Team rankings and fan perceptions have changed, and of the four spring split finalists in the European League of Legends Championship Series, only three have managed to keep their hopes for Worlds alive: G2 Esports, H2k-Gaming and Fnatic.
For H2k-Gaming, staying at the top of the charts has been a process. The team's place in the standings, fourth, is a simplified figure that masks the struggles it has faced, including issues that coach Neil "PR0LLY" Hammad has worked through or is working through with the team. When I asked him about the squad's performance throughout the split, he expressed dissatisfaction.
"I'm mostly just disappointed with how we transitioned scrims into LCS, because we have had weeks of improvement in scrims and it doesn't show up on stage, so it becomes a really big issue where you have to find out what's going wrong," PR0LLY says.
Although there are proven veterans in its ranks, H2k has suffered from stage jitters, or what the coach terms "panic calls." Sometimes, the team has missed obvious plays -- chasing risky options instead -- or there was a lack of follow-up action on map reads. "We've been trying to work towards a more consistent flow of communication, and hopefully that will get our performance back to where it needs to be," PR0LLY says. "That's the only thing that's been holding us back, in my opinion."
Some of H2k's problems stemmed from Konstantinos "FORG1VEN" Tzortziou's departure from the starting lineup. On the one hand, the move seemed to offer the squad flexibility as the importance of winning the bot lane match-up and of pooling massive resources into the AD carry lessened. On paper, the team became less predictable and less reliant on the ADC position with the talents of team-oriented Aleš "Freeze" Kněžínek in the role, much as Fnatic changed upon Mateusz "Kikis" Szkudlarek's arrival.
As it turns out, trying to play a wider variety of styles is difficult. Add in stage fright, and seemingly innocuous issues made the squad stumble.
Without hesitation, PR0LLY admitted that he was partly at fault for the team's struggles, and he goes on to explain why. "The transition was so hard from spring to summer because I really did want to try new things, and I was tired of only playing a certain style," he notes. "I kind of wanted to breathe some recklessness into the players and get them to play a more unpredictable style. That threw us really hard off our game, and we lost a lot of weeks of practice doing that, just because we weren't able to transition that to the stage at all."
It is not all doom and gloom for H2k-Gaming, and PR0LLY points at the squad's decisive 2-0 victory against Vitality as a potential landmark moment this split. A correct lane-swap prediction in the second game allowed it to develop map control and take the driver's seat, much to Vitality's dismay. The H2k players recognized Vitality's playing patterns and capitalized on them, their coach adds.
In addition, Freeze has begun to overcome his mid-split jitters, for which PR0LLY credits the player himself. "This is completely on Freeze to have turned his performance around. He's been playing a lot better onstage, and he's been doing a lot better in scrims as well," PR0LLY states. "I would say I put effort into it, and I really did everything on my end that I thought I could, and he executed it all himself. He really put the effort in it. I'm really happy that he started to get back his confidence that he had previously in the split as well."
The split has afforded the head coach an opportunity for growth as a coach strategically, and he is not finished. He could not hide his excitement over the upcoming balance changes involving turret resistance, turret damage upon switching targets, and cannon minion spawn times. It's an opportunity to outpace opposing teams by pioneering new tactics.
"I don't think there are many coaches who spend the time to theorycraft strategies and move the pieces on the map like a chess board," PR0LLY explains. "There's just a lot of new stuff to learn. I think a lot of the players, if they're not motivated enough to figure it all out -- which is kind of hard for them because you need the curious personality to unravel these puzzles -- [they need coaches who are that way, and] mostly I haven't seen many coaches that are. [A team like that] is going to be really far behind the meta if there's a way to figure out this puzzle."
He concludes our interview with the following declaration: "You'll see the good teams get better and the lazy teams get crushed."