Creating a remarkable and strong roster for a season at the LCS is always a huge challenge for the coaching staff and management.

Despite all the difficulties most teams hit the right mix of players or undergo several roster changes until it patches the mistakes. Which can sort some of the problems for a short amount of time or it could also end up with the owner of your team subbing in for each position possible. While going roster changes might solve the issues even if only for a short amount of time, it is only a temporary thing that won't be attending the core of the problem and also not solving a problem in a long-term planning. Since the LCS format forced teams to think one split at a time it changed all this year, so where are the subs?

Last week we've seen Fnatic use their top lane sub Bwipo. According to Bwipo in an interview to the shotcaller, they have been practicing with him so soaZ can take a few games break during the scrim schedules in the week. This brings not only a dynamic environment to the team, but also expands the viewpoints of each player on what's going.

Also, Bwipo added that they talk a lot about strategies and general approach with a daily presentation by the coaching staff and a weekly presentation coming from a player about a point they want to talk with the team.

And it seems to be working out for Fnatic as they secured their semi-final bye with this week’s result. The only interesting aspect is that Fnatic is the only EU LCS team currently using their sub actively in their practice.

Subs are important. Not only by offering flexibility in rosters, possible strategies, but they also add an outsiders pair of eyes to the daily practice. Having Bwipo being able to watch soaZ or the team play, he could learn something or simply be able to point out mistakes coaches might be able to oversee. Like role specific in-game details. In North America, it is becoming more and more common that every position has their own coach. Most of the times they are either coach with some sort of experience, subs or ex-pro players that are switching to that. They can not only push personal growth but also add outsiders pov of someone that is familiar with playing the role on a high level. It is always beneficial to have an experienced coach there.

Although a coach might be better due to prior experiences of working with players, the ex-player or sub can bring more value of in-game and role expertise that the coach might not have. Coaching is something everyone can learn in the end and of course also League of Legends, but knowing the pov of analyzing and actually playing the game on the professional level are two different things, that some coaches might not have experienced. Which is not necessarily a negative thing, for example, you want to help a player improve on advanced lane and champion mechanics, the ex-pro might know a tweak or two more than the coach because he played that champion a few thousand times, while the coach only watched that champion being played a few thousand times.

So by taking a look at the listed subs of the other LCS teams, it’s no wonder why only Fnatic is able to do so:

1. Boris - support sub for Schalke 04 - aka Krepo and coach
   
   
2. Sacre - G2 sub - plays for a Balkan team Klik tech
   
   
3. Th3Antonio - Giants sub - plays for Giants Spanish team
   
   
4. Hiiva - Misfits sub and strategic coach
   
   
5. Innaxe - Splyce sub - ADC for KIYF esports club (Spanish team)
   
   
6. EdinPriqtel - Roccat sub - Klik tech
   
   
7. Nji - Vitality Sub - Jungler for vitality academy
   
   
8. AudreyLaSapa - UOL sub - Designer
   
   
9. Candyfloss, Caedrel - H2K Subs - Caedrel plays also in the British league for Diabolus esports

The fact that most of the subs currently listed in the EU LCS is either playing for a different team or has also another role in the same team makes it almost impossible for them to be able to share quality scrim time with the rest of the roster. For example, the listed players that are subs and play for national league teams don’t live in the gaming house and don’t get to see and work with the team on a day to day basis. If the subs actually work somehow with the team except for being an emergency sub. The problem with emergency subs is that they normally don’t get to experience and nurture from the team environment and this leads to the player not benefiting from the learning experience just as he doesn’t learn how the team works in general. So when he comes into the team to sub in for a player he comes into the game blind. Not having practiced much if practiced at all, isn’t used to the shot-calling system and never had the chance to learn the team’s playbook.

Which is a bad thing when you plan on using the subs more than once in the split.

Something that partly got solved by the addition of the academy teams in North America, as they have not only their own league but are directly related to the teams itself. Being able to already benefit from the values of being on that team. From nurturing the team’s culture to benefiting from the coaching staff or even scrims. The benefit of being theoretically a 10 man roster split into two leagues makes it much better for the team’s environment.

So far the “closest” alternative for EU teams is to invest in the national league system. It might be a mess right now and even if in about a months time there will be the multiregional tournament and we don’t have much information to this date. There might be changes to that in the future as the League not only grows but the system gets more organized. Adding the possibility of franchising or any sort of changes to the EU LCS format in 2019, the national leagues could become literally the equivalent of North America’s Academy League. As of right now, the only teams investing in those are G2, Giants, Vitality, and Misfits in their respective national backgrounds.

The problem is even if they have an academy team it doesn’t mean they are using a proper sub system, for an example like in the lck. Where subs not only live in the gaming house but practice and even get stage time. The optimal system would be this obviously. A team cannot only benefit from having the different stylistics for different strategies in different players but also it creates a more competitive environment that benefits individual player development and at the same time you have more people to gather information from, while training the next Faker. Koreans have figured it out, it is what they did all along in the Starcraft 2 gaming houses and it came from their culture overall. The problem is all of that needs time, money and enough employees, which in Esports can become a devious circle of a decreasing bank account.

Teams might invest all that money to have the structure, to have the best players, but as of right now the most teams aren’t able to make that money back. Even TSM, Cloud 9 and all those big franchises in North America are investing huge numbers in order to have that structure into place. They know they will make that money back in a few years and start to make a profit out of it, however, this is not the case especially in European teams. Europe has less exposure, less money involved, smaller coaching staffs and only one sub per team right now. It is not interest that is missing it is money and manpower. You can have a five-man sub roster even in Europe, but then you will need to pay those and since you want them to improve as well, you would also need a coach for those players. So they can also improve. And if you are already running on losses with the current setup it is simply not possible to run a five man sub roster in EU.

Something teams could look for is to create partnerships in the national leagues. Fnatic would partner with an org in the Balkan scene for example and have them as their subs while they not only are able to brand this whole thing and create more brand awareness in a more regional space. They get to have their sub roster and eventually a coach. However there will have to be another value’s to make this interesting for an LCS team, where there are a lot of marketing and branding possibilities for the bigger brands, but there will have been more of a reason to lure the big names that aren’t nationally represented already into the national scenes. This would still be a different structure from the one Bwipo stated in his interview, but it would give a team to scrim with, to share information and they will have the ability to practice together in the national environment.

(Photo Credit : lolesports Flickr)

Disclaimer: The following article was written freely based on the author's opinion, and it may not necessarily represent Inven Global's editorial stance. 

About the Author: 
Hello guys, Alexandre Weber also known under the ID: DrPuppet. I'm a Brazilian professional Coach and content creator since 2015, mostly focused on League of Legends. I worked with many teams throughout the years in major and minor regions, but my most known work was with Kaos Latin Gamers from Chile in 2015, where we played the International Wildcard Finals against Pain Gaming. Since then I have been studying Cinema in Hamburg and creating content on youtube and twitch, besides writing for respected sites in Esports. You can find me on the social networks under @drpuppetlp and on Twitch under DrPuppet.
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