Former SKT Head Coach Ccarter: “Korea has PC bangs. These platforms, at an early age, provides talent that other countries can’t utilize” Izento Follow May 26, 2018 · 5 min read

From left to right: Jin Air head coach Sangyong Han, Translator, Afreeca Freecs head coach and former Starcraft pro player Iloveoov, former SKT head coach Ccarter, Owner and former Samsung White/Blue head coach Yun-sang Choi, London Spitfire General Manager (acting host for panel) Susie Kim.

The 2018 Inven Global Esports Conference was a refreshing event. As Inven’s mission statement, this conference was held for the esports community, not for the general world populace. As such, I got to listen to multiple figures within esports discuss their own vision and explain their area of expertise; from players, to coaches, to owners, we got an array of perspectives that we wouldn’t otherwise get if this was an event which touted that we are yearning the praise of mainstream media.

In this 3-part series, I will bring you specific info of the panels I attended and the knowledge which I garnered from them, along with my opinions on each panel.

More than Culture: How Korea is Fostering the Next Generation of Fakers

In this panel, the head coaches (and former) of top teams give their strategy on how to cultivate talent, so that their players are able to excel at their positions within the team. Hearing these legendary figures speak, not a murmur was made from the crowd as everyone, including myself, were riveted and waiting in anticipation for the next word, regardless if we could understand the language or not.

Iloveoov, head coach of Afreeca Freecs, began by talking about how he disciplines his players and instills an environment that perpetuates hard work ethic.

“Players will reach an asymptote and once you’re able to break that wall or obstacle, they’re able to level up. The way I have them achieve this is discipline, and if I feel like they aren’t going to be able to withstand it, discipline a little bit more. Normally, people will discipline and then provide the compliments, the standard way, but if a player has extreme potential and you see it, then this has provided results for me. This might not be the best for everybody, but this is how I do it”.

The head coach goes on to express his concerns with over-training, saying that, “when you go through army service, you learn that in hard times, they reflect on harder times that they’ve experienced before and that provides them motivation to go forward”.

With Iloveoov’s coaching style, it’s easy to tell that he appreciates grinding and has developed the mentality of creating an intense work environment, and it’s hard to argue given that Afreeca Freecs have done well this past Spring Split.

Former SKT head coach Ccarter speaks about how to he has developed his all-star players. It seemed as though every word he spoke was thought out, with frequent pauses to gather his thoughts.

“There are a lot of track-and-field players that come from Africa. There’s a lot of soccer players that come from Brazil. I feel that these children are naturally exposed to soccer or running at a young age, so they enjoy doing it. It’s a group activity with your friends and not in the sense that they want to become a pro soccer player to earn money, but it’s more of a natural process. Just like in Brazil and Africa, Korea has PC bangs. These platforms, at an early age, provides talent that other countries don’t have and can’t utilize.”

“Another aspect to those aspiring to become pro gamers in Korea is that they have a common denominator of competition. I feel that is embedded in their genetic makeup and it’s part of them.”

Susie Kim interjects with a picture of a classroom, “the entire school system is on a bell curve, so you’re always competing against your classmates. So, a 90% is not always an A. Maybe a 70% is considered an A in this class. It depends on who is first, and who is last. So, this idea of competition is imbedded from kindergarten and is always a part of our culture.”

As difficult as it is to admit, I think this does ring true, that South Korea has a particular culture which has nurtured their populace in such a way to make them ideal candidates for esports players. I don’t think it’s coincidence that any game they’ve been heavily involved in suddenly turns into a competitive landscape in which Koreans dominate every other region.

The head coach of Jin Air, Sangyong Han, spoke about team environment outside of the game. He went in depth about individual player care, saying that, “when your players get into a slump, the way to recover is through talking, but if this slump continues, it’s very much a mental case and you want to send them to a psychologist for them to get that off their chest.”

“There are classes provided by Riot and KeSPA for self-development, media training and pro attitude education, along with our own team education. For our team education, we do encourage reading a lot and providing hobbies and being able to get personal time”.

The focus of Jin Air seems to be about building a player holistically. This approach sounds more akin to the western ideology.

Yun-sang Choi, owner of MVP, reinforced the ideas that Korea is still ahead due to their culture, but it’s possible that the rest of the world is catching up.

“I never spend a lot of money to buy players. Instead, I created a system and getting coaches that can systemize that is important. Once you have that system and coaching staff, you need time for your own team to create their own color. What I mean by that is, for the first 3 years of your team, do not provide stress over results to your players.”

MVP seem like an organization which depends on the ability of their coaching staff more than the ability of their players.

With all of these speakers, it was amazing to get all this insight into how a coaching role operates.

I asked the question; how do you discover players and scout for new talent?

The response was, sending out a public bulletin message which allows everyone to come and tryout. Secondly, the coach going out themselves to check solo queue rankings and reaching out to the players. Thirdly, they should have recommendations from pro players. You get tons of applications and then you have to whittle that down to in-game tryouts, then you invite the player into the house for 3 days, even sometimes 4 weeks to see their personality and how they get along.

It seems to me that Korea has a geological advantage, given that their country is smaller, yet has a larger playerbase for ranked queue. This allows them to accommodate their future prospects and do tryouts in person fairly easy. Scouting in North America would be far more difficult, given the physical size of the country and therefore may be a bigger time and money investment to fly players over for tryouts. I guess we’ll just have to take these coaches’ insight and apply it where applicable in NA.