u/praynot

You can see throughout the series that T1 gets the exact same camera angles as BLG. Consistently, you see Daeny waving his notes around and showing it to the front camera, while T1 coaches keep theirs close to their chest.

Daeny also double side printed his notes and folded it in half at some point, so it was completely visible from every angle as he was waving it around.

Yes, Riot should be careful with leaking notes, but some level of responsibility falls on the coach, and this is just gross negligence. The cameraman can't predict when Daeny is going to be waving his notes around like an idiot.

You're on stage. You're gonna be on camera. It's not an unreasonable ask to keep that in mind. Blaming the production for this particular instance is wild.

Conclusion:

1. This "LCK-bias" conspiracy is an utterly moronic narrative.
2. The production should chill on the angles for sure, because I've been able to find this happening for literally every single team I checked: HLE, TES, TL, BLG, T1.
3. However, if your draft picks are completely visible from the FRONT cameras, then they deserve to be leaked lmfao.
4. T1 seems to be the only team NOT using any sort of printouts, which is the only reason their notes haven't leaked substantially more.

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Images 1,2,3: T1

Images 4,5,6: BLG

Images 7,8: T1 in other series

Images 9: TES

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Edit: Apparently the main issue was the coaching room camera. If someone could link the full frame or timestamp to the VOD where it happens, I'd love to see it.

Otherwise, it looks like every team gets the same camera angles from the 3 I checked:

T1: https://i.imgur.com/OWCWInS.png

TL: https://i.imgur.com/2ZTcovD.png

BLG: https://i.imgur.com/KWdav94.png

The only image getting sent to me is this: https://i.imgur.com/jgfoz5w.png

Can't do anything with that. Need the full frame.

It has nothing to do with the style, effectiveness, or anything else people seem to bring up, like the lack of "actionable feedback". People have a problem because he came off as very emotional.

In this clip from Eyes on SKT (2017), kkOma employs the same tactic: single out a player and tell them that they are dragging down the team to instill in them a sense of responsibility and urgency.

Except, it doesn't draw the same reaction out of people, because kkOma doesn't sound like he's lashing out in uncontrollable rage.

I'm sure there are worse clips of kkOma (this was in-between sets, so he's obviously not going for psychological destruction of his players), and there are better clips of cvMax.

The point is:

1. It's a commonly used coaching tactic, and can be greatly effective. No, this is not exclusive to the East, it's not a product of "toxic work culture", and it is not inherently abusive.
2. You can't judge the effectiveness, whether he's abusive or not, or what cvMax's wholistic approach to coaching is based on a few clips of him blowing up on his team.

I was going to make a much longer post but I'll end it with this:

The other side of this fence is that the coaches are gentle on the underperforming player, they continue to underperform, and the team grows frustrated and starts to resent said player.

An example of this happening was the dynamic between GENG Ruler and GENG Life, but there are countless examples of it in traditional sports as well.

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Edit for MAXIMUM clarity:

Since people are throwing up irrelevant studies, here's an excerpt from a study which should clarify why their studies about abuse is irrelevant:

Tough Love—Impactful, Caring Coaching in Psychologically Unsafe Environments

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9230064/

>Results: Both groups of players [successful and unsuccessful] found each of their talent development and high performance environments to be psychologically unsafe. Furthermore, players perceived coaches who were the most impactful in their development as offering ‘tough love’. This included a range of ‘harder’ and ‘softer’ interpersonal approaches that presented the player with clear direction, role clarity and a sense of care. It appeared that this interpersonal approach helped the player to navigate, and benefit from, the psychologically unsafe high performance milieu. (4) Conclusions: There appear to be a number of balances for the coach in the high performance setting to navigate and a need for more nuance in applying constructs such as psychological safety.

What cvMax does is plausibly within the "tough love" category. Nobody knows what ratio of "soft" and "hard" strategies he employs. Therefore, we should not label it as "abuse". That's it. That's the first point I made.

The second point I made was the validity of the specific approach captured on camera as a productive coaching tactic.

The coach singles out a player and tell him that he is dragging down the team. It's inherently humiliating for the player, but it is undeniably effective at achieving certain effects:

1. It reassures the other players that something is being done about this player's performance. If the coach is this frustrated, other players would be even more frustrated.
2. It creates a sense of urgency and guilt in the player about letting his teammates down, which ideally drives them forward.
3. Paired with feedback, it strongly reinforces the lesson. cvMax just called this "trauma" in yesterday's interview, which doesn't help his abuse allegations, but it is undeniably the same mechanism. Knowledge paired with strong emotion is better retained. If you can do this with positive emotion, great. Positive emotion is not always readily available.

Interviewer: Why do you think T1 is playing better in Round 2?

Keria: T1 always underperforms in Round 1 because we start practice later than other teams. That's why when we struggled again this year, I knew that we would bounce back and catch up to the other teams as time went on; and we are. Our individual skill and team synergy are steadily improving.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKvU05Kzo30

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It's generally understood that T1 start practice later than other teams due to their busy schedule: T1 and LCK sponsor obligations, ads, streaming, fan events, and so on.

Faker has additional miscellaneous obligations such as writing and giving speeches for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and UNICEF, which take away more of his time.

Clid complained about this in 2020 when he left T1 to join GENG. He said he wanted to join a team that would let him focus solely on the game.

T1 made changes to alleviate these issues starting 2022: stream flexibility, less streams during playoffs, no KeSPA cup (except this year because of Asian Games evaluation), no obligations during Worlds, etc. You'll find interviews from Joe Marsh, Polt, and Faker during this period where they heavily emphasize structural changes and cultivating a better environment for the players to focus.

Ultimately, T1 is a business and have operating costs. It's unreasonable to expect them to get rid of all player obligations. So, these issues remain, and are unique to T1.

It also means they will continue to underperform / have a "warm-up period" in-between tournaments, which should be understood to be the norm for T1. I think it would be good if casters and T1 fans keep this in mind when overreacting and evaluating their performance going forward.