It finally happened. Ever since his initial acknowledgement that he was flirting with the idea of retirement, it seems that most of the League of Legends community has all held hands in silent communion to make it happen… And then it did. Brandon “SaintVicious” DiMarco will finally step away from competitive play and take a role as Coach within the Curse organisation.
I’ve always been a fan of the player that seems to court controversy without really doing all that much. In a time when most e-sports professionals are encouraged to trundle towards the banality of what is deemed professionalism, he was a League of Legends player you could always rely on to at least speak his mind. His public spats with other players and teams added spice to a regular season that can all too easily become boring without such subtext. On top of that, and it’s this that you should probably whisper until a few months have passed (retirement has a way of making even the thorniest of personalities suddenly seem personable), he’s also one of the best junglers North America has seen so far in their competitive history.
Even if you are one of the few who could call themselves fans, there’s no getting away from the fact that technically he was a player who was prone to mistakes. The joke about him failing to land SMITE is a Reddit staple and montages of his “greatest fails” are popular Youtube fodder, the indignity of his level one mistaken flash at Blue buff preserved for generations of players to see. Yet he’s not the only person in the LCS to make some glaring, bronze level errors. Yes, we all know that right now William "Meteos" Hartman is the lord of the jungle but prior to that Saintvicious was always there, the professional’s choice of jungler.
People have made comparisons to George "HotshotGG" Georgallidis, which will no doubt stick in Brandon’s craw, that he was another oldschooler whose position had become untenable as the game had passed him by. There’s a common theme here. When players who appear humble make mistakes, the gallery are quick to forgive. If you have the audacity to be outspoken in your views than you can expect every mistake to be blown out of proportion by a legion of people who watch your every move psychically willing you to fuck up. It is a reality that generally drives personalities one of two ways – into either a false reform, an affirmation that the mob was right all along, or into some form of bitter resentment that makes them come to hate participating in the thing that should bring them at least some sense of satisfaction. Credit then to Saint for never seeming to succumb to either.
Case in point – All Stars. The North American team went to the event expected to come last, to be embarrassed by every team they encountered. European fans especially goaded them with their ever-present sense of superiority. It didn’t go much better than predicted but they did get to silence the Europeans and it wasn’t a complete embarrassment against the Asians. One of the main reasons for this was the performance of DiMarco, not that it was ever acknowledged. Against China his Baron steal – yes a BARON STEAL – gave brief hope of the most unlikely of comebacks and his initiations, along with his score of 7-0-3, gave his team a platform through which at least to compete. He protected Doublelift to such a degree that every highlight reel of the ADC from that tournament prominently features Saint. Yet, what did people focus on? The fact that he made one mistake in not going to base, allowing him and Dyrus to be caught and lose the final fight in the game. I’m sure Tony Romo would empathise.
And so it was the same for most of Curse’s season. The team was indeed underperforming despite its roster and most of the fans concluded it must be SaintVicious that was the problem. Other professionals, such as the aforementioned Meteos angered by Brandon’s comments that Cloud9 were overrated, wasted no time in contributing to the discussion. It was deemed his personality was one that blamed others, that he could never accept his own mistakes. Yet, we know from other teams that you can have one overrated egotist in there without the whole thing tumbling down. The reality is the whole team underperformed and yet I never saw SaintVicious act as anything other than the lightning rod.
I mean, can we honestly say Joedat "Voyboy" Esfahani is anywhere near the same form as he was about six months ago when RIOT were having to nerf champions based around what he could do with them? As he tried to increase his champion pool to fit in with the current metagame a lot of his performances became remarkably ineffective at crunch times for Curse. Gone were champions you could rely on him to have an impact with and in their place were selections that just didn’t work, especially with his aggressive playstyle. Yet no-one seemed to mention this, not even the commentators, because ultimately everyone loves the player. He’s friendly and polite to all potential fans, he’s an exciting player to watch at all times because of his “risk versus reward” assessments and, on his day, he is the best North American top-laner… Just not right now.
Chenglong "Nyjacky" Wang’s limitations were also holding the team back, something that has been validated by effectively demoting him to Team LoLPro. Despite this whenever you watched Saint’s stream you saw him duo-queueing with the youngster, trying to improve him, berating him for bad plays in a friendly way and very much keeping a big brotherly arm around him. This was as much about helping him bed in to the team house as helping him bring something extra to the team.
It’s also fair to say the bottom lane never quite gelled either. The acquisition of Gambit Gaming’s Edward "Edward" Abgaryan was meant to fix everything following problems with Cody "Elementz" Sigfusson. Instead, the issue of Edward not being able to synergise with his ad carry – a big part of his explanation for leaving Gambit Gaming behind – seemed to be a recurring one. It was obviously a frustrating time for him and it showed, at one point visibly facepalming during a game against Velocity, the league’s whipping boys. David "Cop" Roberson didn’t acquit himself in glory over the course of the season and was also farmed out to Team LoLPro. Edward, after receiving his payday, is back to Europe and another fresh start.
For me, those two changes would have been enough to kickstart the team but the pressure has been on SaintVicious for some time now. I’ll wager he would have given it a try with the new acquisitions of Eugene "Pobelter" Park and George "Zekent" Liu. However, he knows as well as anyone if after replacing three players the team still underperforms as long as he is a part of it they will come under fire. His move to coach seems to be as much about giving this new look Curse team some breathing room to develop, without dumping his baggage on the doorstep.
Now, this is some fairly glowing praise and most assumptive. We do know that his interactions with teammates haven’t always been perfect. The public argument with Elementz is often cited as an example of this but as much as the resulting Vlog from the departed support might substantiate some of the claims, it’s clear that the two of them had simply muddied the waters of friendship and a working relationship, something that can often end badly.
It’s also true that he doesn’t hold back in his criticisms when things aren’t going well but let’s put this in a sporting context. It simply can’t all be about encouragement and praise. It can only go so far before a good old bit of stick needs to come out in place of the carrot. How the players have taken that we’ll never know because, unlike some other teams, Curse did a great job of keeping it internal for the most part. It’s probably fair to say though if they had a problem with it they’d hardly be enthused at the prospect of him being made coach and arguably having even greater dominion over the team.
What was refreshing was this was a player who actually wanted the burden of leadership, someone who wasn’t afraid to adopt the mantle. With so many apathetic players out there, across all of e-sports, who look for easy options and rely on quick fixes to get things done, those who can actually guide others are a rare breed indeed. This is a player who understands leadership as well. He has talked about it candidly, how his military background affected his mindset, how being one of the oldest competitive players can sometimes dictate relationships. He is someone with genuine life experience and in a world where even the average professional can come across as a sheltered manchild that can really be useful in galvanising and nurturing a team.
All of these qualities will definitely see him be a successful coach. Not in a self-righteous way like some of the others who think the key to success is group meditation sessions and debriefs that sound like marriage counselling. More like in the old fashioned way, motivation through challenging you to do better, pushing you at a time when someone who shies away from conflict would tell you it’s OK to stop trying if it’s too hard.
That’s all well and good but the trouble with League of Legends is that there’s little that can be done in this capacity once the game begins and that’s probably where you need it the most. Having an in-game motivator is vital to success and I don’t see anyone in the new team that can step up and do it the way Saint did.
And that’s the point, that for all the scoffing at his missed smites, or the silly mistakes that in isolation would make you think are mediocre, are maybe easily replaceable. Maybe you can find a technically better jungler and maybe that is Christian "IWillDominate" Rivera. What isn’t so easily replaced is the leadership and influence, the attributes that we know exist in all sports but that remain unmeasurable. His critics might not miss him but Curse sure as hell will.
