Snakes molt in order to grow, remove parasites or ticks, and harden their body against the frictions they face. Depending on the species, snakes will stop eating for a long period of time while hiding in a safe place. Since they lack limbs, they can only remove old skin by rubbing it against a rough surface until it breaks around the mouth and they can wriggle free. But the external skin of a snake is a single unit with scales locked together. Removing one piece is impossible without throwing out the whole.

For a team like Splyce that has retained a tight-knit group that seemed to stagnate all year in play, the snake logo seems apt.

Much of what it needs to work on are the flaws the team felt were solved last year, and in a European League Championship Series backdrop where the concept of coaching is challenged, Splyce have dropped two head coaches in a year as it searches for a flawed piece to flush out.

In reality, there's no one person to blame.

Splyce's rise from the promotion tournament at the end of 2016 spring to claiming the third seed at the World Championship feels almost accidental, and players on the lineup have attributed it to shedding stage fright and improving individually. For Martin "Wunder" Hansen and Chres "Sencux" Laursen, Splyce became more daring and learned how to predict opponents.

"I see some players playing a bit aggro," Sencux said about his stage performances in the 2016 spring split. "I sometimes think they definitely have support behind them, even though I know they shouldn't, so I would play further back than I normally would have. I think that was the main problem."

These simple fixes appeared to give Splyce a boost. Locating more openings, especially in mid-game fights, put the team in position to place second in the 2016 summer split. Even though Splyce dropped from the World Championship group stage with only a single win, it was optimistic about growing.

"We are really close friends," Jonas "Trashy" Andersen told Yahoo Esports at the time. "It would be sad to see what we built this year become whatever."

Several analysts still projected Splyce to stay near the top of the EU LCS coming into the new season in 2017. Casters Martin "Deficio" Lynge and Mitch "Krepo" Voorspoels placed Splyce in A Tier, designed specifically for teams "expected to fight for first."

"At the start of the season," support Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle said. "I was expecting us to play for first with G2. We were the only ones that had the same rosters."

Courtesy Riot Games

Splyce lost in its first week to H2K Gaming, then in Week 3 to Unicorns of Love, and finally to new LCS team, Misfits, in Week 4.

"As the split went on," Mikyx admitted, "I kind of realized it wasn't realistic."

Sencux described their games as "slowly losing without contesting something."

The team started to see some of the same issues from the 2016 spring split manifest itself in 2017.

"We just don't pull the trigger enough as we should," Mikyx said. "Even if we have leads, we don't snowball leads."

The idea that Splyce couldn't anticipate plays loomed again, though these flaws didn't come from individual laning ability. One of the strongest narratives behind Splyce's success was its poor laning but strong late-game macro. More often than not, Splyce sustained itself by minimizing damage in losing lane matchups. Then Wunder would pull top pressure, and Sencux would find a mistake or a teamfight opening with a scaling champion like Kassadin or Malzahar.

"We just don't pull the trigger enough as we should." Mihael "Mikyx" Mehle

"Our faults in early game -- I wouldn't say we're bad laners," Wunder said, "because I don't think we are. Our issues in the early game is definitely setting up more with Trashy. From watching our games and knowing our players well, I know that Trashy -- compared to other junglers -- is not as active in the early game."

Sencux also shirked the notion that Splyce had a sophisticated macro plan during its peak.

"Me and Trashy didn't have that good synergy about getting mid pressure and roaming together," he said, shrugging. "It was mainly just farm mid and then just see how the game goes. Then try to gank top and get Wunder fed. That's most of the gameplans back then."

For Splyce, the year started looking up -- even with a somewhat one-dimensional top-centric focus -- when Blade of the Ruined King champions like Fizz and Kennen became popular in the top lane. A snowballed Wunder rampaged through many of Splyce's matchups in the last split, and the team seemed likely to take revenge on Misfits in the first round of playoffs.

It started out so well.

Less than ten minutes into the third game of 2017 EU LCS spring semifinals, with two game wins under its belt and first blood secured in the mid lane, AD carry Kasper "Kobbe" Kobberup's Kennen split off from Mikyx's Braum with Lightning Rush. Mikyx left to 1v2 Misfits' Steven "Hans Sama" Liv and Lee "IgNar" Donggeun. Hans Sama's Kalista side-stepped Winter's Bite, and IgNar's Death Sentence landed. Mikyx fell, evening the kill score.

Splyce began to unravel.

When Jonas "Trashy" Andersen and Mikyx went to secure vision around river, Misfits' bottom lane duo used the wave advantage to pressure Splyce into the entrance of their own jungle. They wiped out Splyce's jungle and support duo, and Splyce lost the third game and the two games that followed.

Perhaps the gravity of the loss from a two-game advantage prompted Splyce's first roster change in almost a year. Coach Jakob "YamatoCannon" Mebdi parted ways with the team, and Fayan "Gevous" Pertijs took over.

"My biggest difficulty was that I didn't feel like I could grow," YamatoCannon said.

Jonas "Trashy" Andersen prepares to take the stage at the European League Championship Series. Provided by Riot Games

His comment reflected Splyce's overall feeling of stagnation, a team that kept falling into familiar pits of disconnect with its jungler and top laner stuck in rote. Almost every member of Splyce said that the primary reason for replacing YamatoCannon came with a need for "change."

Splyce wanted a fresh voice to tell it things it didn't already know.

Only AD carry Kobbe alluded to deeper problems within the team dynamic, though he avoided elaborating. "Even in the first split," he said, "we were a bottom team, but we still didn't have the same problems."

"With Yamato," he added, "it was more that we had some internal issues."

But like the rest of his team, Kobbe insisted that one of the primary reasons Gevous was picked over YamatoCannon was a need for fresh ideas.

Kobbe said, "[Yamato] saw the game in kind of a similar way as us because he also taught us so much in the beginning, that we always knew when we were watching reviews that we always thought the same."

Initially, Splyce felt like it was expanding its options with new head coach Gevous. After Week 6, the team was still working together and converging on an upswing. In retrospect, the team described this as a "honeymoon" period.

It saw the 0-2 loss to G2 Esports as a wakeup call.

"After the G2 series, we had a bit of a talk," Mikyx said.

Wunder added, "[After the G2 series], our communication and how we present stuff to each other and our general game plan is something we put a lot more focus on."

Splyce seemed to boil some of its drafting woes down to a need to look for more balanced compositions. The team had spent the year attempting to draft all pushing lanes without "sacking lanes" or communicating intent with its jungler.

"One of the problems I had in the past was that we have three lanes that usually like to play pressure matchups," Trashy said. "So as a jungler you are kind of stuck in a place where you want to help everyone, but you can't really help everyone."

"It was more that we had some internal issues." Kasper "Kobbe" Kobberup

Most of Splyce didn't think its drafts or plays changed drastically with the addition of Gevous. Sencux and Wunder both pointed out that Gevous' main difference from YamatoCannon came from a focus on "micro" problems.

"Micro is mostly how the players use inputs and how they are mechanically playing overall," Gevous said. "The overall concept of micro: playing in circles, where certain positions are most ideal from playing out. Seeing the lane as kind of like a chessboard -- kind of the Uzi way -- which is then an example I bring up to bring up an extra layer in League of Legends."

With Gevous, Splyce still weren't necessarily addressing the underlying problem.

Trashy was perhaps the most candid when discussing some of Splyce's difficulties.

"The problem for us in the past was that we didn't address the problems we had in game," he said.

He used the example of playing more with Mikyx, something that certainly improved for the team in its Week 7 games against Ninjas in Pyjamas. Initially, Trashy and Mikyx had difficulty timing backs and moving to pressure mid together.

"Like we didn't actually go detailed into looking at why we couldn't utilize the bot lane well enough and what we should do instead," he said. "We have put a lot of work into figuring out how to do that. Mikyx and me are talking a lot more together and making plans together like one or two minutes ahead of what we want to do."

But the general Splyce theme persists from last year: a failure to think in advance and get things done. Teamplay specifics have only started getting addressed.

"One of the problems for us was that we are really close friends," Trashy said. "But sometimes that also holds you back a bit because you're not maybe as direct to someone. ... I feel like we have been struggling with our coaching staff to push us. So if we are not pushing ourselves, and we are not being pushed from other people in the group, we have kind of been stagnating in that regard."

While the team doesn't share this sentiment unanimously (Sencux argued going "harder" may lead to a bad environment), it's easy to see how that problem can grow.

Every member of the team vouches for their strong, longstanding bond as a group of five. After all, teams live with each other, and preserving that dynamic can save sanity outside the game, and more importantly, in-game.

YamatoCanon, former coach for Splyce, joined Vitality as its head coach. Provided by Riot Games

Splyce remained relatively tight-lipped about its problems, promoting its friendship as an integral part of the team, but that didn't mean quarrels and arguments weren't part of the fabric of its team dynamic.

In a house where everyone pulls his weight and works to improve, it's hard to be the first player to raise his voice and point out a problem. Taking responsibility within a group of friends to single out flaws or hammer in a point that not everyone agrees with can create too much friction and threaten what Splyce have tried to build. Add in the feeling that everyone below the age of 20 has many years left in his career, and issues can drag.

Part of this could be why Splyce have gone through two different coaches this year.

After Gevous' departure, many in the org expressed different views on what they'd value in his replacement. Everyone agreed that there was no ideal coach who had both an authoritative presence and strong game knowledge. They were, however, split on which was more important.

"I think that the authoritative part would be the second priority," said Hans "Liq" Christian Dürr.

"Some teams need a guy who can take over and be kind of the military guy who says whatever you want to do and set people up for success and not be the kind of analyst type instead," Sencux said. "We kind of needed something in that order in a way."

One can see how Gevous didn't align with the players' priorities.

"I want to give responsibility to players in order for them to also grow," Gevous said. "Because if only one person is dictating into drafting, it will limit the players so much. I give them a lot of responsibility when it comes to drafting. Even in the G2 series, I kind of gave all responsibility away just kind of as an experiment."

And then: "It didn't go too dandy."

"Some teams need a guy who can take over and be kind of the military guy who says whatever you want to do and set people up for success and not be the kind of analyst type instead." Chres "Sencux" Laursen

There are many reasons Gevous may not have fit with Splyce beyond lacking the authoritative philosophy Sencux sought, but the desire for an authoritative coach is not unique to Splyce.

Mysterious Monkeys jungler Maurice "Amazing" Stückenschneider's recent Facebook post on coaching in Europe began with the line "Coaching. Authority. Leadership. When you hear these words, you'd usually imagine a Greg Popovich, a Phil Jackson or a Pat Riley - undeterred, always in control."

As romantic as the notion of, in Amazing's words, "a man's man" coach is, League of Legends already makes this difficult by virtue of being a game where coaches can't shotcall live. There is no absolute control a coach can exert, and players will always have to have some lion's share of initiative. A coach's influence will always be limited.

A coach who can solve all problems, tell each player exactly what to play and how to play, has emerged as a wistful and unpractical dream. For Splyce, it may appear desirable because the players don't want to be the ones to rock their own boat.

"We didn't really want to point fingers," YamatoCannon said. "They didn't want to point fingers at me as well. That was just the situation. It just seemed like the right move because I didn't feel it was correct to point a specific player. 'This is how we change the dynamic,' because that was what was necessary in Splyce: a change of dynamic."

And it's changing, slowly, in-game. But if it wants to stick to the unit it's built, it may begin with ripping off the outer layer of skin. Splyce have put itself in a position where it can no longer "part ways" with a coach who doesn't tell them exactly what its problems are.

"When I look at the situation Splyce is in now," YamatoCannon said. "I think it's a good situation for them because I think they have five players that -- if they don't have a crutch to lean on -- they realize that the only way for them to have success is to take it upon themselves."

YamatoCannon, like Gevous, more than likely had more problems within the Splyce dynamic than just not "pointing fingers." Splyce's inability to identify flaws is its failing as well. At the same time, one also shouldn't form a picture of Splyce in their heads as a team too afraid to even bring up a major macro point without making their Berlin apartment unlivable.

No doubt, as Trashy has said, it's already started to change. Part of Splyce's hesitation may be the team's young age, as most of its players are under the age of 20. They have long careers ahead, and the organization values them as assets. In their heads, they may have time to fix their problems.

"We've had big issues," Kobbe said. "But we managed to solve them, and I think that's what made us stronger in the end."

Though the results of playoffs may have major implications for this group of five players and whether or not they stay together for 2018, the bond they have built so far should be able to withstand more scrutiny. The snake has built strong skin as a unit, and the best course of action may be to cause some internal friction, rip it off, and build a new layer again.