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  1. Hello my name is Austin AKA Link (L1nk115 for old times sake)
  2.  
  3. I promised you guys a long detailed post and HERE IT IS. It’s going to be really long probably so just … you’re warned. I’m going to be writing A LOT OF STUFF here because it just makes more sense to do it in one post rather than a bunch of separate ones.
  4.  
  5. You will find:
  6. -My story throughout league of legends and professional gaming.
  7. : It’s 3 years so it’s going to be long lol but I think it’s worth a good read
  8. -The problems of each CLG ERA that many people probably wondered about but never got to have their questions answered due to lack of transparency by the team/me
  9. -problems of the CURRENT team
  10. -what happened
  11. -my thoughts on the game
  12. -future
  13. -It’s pretty long so some parts might get confusing im sorry @_@ I really tried to be as transparent as possible but I don’t really want to straight up flame people that’s just wrong. There are some things I regret, but whatever. I don’t hate anyone I don’t dislike people. It’s how life is. It’s how CLG is/was.
  14. - i got lazy with grammar at some point im sorry. at least i made paragraphs and a billion spelling errors
  15.  
  16. Pre League of Legends - Season 1
  17. I’ve been playing Moba games for around ~10 years now. I think I would consider myself a top tier player in League/Dota/HoN (at the very least above average). I started playing League because my high school friend thought I couldn’t get to high elo. I hated league, but decided whatever I’m going to prove him wrong and got to 2200 elo after 3 months of starting the game.
  18.  
  19. link here: http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/rb8eo/i_am_l1nk115_2450_na_player_that_holds_the/
  20.  
  21. I’m a competitive person at heart and even during my era of dota I used to captain for my inhouse teams and draft and do crazy shit so it only made sense for me to eventually get into the league scene. The league scene was really fun and entertaining to watch because I was a huge fan of let’s plays on youtube and starcraft commentaries. Basically I watched all of OSL/MSL from the beginning of time (moletrap/cholera/diggity/klazzart/nukethestars) and watched let’s plays of (ssohpkc/chuggaaconroy/protonjon/slimkirby). League scene was interesting because of livestreams.
  22. I owe a lot of my rapid improvement at the game due to GeneralWiser’s youtube channel which was filled with all of CLG’s fpvods. I probably would have liked TSM over CLG if they had a channel like this but they were pretty underwhelming at the time. I mean how could you not watch Hotshot with his knees pointed upwards and Chauster play any role and smash people.
  23. Side note: Oddone flamed me in soloq because I had numbers in my name (L1nk115) and I was playing kennen (he flamed yordles) so maybe that’s why I didn’t like TSM that much LOL.
  24. In any case, I was pretty much just a soloq star and as I got better and more noticed people started to notice me. I didn’t really main anything because I believed the way you become the perfect and BEST player in the game is to be able to play any role. (this is a huge reason for me leaving the team and I’ll explain more on this later). I still believe it to this day and the league mentality is fucking everything up and holding people back. Obviously since I watched so much Hotshot/Chauster streams I played a lot of heroes that they did (irelia/nidalee/ezreal/ashe/lee sin) and I became known for a lot of those heroes i think…
  25. My first team was Jpak and Friends. I was the top laner of that team and played in like these random alienware small tourneys. We won like $250 or something and I was super happy cause well I’ve never made money in my life. It was the coolest thing ever. I played mid as well for the team and eventually I got replaced because I dunno what really happened. I was a kid so I had obligations in real life.
  26. I went on to go to Berkeley (this is end of season 1). ~fall 2011 where CLG picked up doublelift I believe and kicked elementz. Think this was around the time scarra became really popular and started streaming on twitch. His stream was really fun to watch during the day and during the night I’d usually watch Chauster. I wanted to go to school, but at the same time I wanted to be a progamer like Jaedong/Flash/Bisu was. It was fucking amazing watching those starcraft guys play. It also seemed like a dream right? Playing games for a living? LMAO the idea of it is so hilariously skewed.
  27.  
  28. Season 2
  29. Obviously my grades weren’t good because how do you balance school and gaming? It was my first time being free after having parents who only taught me to learn. I’m someone who is affected by my emotional state. If something isn’t going right I’m going to change it or do whatever is going to make me happy. During this entire time I wanted to make friends in college, get straight A’s, and somehow become a competitive progamer. I’m a greedy fucking person and I paid for it. I didn’t do well in school and all I really did was play League and study the game. It was my escape from the real life and it was where I could be cool and show off my skills. This was a huge deal to me because in dota EGO was everything. You flamed people you 1v1d people to unvouch kids and you were either the best or you were nothing. I was pretty much trying to hit that level in League.
  30. Funny enough I met one of my closest friends online. Meet Benny (Sycho Sid). He was a soloq player who pretty much played whatever ~mainly gangplank? We duo’d a lot and we got to know each other. Turned out he was also a Berkeley student GO FIGURE and then we met up became friends. I tell to this a lot of my friends, but I thought he was going to like kidnap me or something when I first met him. Was paranoid as hell. I was wrong, he is one of the nicest genuine guys I’ve ever met (besides probably hotshot). He was on Team EZ starting season 2. I was teamless at the time and looking for a new team. They had a mid so that was out of the question.
  31. So I continued to just soloq. By soloq I really mean stream snipe people. I sniped the fuck out of scarra/chauster so I can learn from playing with them or against them. They gave commentary so I’d review vods afterwards about what they said about me or what I could do better. Eventually when you play vs people or with them it’s only natural to eventually become known. I think I was good enough where they noticed me and I befriended them. I did a lot of stupid theorycrafting shit like 3gp10 which I still believe was the dumbest build and most scaling build, but who knows. You could use it on any hero and still hit late game in soloq at least.
  32. By becoming friends with chauster I eventually got to play with him/his friends. They happened to be hoodstomp/cop/lapaaka/etc. Think we played a normal game and me and hoodstomp became friends. Cop went to go to curse, lapaka was doing something i forget. This was around the time I think goose was starting to form (with xmithie/atlanta/balls/mandatorycloud/curtoky) etc.
  33. Before moving forward, there’s this thing at Berkeley where there’s like a lan tourney. It’s called Lanb4time or something. Me/benny made a team with a couple of close friends (one involving pobelter’s sister ~ how I met pobelter) and we went on to go win the tourney. We played vs Yoda (chidorie) who was a player on the #1 HoN team with chu. So I was like WOwW I need to meet him. We became friends and close and yadadada
  34. So me and hoodstomp wanted to make a team so I obviously asked around. Yoda was interested so we had him. I’d play any role that was left open. Yoda was our jungler. Hoodstomp was our ADC. Hoodstomp somehow knew singaporean? xan vech (the lee sin at dreamhack that hotshot complete shit on [kick my brudda in the ass]. He became our top laner except he had like 150 ping or something. Our final member was lemonnation and i dunno how hood found him but damn he did. We became known as Orbit Gaming.
  35. I continued to proceed to play whenever and wherever. This was around the time when CLG EU was picked up I think and I fell in love with Froggen. Froggen/Chauster were lee sin gods and I thought that Lee sin was the easiest hero to constantly practice with to learn mechanics. Benny was also a well known lee sin and we’d do stupid shit in practice games to practice ward hopping. This was one of those clips that I managed to pull off cause I learned it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TFS5P7sHno
  36. We mainly played ranked 5s on Orbit and I thought we were a decent team. We were still losing to teams like MTW (goose) and like CRS I think. It was a fun team I was leading it and we theorycrafted a bunch of crazy shit. Me and lemon created like a level 1 push strat that we used in ranked 5s to win a lot of the times. He was a well known janna player too and he’d also spend time with me doing mastery page theorycrafting as well. Hoodstomp wasn’t really satisfied with his performance mainly because lemon kept on wanting to play nautilus support LOL. This was around the time when CLG was also thinking of picking up a B team. This was because they were going to kick saint for being toxic or whatver and pick up voyboy and hotshot moves to jungle.
  37. vech was going to the army so he quit and yoda wanted to play but decided against it. eventually lemon was the only one on orb and he made the team with like yazuki/nien/turtle/hai i think. I forget. something along those lines.
  38. So we got into CLG Black or something and the roster at the time was going to be me
  39. orb link/orb hoodstomp/4not bloodwater/ ez sycho sid/ lapaaka. None of us wanted lapaaka and benny was really close friends with zuna (from mtw?). zuna was arguably one of the best top laners at the time if not the best shen/rumble but in order to make it look less shady we put him in the jungle. (we wanted benny jungle zuna top) but oh well shit happens lol.
  40. This was the dream team. I was pretty much captain thought of every single completely stupid strategy there was to ever exist and tried to pull it off. Team comps that come into mind are the tf/shen/ashe comps, double ap with vlad/kennen, every possible variation of the 15 min baron comps involving udyr/yorick/madreds 3gp10 ezreal, cassio top w/ anivia mid, skarner with blitz comps (super speed), instagib 6v4 comp involving morde/skarner, the zone comp involving trundle/singed/kog/graves etc. We were flexible, we ran everything, we fucked around, we played for fun and competitively. It was fun.
  41. We’d scrim on and off but honestly I couldn’t even scrim properly. There were retarded bandwidth limits at Berkeley so I couldn’t even play at my dorm. I had to play in the library half the time w/o no mic and we were still beating teams left and right. We eventually qualified for a lan GESL which we proceeded to go and get 2nd to TSM (that was TSM’s like 3rd win streak after ipl/mlg i think). Lost to fucking nocturne karthus kayle that shit was lame.
  42. Eventually my 1st year at berkeley was over and obviously I wasn’t doing well. Parents got mad, I was unhappy, couldn’t even play at home shit sucked. At that time I had to make a choice and I chose school. Think that’s when season 2 ended and TPA won.
  43. I still did well and we did well, but honestly the team wanted someone more and someone with less obligations. We were in the talks of replacing hood with nien or someone else (demunlul) or bamf121 my close friend from jpak and friends. replacing me would be like wildturtle/bischu/trickz, but I didn’t think they were good enough.
  44. I was pretty much just a sub at this point. I proceeded to sub for like every team. Likewise, CLG Black everyone shifted around. Benny would play jungle sometimes when we needed a top lane sub (like wings/cruzer). Zuna moved to adc with blood and did pretty well. We even had short dog (Meteos) sub for us. wat a stomp (that’s when I knew that guy was going to be a top tier player btw). fucking normal game superstar. I ringed for a lot of teams like dignitas/mtw and that’s how I became close with them. I’d just play a lot of random troll shit like support lee sin or play mid when mancloud couldn’t play. that was pretty much life for awhile.
  45. I wanted clg black to win and I wanted to play with them so badly but couldn’t. I proceeded to do not so well in school despite knowing I could do well. It was just a matter of balance and I couldn’t because I wanted to do school and play professionally. Eventually I just knew I should just say fuckit yolo and move on like benny/double did.
  46. I ran away from home and accepted CLG’s offer after endless months of saying no to their offers. (was already too late for clg black because benny/zuna moved on to vulcun)
  47. Season 3 pt.1 - fun time is starting now
  48. Jiji was replaced and voyboy was kicked. Hotshot was back top lane. Chauster jungle. double adc aphro support me mid. Questionable roster. There were like 3 lane swaps. But I was like whatever pretty sure everyone would do well. p.s. azubu was a fucking disaster. anyways It was a new experience because for my entire life I was pretty much the captain of every team. Now I was just a follower…. of like a team with 3 captains or something. I didn’t even know what was happening. It was a disaster. Chauster had his own way of playing the game. Double had his farming late game way of playing the game. Hotshot was like on an island. Aphro was pretty quiet for the most part. I just wanted to do well and play as a team. I was ready to theorycraft come up with strats and play.
  49. I was wrong. LOL. Nobody on the team really did much. Everyone was playing path of exile or like street fighter or d3. No one played soloq except me and aphro. I was like wat the hell is happening. This isn’t a top tier team. But obviously I was new so I was getting used to it. We still scrimmed like 8 hours a day but it felt like no improvement was happening. IT was like okay scrim 2-10 alright free time go do whatever the fuck you want afterwards. We were ahead with the gaming house, yet behind in so many different ways.
  50. We almost got relegated. lost to vulcun in playoffs because karthus steamrolled the bot/top lane. Vulcun had a better understanding of the game so they won of course. We played vs jiji’s team and we smashed them 3-0. Aphro played his last game as blitzcrank and we took it home ezpz. Hotshot got kicked aphro quit the team we were back to me/double/chauster.
  51. Season 3 pt2.
  52. I recommended nien because I valued mechanical players. Anyone with mechanics would be able to learn the champions necessary in the meta. He was a good player, but had a lot of game knowledge to learn. Jiji was voted back on the team as a jungler? and chauster back to support because there were no other supports in NA. No junglers in NA apparently that the team wanted or trusted. Everyone valued game knowledge and mechanics but people thought jungle didn’t require mechanics. Whatever.
  53. We played with the team and we were always so behind the meta. That was when C9 acme in and played ashe/zyra/ zac/jayce/zed/kennen rumble every game. I knew we should play those but pride and ego plagued the team. Some of the team still didn’t even practice or know what was happening. A lot of people on the team never even played zed or knew what the hero did. Our mentality of the game was so off and we refused to play meta picks and continued to play picks like Lux/Orianna in a meta that was so assassin favored. The only assassins that I really ran were zed 1 game (vs tsm in mlg) and ahri. I played jayce a couple of times and I strongly believed I had the best jayce in NA as well as a top3 zed/ahri. What WE failed to understand was the concept of splitpushing.
  54. Eventually when things go wrong, double/chauster go into this stance where it’s like fuck it don’t die we’re turtling and we never contested anything. We never had a true shotcaller to make proactive comeback plays. Everything was reactive. CLG was reactive. reactive was the easiest way to lose vs teams like TSM and C9 who knew how to be aggressive and dive.
  55. We lost 0-2 vs TSM cause I thought I could beat reginald with ahri when zed was near broken and I needed a perfect ahri. Likewise the matchup requires an insane amount of jungle mid synergy but I don’t think I had that with jiji. I think our picks were awful as well and we failed in game 1 after a long standoff cause we didn’t really think about how to win the game. All people remembered was chauster flashing and missing his sona ulti but thats not the reason why we lost. people just blamed him as the reason. clg is just a story of blame deflection lfmao.
  56. We 2-0d curse though iirc. We jsut won lane and won the game. Was simple and easy.
  57. Roster change time
  58. Season 4 pt1
  59. Faker won worlds. clg changed rosters. doublelift’s roster. monte joined the coaching staff. nien stayed. the blame this time was something like we needed a shotcaller nad chauster couldn’t be one so instead of developing one ourselves let’s just kick him and get a new one! I think I was going to get kicked, but i don’t remember. maybe it was beforehand. anyways, dexter left LD so he joined us. We were like world class jungler oh nicela. I got aphro to join the team so he was back (he coulda joined curse as an adc i think with pobelter as mid but something stupid happened).
  60. #goldENage hype omg. This was when a lot of our internal problems popped up. CLG would do well then fall off during playoffs or something. We’d always be in our honeymoon stage then something stupid would happen like a loss then I think the biggest problem was that double always tried to take action. He’d get desperate or the the blame deflect would come up. There’s a reason why every single one of our top laners feel like they are awful at the end of the split. You can guess why. It’s actually cancer. The trust within hotshot/nien/seraph all fell. Top lane was an island because clg became so bottom lane focused. It was the wrong way to play the game. League is a team game. You don’t just sacrifice your lane and pray they’ll do fine. It’s not how you win the game. Every lane is just an extension of the game. Every lane is just a piece of the team. CLG was like nope. fuck taht. I recognized that and I tried my heart out to help nien with the little resources he had. The number of ganks and roams I did were what I felt way higher.
  61. All the games we cleanly sweeped guess what happened? Our top laner was strong! We 4-0d tsm I think during the season and it was a large part of me tilting dyrus and making sure nien was strong. Me and aphro were getting used to each other in the shotcalling roll. Nien pitched in and always offered his input and he was the motivational guy. Dexter used to make calls but his confidence got crushed by double. In the end he just became like this tool. Nien became a tool. I never wanted that to ever happen. A team doesn’t just pick up people like nien/dexter who were supposed to be carry top/junglers and then become a tool. That’s so fucking wrong. But it happened. They both lost confidence eventually. First nien and dexter later.
  62. Even I was questioning myself. Aphro questioned himself. It was all nice and heavenly and then things became a disaster. We played vs CST and 2-0d them. Was pretty simple iirc. then we played vs TSM in semis (vs bjergsen/oddone/dyrus/turtle/gleeb) and we did really well game 1 with TF. Game 2 I got hit by a hook when I didn’t have flash. Nien’s Q completely bugged out and he couldn’t jump over the wall. Dexter was doing something stupid and was too afraid to pressure properly. We lost baron, bjergsen got a penta kill the team fell apart after game 2. Game 3 our picks were awful and we lost every lane and eventually lost the series. I don’t remember if wep layed another series afterwards, but if we did we won probably vs like curse or something lmao 4th place. This was what I felt like one of our strongest rosters. I strongly believed nien was the on the road to becoming really good at top lane. Dexter was actually a jungler. Double/aphro were strong in laning and I felt I was a top3 NA mid. (after bjergsen/hai)
  63. Paris with c9
  64. C9 wanted me to play for them because I was a shotcaller. I had a similar hero pool as Hai and we pretty much functioned in very similar ways on the team. He was just a better shotcaller than me probably. So I was like alright I’m down let’s play and I can get international experience as well as what it is like to play with a roster that is the best in its region.
  65. If I didn’t play with C9 there’s probably a good chance that I’d still be on the CLG roster today. I compare a lot of what C9 did to this date that CLG doesn’t do. Charlie was way more effective than monte as a coach. (not that Monte isn’t smart, but rather it’s that he was a lot less effective as a coach who was in a different time zone and not in person).
  66. Lemon did most of the picks and bans and we’d just discuss the team. The biggest difference that I noticed was that Dexter was a follower whereas Meteos was a leader. He’d do or tell people what he wanted in the early game. He had a plan of how to play the game and that’s something that literally 99.9% in NA doesn’t do and the BIGGEST REASON WHY WE ARE TERRIBLE AS A REGION. He figured out win conditions and he actually got mad at me for telling him one time to tell him where to gank or ward. On CLG the word shotcaller means: you tell people exactly how to play the game (move here tp here cursor here aim ur skill here ward here gank here). On C9 the word shotcaller means: you get people to do the more team oriented stuff like dragon/baron control/rotations blahblah. In other words CLG shotcalling is like babysitting. C9 wasn’t.
  67. Everyone keeps saying for some reason C9’s lanes suck. LOL. C9’s lanes were top1-2 in the region easily. There’s a reason why they are so good. The players are smart as well and they know how to function as a team and play the game properly. They don’t have completely awful habits and their initial reaction towards most things is team-oriented. Basically if you removed Hai and you removed Link from C9 and CLG which team would be better off? C9.
  68. In any case, we had a great time losing scrims. I learned a lot and got a good feeling for them eventually. We performed well on stage. I felt like I could’ve performed a bit better, but given our circumstances and our small practice time I think we did a pretty good job. Everyone expected us to fail or do worse, so I was happy I was able to do something reasonable. It was a really big confidence boost and made me realize that honestly I wasn’t really that far behind in terms of laning. In some ways I felt stronger. (faker was god lol)
  69. I learned a lot in terms of map movement and how to play the game and tried to bring over most of it back to clg but it’s not that simple when a lot of the players on clg think really differently about the game. It’s something that would continue to haunt us and make us perform badly.
  70. We beat fnatic/omg/tpa in group stages lost to skt i think iirc. We lost to omg 0-2? but I thought we could have won if I made some better calls. It’s something I really regret. If we had maybe like 1 day more of scrims I could have seen the light that would make us better than them. Oh well. Paris was fun. Loved C9. Thanks for the invite jack/meteos/sneaky/balls/lemon/hai/charlie.
  71. Season 4 pt 2
  72. Roster change time. What a true disaster this was. Nien left the team (he wasn’t kicked as many people thought he was). He just one day decided he would step down because he didn’t like the team environment (dexter didn’t trust him double didn’t trust him). Only me and aphro helped him with vod replays. An example of how scrims went sometimes was like nien killing top lane then enemy top lane tps bottom with nien warning them and then flame would ensue. Shit sucked for nien he didn’t deserve it. Likewise the community had no right to call him out on the things that he did on LAN because half the calls were made from me/aphro.
  73. I was in paris with double at the time so we needed to find a top laner. Think zion was in the talks but his buyout was something crazy from coast so he didn’t make it. Eventually monte suggested seraph a KOREAN TOP LANER. The communication was god awful between all of us. I didn’t even know seraph took a break after his 1 game in ogn vs samsung white (ozone or whatever). we were all promised he could speak english and that he was a top tier korean laner.
  74. Oh boy. Honeymoon time! Well everyone was happy he was mechanically skilled and could POTENTIALLY become the next flame. But what ended up happening was that there was a lot of pressure on the little kid (especially if you are korean). He moved from korea to na and now was playing on one of the most exposed teams in the world. He suffered from nervous breakdowns, and shut down a lot. During normal lcs games even after losses he had a lot of issues. Because of this everyone’s trust in him to stay concentrated well.. evaporated. And knowing double and his constant spree with top laners, you can very well expect that seraph was soon never going to play nidalee or rumble top laner but instead shyvana/lulu top every game.
  75. Dexter at the time was being flamed for failing ganks in the mid/top/bot lane. It was really bad for him and I dunno. A lot of what was seen on chasing the cup isn’t what normally happens but that was just one of those worse days. I lost trust within him soon because of failed mechanical ganks. I really tried to work with him, but I think a lot of it started after seraph/double lost faith in him. I mean me/dexter had a lot of successful ganks off during the spring split and early summer split. I did disagree with how dexter approached the game. Nukeduck from what I heard did everything for him. He expected the same from me. I expected Dexter to play in the similar way meteos did. Be the shotcaller,be the fucking man and lead the team because you have the most flexibility in the game at all points. It obviously didn’t happen and I was annoyed because it felt like I was playing three-four roles on the team as the shotcaller.
  76. Seraph never said much during the game so I had to control him. Dexter was waiting for the call and Doublelift was like a missile going in every direction. So it was up to me and aphro to control everything and we learned. A lot of credit of this goes to me and aphro learning the game and talking about it with each other. Monte didn’t do that much lol but he got the ognRotations credit but whatever.
  77. We eventually started slumping after everyone went on full tilt. Chasing the cup didn’t really help either because it implanted into everyone’s mind that like dexter sucked and me and dexter hate each other and that I apparently played too much hearthstone when in reality everyone on the team played other games and I’m sorry for being good at a game that I didn’t really practice that much. League wasn’t that fun because everyone wasn’t playing as much soloq and well we weren’t really a team. I know it’s supposed to be your job but when your team isn’t even improving and everyone is by themselves what is the point. I tried with this roster like I did with every other roster in terms of watching replays/theorycrafting/watching literally every ogn vod and our lcs games and trying to figure out how to improve.
  78. We proceeded to go to Korea completely fail our bootcamp, aphro said something like “I dont’ believe in us to win playoffs”, monte gave up on us (straight up walked out the door after scrims), seraph literally hated dexter and told him to never gank top (which was fucking hilarious btw) and he became a true isolated top laner (more so than anyone ever was on CLG), double was initiating his late game mode, and I didn’t really know what to do except try to pick what was op. I really tried during the korean boot camp and tried to play the most soloq there. But it just felt like there was no hope. Oh well, we lost to curse lmao and we got shit on by Quas’s nidalee and our picks just fell apart. We didn’t understand NA’s meta and we couldn’t even replicate korea’s playstyle or meta so of course we were going to lose.
  79. We proceeded to play dignitas and we won game 1 but then after game 2 think we were doing a 1-3-1 split push but we failed like usual LOL and then I did some stupid shit where i tried to backdoor an inhib and we lost to a late game tristana. somethingsomething we didnt play ball comp we suck we should have done it but we didn’t do it we lost to dignitas.
  80. week leading up to relegations I was pissed and obviously I didn’t have faith in the team. We kicked monte and picked up zuna who I thought would do am uch better job at least in person. I mean after what monte did to us in korea there’s no way he was going to stay. A coach should never lose face in front of his players yet he did. Zikz tried to help as well but his identity on the team was confusing as fuck. He was like our analyst yet our coach in tryout. Zuna was our coach in tryout. Hotshot was getting desperate. Dexter didn’t want to play on the team anymore. Seraph was silent and never said anything. Double tried the most. I eventually started to try after I realized what CLG meant to me. Aphro idk what he was thinking.
  81. People have this weird speculation that me and aphro and double are like super close friends. We were, but it was around this time that kind of all got destroyed. We weren’t really friends anymore lol. We became more like coworkers or something. Aphro became a lot more distant and closer with zikz (tony) and double well he does his thing where he always goes talks to other people rather than hang out with his team. Dexter always tried to go hang out with shiphtur/pobelter/his gf and seraph was like pure silence. double and aphro literally fell apart during korea. double stopped trusting aphro and they got smashed by skt’s bottom lane. even the 2-3days before playoffs they refused to really communicated with each other. I had to sit them down together and watch a replay and reconcile. Think we would have gotten smashed harder if I didn’t who knows.
  82. We played relegations vs curse academy and we lost the first 2 games. It felt like no one wanted to try, but zuna and hotshot hyped me up for game 3. We played orianna and protect the ad won game 3 and 4. Keane yolo picked hecarim into ziggs and he should win early game and got roams off but vs a team ocmp like ours if we hit late game there’s nothing he could have done. So we just played to our win conditions aphro zoned hecarim we won the game we still stayed in lcs.
  83. Monte
  84. Monte deserves his own section. I respect monte and I think he’s a great caster and a good analyst. I do think a lot of what he says is like “people think he’s god”. He really isn’t like a god. He’s probably your average caster who just has more knowledge because he is exposed to good games and great players. He probably gets good insight and knowledge and knows how to articulate in a way where he makes good sense. In terms of online coaching never do that ever again LMAO. I never had a problem with it but half the times the skype call would just be like my other 3 teammates fucking around on reddit and not paying attention. At some point double lost respect for him and once he loses respect for ANYONE your’e fucking donezo. It’s what happened with him + chauster/jiji/saint/voy/nien/seraph/dexter/me/ go FIGURE.
  85. He had good ideas and had things that I wanted the team to do (like example write down goals of what to work on) picks and bans were good, but he never could implement his authority online. I remember he wanted us to run this syndra/caitlyn team comp where we just ulti someone out of the fight but we never got to do it because double didnt wanna run caitlyn.
  86. Because of his online coaching a lot of what he said didn’t really get to people’s heads. I mean I listened to him but it’s a lot less effective if it’s not repeated. However, the one time that was good was when he visited us and made us play sivir comp and that won us like the first 3-4 weeks of lcs. So I guess props to him for that lol. But I mean it’s a fucking sivir comp. You group up and you win right? But I guess that’s amazing for clg considering how hard it is to get people to group on the team.
  87. Monte failed as a coach in korea particularly because he couldn’t get to people. Maybe it’s the team’s fault, but as a coach you should somehow be able to get your players to listen. Maybe it’s the players being uncoachable but I remember Monte/Zikz telling dexter like a billion times hes on the wrong side or to tell him what he’s doing and dexter failed to do it or did it half-assed. Maybe that’s the reason why he got kicked/left i dunno.
  88.  
  89. season 5 pt1 -
  90.  
  91. tRYOUTS
  92. I still think I was top 3 mid in NA. In terms of knowledge/shotcalling/laning I still was confident I can do well. But because it’s clg and we failed for like 2 years (4splits) it was time to do yet another roster change lol
  93. so seraph got kicked for zion, monte got kicked (for tryout zuna), but hotshot said no to zuna even though he never really gave him a chance because scarra’s charisma is too op (it really fucking is). I was on tryouts now lmao and double/aphro were still obviously ‘best bottom lane na’ think the mid lane hype was around pobelter cause he hit rank 1 and was streaming nonstop. obviously i “choked” during every playoffs l0l when i truly believe the entire team underperformed at every single one. Anyways, mancloud was tried out as well along with like LOD or some shit LOL. I was at this point thinking about quitting because I don’t really want to play with a team that doesn’t trust me. If people think I was on the team because of friendship complete bullshit. It’s because of skill and what I offered to the team. Pobelter had the power to join though and make the change but I think he went with winterfox instead and play with his friends I don’t really remember what happened. Everyone else sucked.
  94. Next we tried out junglers and I really liked cloudnguyen and xmithie. I knew for a fact the best junglers in NA were probably xj9/meteos/nightblue/xmithie then afterwards it’s like cloud/azingy/inori/trick2g ( i really think trick is smart at the game ).
  95. I didn’t really offer much input that’s just what I felt. I mean I was part of the tryouts too right lmao. So whatever I got chosen and the roster was like: zion/xmithie/link/double/aphro zikz analyst scarra coach
  96. Zion was picked up as that “top lane carry” ONCE AGAIN lmao and xmithie was picked up due to his superior game sense compared to all the other solo q junglers.
  97.  
  98. season starts
  99. so scarra/zikz are in. They both set up idea and game plans of what we should do. Everything is going well we are scrimming and pretty much winning like 70% of our games. I think the only bad record we had was like a 50% vs TSM. A lot of the early stuff was weird because we had to play with thinkcard at IEM. I think with xmithie we would have won 100%. But shit happens.
  100. Split started. We couldn’t use zion/scarra because they got poached lmao. We used benny and it went pretty well 1-1. We went on a streak of 2-0s I believe and only people we lost to was like TL and TSM. I was content we were doing well I guess. I still felt like we were missing something,but I didn’t really get a grasp of it till we lost. You see, a lot of what we were working on didn’t really make sense. Scarra didn’t want to change anything because he felt like the team was working itself out. It was very like scheduled. I don’t think it should have been so like strict in terms of what side of the map we are pressuring. What our goals were going to be. The game should be flexible/natural. Either way,I did picks and bans and it seemed to be going well. Then we lost to TSM and we were gone.
  101. that’s when i think everyone started doubting themselves and when people doubt themselves that’s where the coaching staff is supposed to come in and save the day. but that didn’t really happen. A lot of people blamed me for picks and me failing my lissandra ulti when in reality it was a god awful fight that we shouldn’t have even took. Should have split push lanes and use baron control. We had a week break after that loss and felt like everything we worked towards everyone forgot instantly. Scarra/Tony needed to be more micro oriented. We were working on too much of the macrogame. The only macro side we needed to work on was the 2v1, but honestly everyone needed work on that. But the micro mentality was completely wrong. People didn’t group properly, weren’t on the right side, were ganking wrong, were building wrong. A lot of these problems arose and eventually with the new meta hitting, we were falling behind while teams like TiP TL TSM and C9 were adjusting.
  102. People think at playoffs our picks were awful (well they were), but I was the one that told the team that urgot/nautilus/sejuani/vlad/cho/lulu were going to be the “in” because I watched so much korean soloq/lpl/ogn. But no one believed that we could pick up these heroes in a matter of 1 week. I believed we could, but people like double had the mentality we had to practice something for at least like 2-3 weeks over and over again. I think we need at least like 1 week of practice minimum. In the end we yolopracticed nautilus support for like 2 days. Vlad top for like 3 days. Never ran urgot. Took TF and Karthus from TiP and gave up on the top lane focused carry style that we worked on for the entire split. Back to the lets just make comps revolving around getting bottom lane ahead when in reality we 2v1d instead of 2v2ing them after we practiced 2v2s for the entire week. I picked fucking TF and Karthus and never even saw their bottom lane LOL. then game 3 we just yolo picked our comfort picks and lost all 3lanes. LEAST WE DIDNT GET RELEGATED
  103.  
  104. the team and its identity and how it functions.
  105. Now’s the good part and present part. This is how each member on the team worked
  106. Zion: carry top laner who used to shotcall on dignitas/coast. Really wants top lane ganks.
  107. Xmithie: follower and primarily focused around ganking mid/bottom.
  108. Link: primary shotcaller who was willing to adjust towards the team, but always wanting to play carry mids.
  109. Double: shotcaller due to aggressive and loud voice but is supposed to be a follower.
  110. Aphro: secondary shotcaller but became the primary shotcaller
  111.  
  112. I guess I can just go step by step in terms of strengths and weaknesses of each member
  113.  
  114. Zion (usually I say darshan but whateveR)
  115. Zion would make a lot of calls, some good and some bad. I mean it’s why dignitas and coast never really did well. To be more precise: inconsistent. I’m sorry but that’s just the truth. Eventually I’d help him a lot in terms of how to make more of the better calls and help him grow a deeper understanding of the game. He would tilt in scrims time to time. He was still a teenager so it’s understandable. He did a lot of the stuff that I used to do in terms of like shutting down and whatnot.
  116. He wanted to play carry tops, but the meta was pretty much maokai/sion/hecarim/gnar/lissandra/rumble. He wanted to play olaf/irelia/riven but well I think he needed a better understanding of the game if he wanted to do it. I feel like he still can but a lot of the team’s identity fucked with him. Doublelift mainly was so focused bottom side control a lot of the times if we lost a teamfight a lot of blame would go onto zion because he wasnt a tank. Instead of us playing around zion we played around double (naturally) so zion’s mentality got fucked. Instead of like double/xmithie playing better with not having a tank (ex: we should have split pushed more not 5v5) it was always zion’s pick in the wrong. I did a lot of picks and bans and I thought we should split push more but in the end the team always ended up grouping somehow because zion felt like he needed to group. So things got fucked we played wrong and zion started to play tanks top.
  117. He also chose to play tanks top and 2v1 because every team was so awful at it. No one knew how to do it properly and I feel like after some point we started doing it wrong as well.
  118. In terms of work ethic, zion is like god at this. He works really hard in terms of grinding soloq games and focusing during replays. If he gets criticism he will listen to it openly and try to find a resolution. The only times that he got frustrated was with like usually xmithie not coming top at a certain point or doublelift with the team comp or a win condition or 2v1. (zion dies a lot).
  119. AT the same time it’s also a weakness because he tends to not focus properly and it becomes too grindy. Soon soloq for him becomes trolloq and it can be bad and makes him develop bad habits. In a sense, zion is a really slow learner. It’s cause NA soloq is a god awful practice environment and sucks him into it. Scrims with a team environment like ours will also confuse him which it did.
  120. Laning is strong. mid game is weak and late game is weak. Zion doesn’t know what to do properly sometimes (whether to split or not split), what items to buy, and what can fuck him. His tp awareness is also bad as well. We saw this from questionable teleports.
  121.  
  122. jake/Xmithie
  123. Xmithie is a follower. I bet you guys can all assume by now that you know what kind of jungler that I’ve always wanted to play with. Someone who makes his own calls, decisive, aggressive, willing to make the crazy plays. Think on vulcun, xmithie was usually told by mancloud to do x/y/z/ gank mid. I wasn’t really like that. I don’t think it’s the right playstyle because then it becomes too mid-centric and it’s not right. A top tier team needs to be able to be flexible and be carry out of every lane. I wanted the jungler to hold the power and control the game in a sense that I feel like clearlove/dandy/bengi did when they played.
  124. In any case, xmithie is really willing to listen and at sometimes quiet. You can tell by his lack of publicity and popularity on streams/twitter/etc. But honestly, xmithie is one of the nicest and funniest guys I’ve played with. Get to know him and you’ll love him lol.
  125. I think he is one of the most mechanically skilled junglers in the scene and all of those sejuani ultis missed by a fucking pixel. Bad game whatever shit happened. He landed like godly sejuani ultis in scrims and even in scrims afterwards. But of course playoffs are the only games that matter rights lmaoasdfokwhatever.
  126. Xmithie hasn’t really stepped up but tbh he was really told never to step up so not his fault at all. He’s like your very aloof kind of guy but I do think he’s smart, it’s just the way he was built he was never trusted to make calls. He’s always waiting for people to make the call for him which is a big problem. In every scenario, someone has to make a call at some point. Hesitation will only lose you this game.
  127.  
  128. peter/Doublelift
  129. The most outgoing and charismatic person I’ve really ever met. Good friend, yet a horrible teammate. Because he just has a natural loud and aggressive tone a lot of things come out as if he is attacking you. Likewise, he is one of the most lane-focused players to ever exist. Nothing else matters to him I swear. If he doesn’t win lane he can’t accept that he can’t win the game just by scraping by. That’s what it feels like to play the game with him.
  130. He only sees his lane and fails to extend his vision past what is right and what is necessary. The bigger picture is all that matters. For example, if a team snowballs a rumble and we snowball our adcarry who is going to have a stronger mid game? The team with rumble probably will because of his ability to instagib the backline. This will create space for the enemy adc who was probably behind to catch back up and be relevant and be behind only a little. Double never sees this. He’ll make calls to gank his lane and it’s really bad.
  131. He’ll trust teammates in the beginning and let jungler go top or mid or elsewhere but at some point something is going to relate to him. It’s what has happened for the past 2-3 years. When playoff approaches somehow it becomes his responsibility to step up and ruin the dynamic of the team that everyone was working on for the entire split.
  132. If we 2v1 a game when it’s right to 2v2 and 1v1 (which might let zion get a huge lead whereas our 2v2 falls behind maybe 10-15 cs) it almost will just become the 2v1. It’s hard to say no IN THE MOMENT and maybe that’s where I failed.
  133. People might say that double should just stop talking but honestly he is still a vital part of communication when it comes to power spike and whatnot. There is no in between for peter. It’s only shut up or speak loudly.
  134. Other problems is item builds and his teamfighting. He doesn’t trust people in game and a lot of his actions become more soloq oriented and it’s really bad. Grouping is a problem and responding to objectives has always been a problem. Item builds are awful.
  135. He probably lost trust in me a while ago. What’s that matter to me lmao. Oh well. It’s like expected of doublelift though. Ego is too big and refuses to improve himself on what’s really more relevant. The micro and lasthitting stuff really don’t matter in a game like league. Strengths are superior laning and ability to be clear about what he wants but that shit is overrated. Playing as a team is all that matters.
  136.  
  137.  
  138.  
  139. zaq/Aphromoo
  140. The quietest of the bunch. Even more quiet than xmithie I think. Aphro is a really observant guy and he’s pretty smart when it comes to the game. I think he thinks a lot about the game but doesn’t get a chance to do a lot of in game because he is held back by double. Double, is obviously, one of the most lane centric adcarries. Guess what happens when aphro leaves to go roam and double is forced into a 1v2 scenario. Double dies or gets chunked for like 90% of his hp and aphro feels like he cant trust him to roam or gets well negative feedback from double. Rush hour is strong, but it’s not that strong. The support is one of the most vital positions in terms of snowballing the map and creating pressure that other roles can’t easily do BECAUSE it is the role that requires the least amount of farm. You have to be able to pressure with little items and vision control. Yet if aphro cant do what he does normally in soloq and what is RIGHT then of course hes not going to enable other lanes what they need.
  141. Do you know how many times lustboy has come mid to ignite me at level 1 vs bjergsen then dyrus/santorin come out from the other side holy fuck. Did you guys see how many 3v3s happened top side at MSI involving top/jungle/support?
  142. Aphro is being held back from truly being the #1 support in NA and i think a lot of his mentality has become jaded by double’s play and attitude towards the game.
  143. In terms of being a leader, he wants to be, but I don’t think he has what it takes to be. Maybe in a few years, but he’s just a natural lazy chill guy. He was the primary shotcaller of this season and that really fucked with me and my confidence. I didn’t really know what that meant and it really confused how I made calls in the game. I got frustrated as well because he was assigned the primary shotcaller but he didn’t act like one.
  144.  
  145. Link
  146. So what did I do for the team and what CLG is going to be missing out on. I was the primary shotcaller of the team. I was the “captain” despite not being the “captain” of the team. I stepped up in terms of making everyone try to watch replays. I tried to get everyone to theorycraft with me in terms of figuring out what’s strong, what’s new, what’s meta, what beats the meta. I’ve probably watched every vod of ogn and around 90% of edg’s vods more than scarra/zikz. I was at one point doing level 1s, telling jake what buff to start or what was ideal because his gank path would most likely win us the early game (again goes back to win conditions). I tell everyone what lane they should be in and what lane they shouldn’t be in. I make sure people buy aegis/or correct items and many times people fail to listen. I remind people to buy pink wards. I have to tell people how to play the teamfight or what I think is best and what everyone needs to do specifically and it fails because I know I can’t do it by myself. Then me and aphro work together and figure out rotations and late game calls. After replays I clearly see people’s problems and try to tell them and proceed to help them further (at least with zion i worked with him the most this split).
  147.  
  148. Man I hope I’m wrong about some of this stuff. But that’s what it felt like when I was on the team. But a lot of my problems come with well the fact that I’m doing too much. This isn’t how a top tier team works. C9 was in a way a better version. Every player doesn’t have to be reminded to group or buy pinks or telling balls to teleport at crucial points. Meteos will probably figure out what is the best early game path for him. Maybe I am overestimating their strength but when I watch them play that’s what it felt like. Or at the very least maybe they just had full faith in hai lol. I know for a fact that when I told my teammates a lot of these things and tried my fucking best working with them despite the fact that they wanted to kick me at the beginning of the split it’s like alright. I fucking tried.
  149. When I get no response or it’s just like silence or I saw no improvement in gameplay. To me there’s no point in playing. I refused to believe xmithie/zion/aphro/double were incapable of improving or something. I gave up on double. I realized zion is just a slow learner. Aphro is held back by double. Xmithie’s playstyle is the opposite of what I want so it’s going to take time. And since I don’t really have that much time left in terms of my motivation/my willpower to play this game anymore I figured it’s better if I just step down. A top tier team in my eyes is a team with at least 2-3 players who can at least figure out win conditions.
  150. Another big problem was that I was in a position of power yet I didn’t have full trust from my team. It’s a hard concept to explain but it hindered a lot of what was necessary. A teammate shouldn’t have to be helping them, but at the same time if there was no one from above doing the criticizing then who else would. Likewise, I never really got feedback on what I could improve on besides my emotional state which I was already working on (not shutting down in scrims/not tilting/working on coming up with comeback plans).
  151. Win conditions like ->
  152. who do we have to set behind?
  153. How do we win the teamfight?
  154. do we 1-3-1, 4-1? 3-2? look for picks? baitbaron?
  155. 5 dragon win? control it with nunu?
  156. do we wait for them to make the mistake or do we have to just never fight?
  157. what items do we need to help us win the game?
  158. where should i gank and pressure?
  159. should we 2v1? should we 1v1?
  160. which side of the map should we control?
  161. do we give up this dragon and split the map and dive top?
  162. should we get our tank snowballed so that he will do more with his cost efficient items vs the double ad team comp or should we get our adc/mid snowballed because he’s crying for help and his emotions are getting to him?
  163.  
  164. I don’t make the perfect calls. I’ve fucked up. But if I fuck up we are fucked. LOL. That’s why I didn’t see us doing remotely even well at worlds. Even I know I’m not a perfect player. But if there’s no one besides me to help me then what am I supposed to do when I tried to do all of these things scrim after scrim. I really tried to help people after the game and tried to change their mentality, but you try telling doublelift sorc shoes is better on corki than berserkers.
  165.  
  166. One biggest problem I have is with double and him not playing as a team player. I mean he flamed the entire team and blame deflected after playoffs ended. To me that’s the biggest backstab anyone can do. You either lose as a team or you win as a team. You accept your loss and you move forward to figure out what you can improve. To blame your team and say there’s nothing you could have done = telling me you will never trust your teammates. This CLG isn’t a team. It’s just five players trying to work together lmao.
  167.  
  168. One big problem as well is that people on the team just say sometimes “he’s not good enough let’s kick him” instead of trying to grow the player or even THEMSELVES. its like “hes a shitty shotcaller so instead of myself working to fill in that gap lets just find a new guy!” lol
  169.  
  170. You can see all the flaws in the team and I tried to be as transparent as I could be. This is CLG that you cheered for. This is what CLG will be missing when I’m gone.
  171.  
  172. Do I hope CLG will do well after I leave? yes of course. Despite us sucking I still want my friends to still do well. Will they have a hard time? You make the call. I hope they do well with pobelter/huhi. I mean I’m still a CLG fan. Did I rant a lot? yea probably. But at least this gives you guys insight on how the team is.
  173.  
  174. so reasons for leaving:
  175. -don’t know if i can give it my 150% next split
  176. -too much work and burden on me and I doubt it’s going to get better
  177. -only wanted to play 1 more split minimum and compete and do well at worlds (ideally win)
  178. ^ me being greedy and I recognize a team just doesn’t magically come together and win worlds
  179. -i was promised change and there wasn’t going to be any so well me leaving is pretty much the drastic change. ( a coach doesn’t magically solve all problems i think )
  180.  
  181. I’m pretty much done with league. Cause NA is terrible and League of Legends is devolving into a game that I don’t even recognize anymore. No one even plays it properly lmao
  182.  
  183. League is a team game. Sure you have solo lanes and duo lanes and a jungler. But in the end, everyone affects each other in some way. Everyone has the power to change the other lane. Whether you are behind, ahead, or even it doesn’t matter. But if you are trapped in the mentality or fail to see the bigger picture you are never going to get better at this game or even play it correctly. NA is a prime example of that. Even TSM I think sometimes does it. They fuck dyrus over so hard when the top laner is a core part of your team composition. It’s why the chinese/koreans are ahead. They use every resource and think of every resource that they can use to figure out how they can get an advantage and use it to win. CLG is too close minded. The players need to see beyond and be more aware else they’ll never be a top level team. Think of a team like you have 4 girlfriends on the team. Holy fuck. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. I probably should have moved on a while ago, but the contract system in LCS just fucks a lot of it up. I tried with what I had I really tried.
  184.  
  185. Maybe I’m complaining too much and maybe I’m just completely wrong about everything. Oh well whatever. That’s pretty much it for me. I’ll answer questions or ill clear up some stuff that I may have brought up in a bad light in the comments
  186.  
  187. I’ll be going back to school and making guides/analytical work to maybe one help people get better. I’m confident about my own ability and still think a lot of people are behind in the way they think about the game. Probably stream more or something. Lastly,
  188.  
  189. shoutouts to:
  190. george (hotshotgg) - presenting me the opportunity to play professionally and giving me advice in all aspects of life. Being genuine and well I’m sorry I let CLG down
  191. kelby(sayocean) - being there during the dark times of clg (i miss you) as well as girl advice
  192. zaq (aphromoo)- us somehow magically carrying clg (to a certain extent) when it seemed impossible. rip late night mcd runs :(
  193. peter (doublelift)- the good fun times we’ve had and the experiences ive shared. how can i hate you.
  194. darshan (zion) - the amount of hard work/effort you’ve put in. sad to have only played with you for one split. also you’ll never beat me in 1v1s (in smash/league)
  195. jake (xmithie) - being the funny guy and lifting the mood as well. think you can be really good if you put ur mind to it.
  196. zach (nien) - being one of the most upbeat positive guys I’ve played with. hope things work out for you
  197. steve (chauster) - teaching me 70% of what i know today and making me fail college lmao
  198. jimmy (scarra) - teaching me mid lane in early season 2 and always being there to bounce ideas off of (as well as my gym partner)
  199. zikz (tony) - one of the few guys bringing up good points and criticism. glad you never tilted LOL and good luck with next clg
  200. mattcom - putting up with all of the bs and waking me up for scrims
  201. benny/zuna/hoodstomp/bloodwater - i still miss you guys (best team ever)
  202. c9 guys (meteos/balls/lemon/sneaky/hai/charlie) - thanks for the help/things you’ve taught me about the game.
  203. anyone else that i forgot (i probably missed a lot) I really am thankful for you guys. I’ve met so many helpful people that taught me so much in these past two years. Thank you
  204.  
  205. fans that hated me you guys have no clue what you guys are talking about LOL and and those that flamed my teammates fuck you guys. you guys don’t have the right to do that.
  206.  
  207. fans that believed in me go believe in clg and pray that they do well. i hope they do well
  208. #CLGFIGHTING (good luck gene <3)
  209.  
  210. Thanks for reading,
  211. -Link
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