Enemy eSports' League of Legends team was finalized less than two months ago; their support staff has been working with the team for less than a month, and their coach has been around for ten days. But even if their team and staff-building seems a bit rushed, it's paid off for Enemy, who may stand as a prime example of the third-wave 'support staff' world of today's eSports. Playing their debut match this weekend, the team showed up with a dominating 2-0 over opponent Noble Truth. Next week, they'll be facing one of the hardest opponents of the tournament: the mysterious Team Fusion - and they seem to be feeling confident about the encounter. I had the chance to reach out to Team Manager, Angel "Angel" Vigil, and Team Coach, Hussain "xDaku" Moosvi, to talk about the importance of support staff and their preparations for Enemy's hopeful road into the LCS.
Q: Angel, Enemy eSports picked up this team less than two months ago: How did you go from having nothing to hiring one of the most extensive support staffs in League of Legends?
Angel: The first month was entirely focused on getting the players, so I actually had less than two months to get the support staff ready. In fact, we started with a different coach which didn't pan out. Prior to NME, I haven't had to put together coaching team and support staff. Before, I had people who helped out, but no real coach. My initial thoughts were to get someone who had the most experience, and they could then hand that experience off to the players. I reached out to Nicholas "nubbypoohbear" Harlan, who had played under me for a year and a half. We had a lot of experience together and a friendship. But in the end, it didn't work out, because even though he had a lot of great knowledge, he wasn't really a coach. So when the team needed more than that, two weeks before the LCS Expansion Tournament, I brought in Hussain, who had reached out to me earlier with an interest in coaching for NME.
As for support staff, we had kept Brad Marx, our former analyst, but we had him and a dozen other applicants apply for head analysts position, and after a long interview process Brad was determined to be a better fit for the team. The knowledge and resources he provided really worked well with the team. Our Sports Psychologist we found on Reddit after he did an AMA--is that something I should be saying?--and he had specialized training to become a sports psychologist.
Q: Where did this inspiration come from? Most LCS teams have a sparse support staff; even Curse just hired a Sports Psychologist.
Angel: I've been managing teams since before the LCS even began, and I've had these ideas since the LCS at least. There was always things I thought teams should be doing once they have the profit to do so. They should build the team first, and with that comes the growth and the profit. Most teams focus on the profit first.
Farther along I want a nutritionist - I want them to be healthy. I have all these ideas I want to be implemented in the future. People who were in the LCS at first were inexperienced: they found five mechanical players who took little effort to maintain. As the LCS expanded, they needed more to become better. If you look at Korea and the infrastructure, the biggest difference between Korea and the Western scenes is infrastructure. The thing that sets us apart is that we don't just have strong players, but we also have the staff to support them and make them that much better.
Q: Hussain, how was it to come in with so little time before such an important tournament, and how has working with the support staff helped you in your new role?
Hussain: I got lucky, but in the past I've had analysts and two other support staff members working under me and experience on using their information to improve the play. When I came in with less than two weeks to go, the team had a lot of the base parts already in existence, compared to a lot of teams I've dealt with before. After watching the second scrim block I saw what clearly needed to be fixed. With the Sports Psychologist and Analysts I had a lot of information coming in, and this helped me see what I could go with. Talking with the players and seeing how scrims went, I was able to map out weekly strategies for growth. This allowed me to implement positive change very quickly.
Q: What did you and the team do to prepare for the LCS expansion tournament?
Hussain: I came in and completely changed how the team practiced. When I first started, I had a huge meeting with the players, analysts, and management. We mapped out what we’d be doing for the coming days and how we’d be going into the tournament. In the end, I restructured our entire way of practicing.
Q: What is the support staff doing to help this process?
Hussain: The team is made up of good players, but they've never really competed on this level of the expansion tournament. Even in challenger, you can’t just have a good team play and win it. Managing the players and guiding them a certain way is important - absolutely everything relies on the support staff right now. We have good players, but the support staff makes them perform like great players.
Angel: I just want to add on; five mechanical players are good, but five coachable players are better.
Hussain: The players have been very receptive to the coaching and support staff. They want to improve themselves, as individual players and as a team, so they are very coachable.
Q: Once/If you get into the LCS, what would you do to change your infrastructure to compete with top tier teams?
Angel: I’ve talked to a lot of LCS players and coaches and tthey've commented on how strong our support staff is. I wouldn't want to change much: maybe a little more structure as far as diet and sleep schedules go. Our scrims and practice routines are good, but I want to get Hussain into the house - I feel like that would help a lot. Give us a couple of months and we’ll be able to compete with LCS teams. We haven’t had a ton of time to develop the players, only two weeks, so we've been giving players crash courses to improve. So really the biggest thing will be allowing time for the support staff to make a real impact on them.
Hussain: A lot of the way we practice, in the way of scrimming and player management, was taken from LCS players and teams. Going into the LCS we’d be ahead of a lot of teams already just with the support staff we have.
Q: With your large support staff and team philosophy, how do you get the most out of a day of scrimming? How does all the information come together?
Hussain: When it comes to practicing, we plan out everything for the week and scrims before. Going into scrims we are all on the same page, which was the #1 philosophy when we made the practice schedule. We constantly keep in touch with everyone involved, and go back and forth on what the right direction of the team is. We make the right moves beforehand, that way everyone is on the same page, and we also keep in touch with management quite a bit, so we get a feel for what is best for the players. Our biggest goal is to make sure everything we do is done universally.
Angel: One thing I did when I was made team manager was to increase communication among different tiers of management. If everyone is involved it gets everyone emotionally invested in the team, which benefits the team itself. If we decide something on the coaching staff, I'll talk it over with the House Manager, Sean "Hadaka" Mulryan, and then we bring it to the general management. If a decision ever stops being made by us, another tier of management can come in and make educated decisions. Luckily, we rarely see a disagreement with upper management. The culture we built within Enemy has been positive: everyone feels like they are part of the team from myself, to the coaching, to the graphics artists, brand managers, etc. They feel like they are contributing and that creates a fun atmosphere without hindering professionalism.
Q: I know you can't talk about it that much, but what are you doing to prepare for the elusive Team Fusion match next Sunday?
Hussain: Without giving too much away: whatever Fusion has on Enemy is very different than what we are right now, even from what we practiced last week. I don't think they really have an edge on us. The best team will win that day and that's how it'll play out. It's not easy for them to scout us at the moment either. We have been preparing for Fusion, but we've also been preparing intensively for the teams beyond Fusion. We won't be happy with just a Fusion win.
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If Enemy eSports makes it through to the LCS, they may stand as proof that a strong support staff = a strong team. For more on what constitutes a great support staff, check out my post "The Support Staff of a Winning Team," and let me know your thoughts on the importance of support staff in the comments.
