That's why I'm putting more blame on After than on Haodong. After's job is to prepare the team for matches and keep them in line with the winning vision during tactical timeouts and half time and all that jazz but Haodong's job is to keep the other players in line with the vision mid game.
EDG has not been putting up competitive series, and while the strategies and tactics After makes are clearly one of the main aspects to point out when understanding their failures, we should also look at Haodong.
I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt but when you keep losing games with less than six rounds, there's clealy something wrong with the mental. And like you said, since someone like Haodong is meant to be the mental stability in the team, he's clearly not been doing the best handling that role. Regardless, I'll let it off this time because I think After's mediocre strats are affecting his calling, but if they sack After and this persists then they start looking at Haodong.
But yeah you're right that chemistry is so important that it's hard to even consider dropping an IGL like Haodong who's been with EDG since 2021 if I recall correctly.
tldr: Yeah