Update on the current Evil Genius situation:
I firstly want to apologize for the lack of communication on my part and also
on my teams part to our fans and also the community in general - if it was my
choice this would be handled differently. The intention of this address to
you guys is not to throw certain people under the bus (I'll do my best to
exclude names/people), but more to clear the air for what has been quite a
peculiar situation not only for myself and the team.. but also for you guys
as fans and spectators.
I do want to identify that my individual play has been questionable,
specifically on a mechanical level for the LCS - something which I somewhat
neglected as I utilized other strengths I had which was communication, shot
calling and team fighting. I did also have other distractions outside the
game as I wanted to be a huge part of growing this industry which I'm
immensely passionate about; while some of that was attributed to personal
gain as well - it's also because I want to reflect this sport as best I can
to the newer audiences and help grow it across the board - what we have right
now is not sustainable.
While there has been a wealth of criticism targeted at me on Reddit
specifically, I do my best to ignore it - albeit it does wear down on you a
little.. you have to learn to kind of brush it off as these people typically
have a very naive perception of professional league of legends and what it
entails (trying my best not to be rude). Letting that anonymous hate circle
jerk get to you actually causes you to play worse and is a vicious cycle
which can result in your career ending prematurely because of it - I'm pretty
sure you may know of a few examples.
We expected not to have the greatest spring split coming into it, but not as
bad as it ended - a few external factors went against us, however that's not
an excuse for finishing at the bottom and fighting through relegation's..
which is extremely tough for a team to handle mentally. As a result in order
to make improvements to our team, we collectively agreed we should hold
tryouts for support, jungle and AD. This kind of pressure can have a positive
or negative impact, personally it's like a kick up the ass and makes you
really strive to step up your game. We tried out/considered players from NA,
EU & Korea and ultimately decided the best change to make at that point was
swapping Peter out for Johnny (Altec) and keeping the rest of the team the
same.
Unfortunately heading into Week 1 (Superweek) we actually weren't able to use
Altec for much practice and due to an error on our part, had to use Peter for
the match against LMQ and then Altec on limited practice for the succeeding
games. Despite that situation, heading into it - we felt relatively
confident, having some close games.. but ultimately close games don't
matter.. wins do.. and without winning you get really down on yourself and
your mind somewhat spirals into focusing on the negatives and ignoring the
positives.
When my individual play came into question, I went onto primarily only
focusing on that and consequently negating a lot of other factors in order to
improve purely that - as a result shot calling suffered, co-ordination with
sololaner's and also couldn't manage the team effectively to avoid mistakes
which were happening outside of the game - it forced me into a unhealthy
state of mind as I was essentially fighting for my job.. I stopped sleeping
much, I stopped going to the gym, I stopped interacting with the fans, I
stopped being happy, I stopped being Snoopeh - I was playing approximately
14-15 hours a day, not caring about streaming for money.. purely improving my
individual play and consequently I did improve - my mechanics specifically
improved - I picked up champions like Lee Sin and albeit not mastered.. can
bring out in competitive.
The way in which the Helios situation was handled has been pretty
questionable, it messed up with our team dynamic - some of which is a little
too personal/complicated to get into but I will say that I do think him
coming is a good idea, I spoke in favor of him coming as a tryout.. which
might seem weird because "omg.. want a korean to come challenge your spot,
you got no chance snoopeh wtf dude!" - However I firmly believe that having a
unique perspective from someone like Helios is welcomed for me as it will
help me improve as a player and hopefully improve our team also.
There always lies this question "When do you call it a day?".. "When do you
move on.. ?" - I can legitimately answer that with.. I'm not ready to move
on, I don't want to, I don't believe I have to - with there being no other
suitable replacement for me without extending our reach to the Asian player
pool, coupled with me being confident in my ability to perform at LCS level
and also being willing to put in the effort to remain competitive - I will
give it my all in order to be a player in the LCS at the present. Essentially
we could replace 80% of the NA player base with Korean/Chinese players/teams
- it's a sad truth.
We will be using Helios in scrims this week and most likely trying him out
this week in LCS to see how he fares in an LCS setting - I'll be watching
closely and doing my best to help the team achieve a win, having the ability
to watch the team from the outside will hopefully help me identify strengths
and weaknesses within the team and my own performance.
It's a very awkward social dynamic for a team member or a team to be in, it's
not an easy one - Myself and the team are doing our best to adapt and deal
with the situation presented before us as best we can and we hope to get some
results that our fans have long been waiting for. I could talk in much more
length about our team, but this has already been quite a long post.. I hope
this gave you some insight onto what is happening with me specifically and
our team as a whole.
TLDR: Helios will be trying out for the team, I'm not retiring.. I'm 100%
committed to being a competitive player. Teams hit a rough patch, some of
which is out of our control but we are doing our best to fix it - have to
avoid letting it be infectious, mentality has to be positive.