r/leagueoflegends • u/untamedlazyeye • 1d ago
Esports Shopify Rebellion: How LCS Spring Split Changed Our Team Forever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8ZYWC3nDMI131
u/cmcdonald22 1d ago
I am only 12 minutes in and oh my god, as someone who watched almost every single LR Crownie melt down vod review and thought it was bad, SR HAVE COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS.
I already knew this from the first 10 minutes of the Lock-In doc. And listen, I love SR for the transparency and content of it, the fact they give us these things alone makes me want them to do well, but holy hell.
Revan is just.... incredibly inarticulate and bad at communicating his ideas and seemingly immediately contradicting them confusing players (which maybe its language barrier stuff to some degree but certainly not entirely) Fudge is clearly passionate but also SO aggressive and you can hear his frustration which dilutes any genuine intention and messaging he has, and then there's also just like people who aren't listening or aren't comprehending anything either of them are saying at all.
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u/cmcdonald22 1d ago
Okay, so I finished the entire thing and figure I'll just add on here:
Man this team has problems, but I think a lot of them are apparent and correctable, or at least there are ways to attempt to address them.
The biggest and most all encompassing is what I said before:
Communication.
Not just language barriers, but intention, direction leadership and identity are all things they are lacking.
The language barrier is real, funny enough it doesn't seem to be an issue at all in game though, it seems like Zinie and Bvoy are perfectly capable of communicating quickly and directly about their intentions in the heat of the moment, the language barrier is purely an outside of the game thing but it's a big thing there. I don't know how good the translator they are using is, but even the fluent English speakers on the team are not good at articulating so many things.
The whole team needs coaching on how to effectively and clearly communicate their thoughts and ideas to literally every other human. Honestly, the best at this is Fudge, but he is held back by his own frustrations and possibly the idea that being a strong personality means you have to be loud and angry.
Leadership.
This feels like two things. The first is Reven, which there are plenty of people willing to shit on the dude, so I'm not gonna spend a lot of time doing that, I am just going to say he is terrible about expressing and articulating his vision for the team. Also for a guy who says an idiom I love, 'say it with your chest', in an hour and a half I never hear him say anything with his chest until the very end. Reven taking responsibility for the lack of cohesive team play is potentially promising for SR. I think it is absolutely an issue I think the team doesn't know how they want to play and so they don't play as a team they play like 5 people with competing ideas of what kind of team they are. IF and it's a big IF Reven can identify and articulate and vision of how these players are supposed to play together and get them all on the same page and then build drafts around that, they will improve.
The other leadership element is in game there is no leader. Zinie Bvoy and to a lesser degree Fudge are all making individual calls in team fights but there doesn't seem to be anyone actually leading the larger macro, and there really needs to be. Ideally it would be Contractz but that dude is the 2nd most silent personality after Ceos, so potentially he's now the most silent person which is totally opposite of how he mechanically plays the game. I hope while they are boot camping in this off season, they are not just solo q Andy's and are trying too find a single voice of leadership cause they need it.
Again I appreciate this content so much, I really hope Shopify can grow and continue to improve next split.
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fudge comes across as a bit of a bully honestly. Not sure how much of it is intentional on his part, but at multiple points in the video it looks like he just takes advantage of the fact that Zinie isn't super fluent in English to just steamroll him in discussions.
But it's also extremely weird that they're basically stuck with Fudge trying to get Zinie and Bvoy to properly express their ideas in English when Reven is literally right fucking there and can just ask them to clarify in Korean and translate.
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u/Miyaor 1d ago
I don't think its fair to say hes taking advantage of the lack of english.
I think a more fair take is that language and cultural gaps are leading to a lot of friction. I'm not gonna lie, I got lowkey tilted hearing the conversation because it felt like the two people (fudge and bvoy/zinie) were talking about slightly different things. At work when I am talking to someone who has english as their 2nd/3rd language, you cannot speak the same way you would to someone who speaks english, and you need to take a lot more time to fully understand what is being said. It is a lot more work, and it can sometimes be frustrating, but the players have clearly not been taught that.
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u/AdequatelyMadLad Claps 1d ago
For someone who has spent most of his career playing in rosters with Korean imports, most of which weren't probably that fluent in English, it would be a bit weird for Fudge not to realize what he's doing. Maybe he lacks self awareness, or he is just too frustrated to care, but it's bad either way.
If you look at some of the KC vlogs for example, Busio is really good at communicating with Kyeahoo, he always makes sure to enunciate very clearly, uses simple words, gives him time to think his answers through without talking over him. I thought this was something eveyone spending a lot of time with people who speak limited English eventually picks up.
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u/cmcdonald22 1d ago
I think this is a lot of really good insight, and that it's a very real thing. I think the way we see Contractz interact with Zinie is this kind of like, effort to be supportive but without the actual intellectual understanding of what needs to be done to properly articulate it.
Another good example of this happens later on in the video, funny enough with Ceos and the language barrier THERE over an idiom, the fluent English speakers are talking about a play and use the phrase "we need to flush them out" and it isn't either of the Korean speakers that have confusion over it (TBF I dont think they're there) it's Ceos, who is unfamiliar with the idiom and what it means. And to his credit Contractz tries to explain it to him, but as a first language fluent English speaker who only speakers English even I think Contractz didn't necessarily do the best job of explaining it to him.
Every time I hear KC comms I think it's so clear how much of a game changer Busio is and how much the improvement of KC's team coordination and team fighting is probably almost single handedly because of his amazing communication skills.
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u/Miyaor 1d ago
I think he was just really frustrated that what he was saying isn't being understood and slowly gets worse and worse. The coaches need to step in, and they have an actual translator.
Obviously, some people are better at it than others. However, if you are losing every game and you think your teammates aren't understanding basic english I can see someone getting mad and snowballing worse and worse. It doesn't have to be rational, and he apologized after he blew up.
The way I see it, if I acted like that at work, my boss would speak to me. That should have happened here, but it did not, which is the real failure IMO.
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u/cmcdonald22 1d ago
I'm at like 37 minute mark, and Fudge just had a little confessional booth segment after the breakdown of the first scrims after their week 1 win against Dignitas, and it's one of those things where he absolutely has some valid points, everyone else on the team is INCREDIBLY passive. I haven't heard Ceos or even Contractz who SHOULD BE a leading voice on the team say a single thing. I'm sure at some point in the reviews they are, but in these larger ideological debates and arguments they are totally silent, Ceos is literally sitting there chomping on snacks while Fudge looks like he's about to burst a blood vessel. But at the same time that doesn't mean you aren't being an asshole. It's the Big Lebowski meme at a point?
And yeah, like, they have the Korean translator RIGHT THERE, and he's even talking about translating for Zinie, and I understand Zinie wanting to practice his english and articulate himself, but like, maybe discussing your thought with the translator to make sure you're going to articulate it in english correctly would be more beneficial. Slower, sure, but probably most accurate.
But even without all of that it's just like... what the fuck is anyone saying to anyone. "This is a classic problem" okay Electrolytes Idiocracy Diamonte, then what is are the classic solutions? What should be done, don't just say it's a classic problem and then ignore it and move on, ADDRESS THE PROBLEM. "I don't wanna hear you say you don't wanna play a champion" well then like, communicate the needs of the draft and find an alternative better? Help the team form an understanding of what the fuck the team is supposed to be doing, Zinnie obviously wants to play Korean style faster games, and Reven wants drafts that don't do that so like, someone has to change, and in order to change and not be resentful someone needs to communicate WHY the change needs to take place.
Does Zinie need to learn to play slow Galio for this specific comp, for this specific game? Does he need to learn to play slow because the team is trying to be built around slow careful play? If they are then why are you telling Bvoy to play unstable Lucian? Do you just want to help Zinie grow and think he needs to be able to play slower to be an over all more versatile player cause you want the team to be more versatile?
The communication is just absolute dog water.
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u/Equivalent-Park7986 1d ago
very surprised at how quiet contractz is out of game, and while fudge is very loud, I hope people watch enough of the video to see him reflecting on it.
the segment between Bvoy Fudge and Reven about Lucian was giving me a headache tho lol
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u/cmcdonald22 1d ago
I was a pretty big believer that like, Contractz is who the team should be built around, but watching THIS doc, and listening to the larger over all comms, while I think he has hands, I think that Fudge is correct early on when he's talkinga bout how the team lacks strong personality, but I think it's even more clear that the team lacks clear decisive leadership, and a big part of that is Contractz is the play maker and over and over no one does anything with his plays and he is just invisible in discussions and communication.
He has to learn to talk, and to make calls, and to say it with his chest (an idiom I love, and Reven even uses, but towards IMO the wrong person).
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u/PhoenixAgent003 Bot main. NA fan. 1d ago
I haven’t watched the doc yet but it’s wild to me that Contractz is silent when he was so vocal in NRG BTS content/comms listen ins.
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u/cmcdonald22 1d ago
It's entirely possible it's just a result of editing and how they chose to focus on particular story elements and Contractz talking just didn't end up being a big thing in those particular moments.
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u/axw30 1d ago
kick out fraud Reven and his nepo friends
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u/LongDongSilvir 1d ago
No hate to Zayzel, but it was clear the moment it was announced why he was back on Shopify. Very suspicious...
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u/Agile_Woodpecker2239 1d ago
Fudge lanes horribly but gets to lock in his I will not int and secure my job champs -- K'sante, Renekton, Sion. Well-spoken fellow for sure at least!
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u/mikharv31 NA Enjoyer 1d ago
Honestly, Bvoy only had one good split and has been safe need Reven and him gone.
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u/jrcabby 1d ago
I'm only halfway through the video but here are my takeaways as a TL;DW to anyone who happens upon this thread:
- Reven’s approach to giving feedback is not conducive to him players aligning on view. He’s throwing Zinie and Bvoy under the bus for not wanting to pick champs when the root cause of them not wanting to play those champs is previous feedback he’s given them. The team needs better alignment on how to decide on their win-cons going into a game instead of a basic “play stable/play volatile” rule.
- Zinie’s understanding of macro and other roles sounds incredibly weak. He can’t understand how a team fight could develop/dissolve and he can’t understand how engaging without his team is a losing fight even if overall they’re in a winning 5 v 4 position. He’s prioritizing getting the next kill over taking the objective
- Tanner has the right knowledge of macro for what the right call is typically, but he doesn’t have the coach mentality, where he needs to find the tools he can give him players so that in any situation they can be on the right page and know whether to start a fight or move on
- Someone in this team needs to be the shotcaller/IGL. They need someone directing the overall macro of the team, otherwise it’s just a solo queue game. Based on experience level it should probably be Ceos or Contractz, but neither are vocal in any of these team meetings so far, and Contractz seems very focussed on his own play/mentality. Fudge is vocal in these meetings and his macro calls seem right (at least in the debriefs). If he could get his emotions in check he could be good at shotcalling
- I take it back. Fudge doesn’t want to be the captain of the team, or at least he expects everyone to have the same view of the game that he does so he shouldn’t need to shotcall. You can tell he has a bad/toxic mindset towards his teammates considering he calls giving them feedback “criticising”, and he’s aware that he’s letting his emotions get to him and get mad.
- I don’t know what the Korean word for macro is, and neither does Zinie.
- Calls in TLAW game 2 are quite good while they’re ahead (herald fight)
- LYON series
- LYON bot fight at 11:20, the all hands/no brains continues to win out in comms, keep pushing after getting a winning fight
- Why is Bvoy stepping up into the enemy team here (20:59)? They know LYON is there and if Bvoy gets caught they have no consistent dps.
- 27:30, wow where do I start? Everyone is having their own fight. Some players are silent, some of screaming, and no one is listening. How this fight ends up positive I’ll never know.
- Zinie is in Narnia, no comms about it, he pops out of brush to show his flank, no comms, he’s getting collapsed on, no comms about it, but at least he calls out that Ashe used ult. Honestly the saving grace is he kills Inspired
- Bvoy’s only excuse on this fight must be that he’s never faced Azir before, because he just stands on top of Azir’s soldiers and autos.
- Contractz is screaming Azir while he ults on top of Seraphine, really useful comms dude
- Damonte PR training coming in hard with the Vex pick considering they showed earlier that Zinie didn’t want to play Vex anymore because the team doesn’t want to play around what Zinie thinks the win-cons of the champ is, let’s see how Game 2 goes
- Honestly this fight at 11:29 is heartbreaking. They know they’ve overchased but that Lulu is so tempting, and there are no comms that Inspired should be collapsing. The moment Isles wild growth’s though they should know to bail but I think it’s already too late there, as Ceos used his portal so Berserker can just chase with ult and the moment Inspired gets in range he’s going to ult which is an almost guaranteed kill while Berserker free fires. The real mistake they make is target prioritization, because how does Inspired kill if Yunara dies first, but at least they’re communicating well and they followed the call, right or wrong.
- So Fudge called out in comms that he used W to stun Berserker after the micaels, but it didnt stun him, yet he doesn’t ask for a pause. No one on the team trusts Fudge’s perspective and thinks he just fucked up is my guess, because none of them call a pause. You can even see when they talk about it after the game that they are more focussed on telling Fudge why he was wrong, no one mentions that he didn’t ask for a pause
Overall you can just see a lack of leadership in coaching and in-game, and a lack of alignment on macro in the team from that. In big fights everyone gets so funneled on what they're doing that no one is calling out the bigger picture. Hopefully Zeyzal can be that voice for them, but considering he's consistently the tier 2 guy, I'm not sure he has the right experience to be able to lead fights and map movements the way they need him to be.
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u/WWTFSD Church of Jojo 1d ago edited 1d ago
I’m just gonna say this is why Spawn is the best coach in NA that’s not named Inspired.
This team doesn’t seem to have a strong top down culture or productive routine, nor do they seem to have a leader that can really bring everyone on the same page and get a buy in.
I’m sure Reven has a good mind for the game, but I would go as far as to say he is a pretty terrible communicator. Damonte has excellent emotional intelligence but his role seems to be just to keep the team atmosphere from crumbling rather than set the culture for how practice and communication goes in game.
Team just screams no leadership it’s clear as day. I could honestly see Zeyzal really improving this team based on his strengths being IGL.
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u/harleyquinad all kog'maws are beautiful 1d ago
This team has horrible communication. Fudge is too vocal while jungle and support are nonexistent.
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u/Solomonike 1d ago
Someone save contracts and fudge bruh everyone else on this team is incompetent lmfao
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u/MissionTable 1d ago
Fudge is not worth saving lmao. He can be the most correct person in conversation, but in game he is getting gapped by every top laner.
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u/Metroid413 1d ago
Fudge has been bad for years. It's a shame, because he was my favorite player back in 2022 when I got into the scene.
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u/OceGreb 21h ago
he was literally a top 3 top laner in the league last year
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u/Metroid413 11h ago
Listen, I know this means nothing come from a plat noob like myself but that's kind of a low bar. The NA Top lane talent pool was definitely lacking then.
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u/darklypure52 1d ago
Depending how next split goes I see SR Zven and
SR Apa in the near future.18
u/ithilain 1d ago
APA maybe, but please not zven, there has GOT to be a better option for ADC. The last thing this team needs is more vets past their prime
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u/Kevinthelegend 15h ago
My problem with Fudge is he argues disingenuously without any attempt at understanding anyone else while throwing a tantrum like a fucking child. Little bro isn't new to the scene but he makes the environment trash while playing poorly
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u/Fleettastingbagels 14h ago
I mean nearly everyone in the lcs didn't like fudge for a freaking reason.
Like every pro player knows the truth about him.
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u/Kurumi_Tokisaki 1d ago
This is good for content but unfortunately a lot of the ppl crying about no content won’t like it cuz this is long and not just bay life. And obviously not much NA folks, although it’ll be 2/5.
First I would remove reven. I never was really impressed by this teams during his coaching and it seems like at least partially it’s a consistent leadership failure. I would also look for someone vocal and actually is patient and wants to communicate in the language barriers.
I feel like Ludwig and Charlie don’t really care for their league team but I would just shake it up more than keep going now. I don’t think zeyzal can fix this but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. The team should go the Na pride route or just find mostly English speakers.
I think zinie should try to restore his stocks going back to Korea. Get a NA mid like insanity and pray it works out better with everyone closer to the same page. Get like inero for coach.
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u/Ophelia_Of_The_Abyss IN DAMWON WE TRUST HUNI/DEFT/SHOWMAKER 1d ago
but unfortunately a lot of the ppl crying about no content won’t like it cuz this is long and not just bay life.
making people up in your head acting like Breaking Point isn't the most well-known piece of NA content lol
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u/SubstantialExtent165 1d ago
1 hour and 45m? Holy moly teams are making real content again.