TL Spawn: “I’m the person that gets to do all the interviews when we win. It’s also my job to do them when we’re shit”

Q: Do you feel responsible to accept these loss interviews after elimination?

Spawn: It’s my job. I’m the spokesperson of the team; I’m the person that came out and announced the roster. I’m the person that gets to do all the interviews when we win. It’s also my job to do them when we’re shit, unfortunately.

Q: Do TL’s current problems trace back to the Yuuji/UmTi instability we talked about before, or were these new?

Spawn: I don’t know, we’ve had like three months now, or something like that. I feel like we had a month-ish at the end of playoffs where we were playing with Yuuji primarily, but UmTi every now and again.

And then we went into an insanely good preseason when the MSI teams were here before the split — then all of the issues just re-emerged during regular season.

So I don’t really think this is an issue with the Yuuji-UmTi situation. I was pretty happy with Yuuji. There’s a clip probably going around on social media at the moment — I actually thanked Yuuji in front of the team for stepping in and being such a positive teammate.

I think that his job was really hard. I think UmTi’s actually a really good player, by the way. I was on record multiple times saying that.

So losing him hurt, obviously, then Yuuji came in and filled as best as he could. So, no, I don’t think it has anything to do with that [change]. I think that a couple of other individuals need to put their hands up and take the blame for this one.

Q: Re-emergence? So not new issues with Yuuji, but the same issues (like mechanics) were happening even with UmTi?

Spawn: Oh yeah, 100%. I mean, I think that if you look at any of our like late-game teamfighting, it was like … Even when we were a good team, every podcast that Inspired or C9 went on, it was like, “If you can drag Team Liquid into hands-checks over and over again, that’s where they struggle. They’re one of the best macro teams, but they’re not really mechanically skilled.”

So yeah, I’d say like reemergence of issues — I mean, you saw today we were able to generate early game leads in three out of three games and not able to close out a single game.

It’s not the Team Liquid of old that I’m used to watching. Definitely a large amount of frustration.I think even APA said it in the pre-game — we’ve been putting so much work into our mid game because it’s just not where it was previously.

Every single review, we’re sitting down and we’re trying to drag through this current meta and where it’s messing up for us. We just weren’t able to fix it.

Q: Looking at building the next TL roster, what are some learnings you’ve taken away? You’ve clearly had significant learnings from previous iterations — what are you seeing now?

Spawn: Yeah, I mean, first things first, I don’t know whether I’m building the roster. You know, I’ve got a meeting tomorrow with Steve and Dodo and who knows? […] We’ll see — they’re allowed to make any decision they want to make. I’ve just finished sixth. That is what it is.

As I said, it’s not like I’m dodging accountability for it; as a head coach, it falls to me. But what I will say is that when I build rosters, I like my 2–3 rule of two or three hungry players, two or three veterans. I think that it’s like a really important way to do it.

I think the other thing that I’ve talked a lot about is like the garbage men or the junk men — like the role players — that are really crucial. Like you need to find good role players in League of Legends. You can’t have five superstars. It just doesn’t work. You know, someone has to be willing to sacrifice for the team.

I’ve been thinking a lot about philosophy on role players and changing the lineup, especially. I read a lot about the NBA and why role players change so much in the NBA. Cause you know, their job is the same, but they do it in different environments and they get praised in a different way initially.

So I’ve been reading a lot about that and theories about getting rid of players one year too early versus one year too late. So there’s like a lot of takeaways for me. I’m a student of the game — and there’s a metagame behind the game, which is how you build and craft rosters and develop talent.

And I think I’ve been good at it in the past — even on the lineup that played today. I worked with FBI, I worked with Eyla, I worked with Dhokla. I’ve worked with all these players and I’m sure that most of them would have really positive things to say about their time with me. I’ll have a sit down and I’ll go through all my notes. I’ll have a look [at my journal] and hopefully I have learned something.

Q: Does it feel like Yeon has been trying too hard to warp the game around him in that “superstar” way you talked about on PROS? That the other players could’ve burned out, or that he’s tiring of trying too hard to carry?

Spawn: I mean, there’s like a couple of things, right? The thing is, Yeon doesn’t care how he looks individually. If he feels like people aren’t getting him space, he’s going to try and outplay, he’s going to step up. He’s going to try and get the space himself. 

There was a dragon fight in this last game where Sejuani is eye contacting Yeon. And Yeon’s calling for the Gangplank to step in front of him so he can hit Sejuani, because we can’t push the left side of the fight — the top side of the fight, whatever you want to call it — their side of the fight. We’re just not winning. And I think it’s not a great play from Yeon. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not going to sit here and pat him on the back for it, but it’s like, you know, he saw it as the only way for him to win the game in that moment. He communicated really well, and then we didn’t do it. So it’s impossible to say if it’s the best call or the worst call, because we just didn’t do what was said.

I think, overall, that’s the kind of player he is. If someone else is carrying, he’s happy to be carried. He doesn’t need to be the star player. When APA won MVP in Split 1 last year, playing all the carries and Aurelian Sol and this kind of thing, Yeon was happy to do whatever he had to do. Played a lot of the mid game bridge champions for us, like Kalista and Varus and that kind of stuff. 

I mean, I really like working with the kid. Obviously, I’ve been very open about it. I love our relationship. I love him as a player, I love the accountability that he shows, and I think that he’s one of the few players on the team that can probably walk out of this split with his head held high, knowing that he put in a lot of effort and was one of the best players in his role. And we probably let him down. Me included — I probably didn’t put him in enough situations to succeed. 

I don’t think he’s also one of the people that warps the team, to be honest. I think he’s one of the players that is actually really willing to go with the flow. If other people are listening to [our comms], it’s not like Yeon’s saying, “Give me every resource on the map, I’m going to carry.” He’s like, “If I need to take every resource on the map, I will, to carry. But if other people can do their job, then I’m also happy to play a very beautiful game.” […]

It’s like Ruler, really. If Ruler needs to carry, he’ll carry. If Canyon and Chovy can carry, he’ll just shoot Corki rockets at people. Like that’s really Yeon’s philosophy on the game. It’s from the best AD carries. He watches a lot of Viper, a lot of Ruler. He’s been watching a lot of T1 comms at the moment, [learning] how they talk about the game. So he really is a student of the game. He’s a joy to coach. Can’t speak highly enough of the kid.

Q: Core organizes inhouses in the offseason, and a lot of players are already excited to play. How much stock do you put into those? How closely do you watch?

Spawn: I mean, before Core did, and I did them in Australia. I used to do “Spawn’s inhouses,” as well. So I’ll probably run them inhouse. I put a lot of weight in all scouting.

As I said, I’m pretty obsessed with League of Legends. I was talking to Core, you know, I’ve never been the best at League of Legends. I don’t even think I’m the best mind for League of Legends, but I love League of Legends. I can’t get enough of it. Whenever it’s on, I watch it. When Worlds is on, I watch it. When documentaries and series and Cloud9 do their podcast or Dom does his thing, or Caedrel’s talking about Excel when LS used to be really outspoken — I’d watch everything. I’m just a huge consumer of media. 

So when Core runs these inhouses, I sit there in Discord, I listen to them, or I watch streams. And I try and check out individual people’s POVs. 

There’s some people [for whom] I’m really interested in seeing their development. You know, the Gryffinns, the Zamudos — those kinds of players […] and how they continue to level up in those inhouses and how they play. I think it’s really fun. I think Core does a great job of involving the young kids. I think that’s one of the things that I really enjoy about offseason, is watching those. 

And we’ll use it as scouting. I’m not going to promise that people will come from that, but we ran a scouting combine, and that’s how we picked up APA. We interviewed him. The first year I was at Team Liquid, so five years ago, we didn’t think he was there. We interviewed him three years later, [and] we did think he was there. We picked him up. He played on our lineup for the last two years. That’s the usefulness of things like inhouses and compounds.

Q: FLY asked Bwipo to switch to coaching in the offseason, and he turned it down. Some others view asking a player to switch to coaching as out of their purview. Impact has been criticized a lot lately; many say he should make the swap. What’s your philosophy on making that recommendation? Would you tell him to do it?

Spawn: A little bit in between. You know, Eon-young and I are quite close. We’ve been through a little bit together. He’s had down years before — his FlyQuest year wasn’t the best year either. I’m not going to tell him to be a coach, but [I would tell him that] he needs to pursue something he’s passionate about, because he’s at the stage of his life now where if you’re not passionate about something, you’re not going to find the energy [or] the effort to do it. And the reason I know that is because — I’m not his age, but I’m of a similar age — we’re within touching distance [age-wise].

You know, shit that I don’t want to do now, I just can’t get the energy to do — when you’re a 20-year-old, you got the energy to do everything, but the stuff that you don’t want to do as a 30-year-old, you’ll probably find a reason to not do it. So he’s going to find some passion and some drive […] to be the best player in his role. If he doesn’t want it, it’s not going to happen anymore, just naturally.

If that’s coaching, then great. I think he would be a solid coach. I think there would be a lot to learn; he would have to open his eyes to a lot of different aspects of the game. But if that’s playing, I do have confidence he can get back there, but he just needs to really want to put in the time and effort.

Transcription help from @eonmoons