had on a lot of their decisionmaking post-change.