It's been a tough split for Winterfox. Though they came into it with the goal of being a "summer split team," they've still had trouble living up to the high expectations their fans had for the squad and are now stuck in relegation matches regardless of this weekend's outcome. This is due in large part to their lack of a stable roster, and this extends to the coaching role. Wil "dx30" Levine, former sub for Velocity, filled in as head coach while Paragon was out of action. Paragon arrived and took over, but then Paragon became the ADC, and dx30 was back.



Last week, they brought in a brand new coach: Tristan "ElderPeko" Young. While it's too late for his efforts to keep the team from playing in relegations, his joining the team came alongside the return of Gleeb to support and the departure of both Paragon and Imagine. I got a chance to chat with Young at LCS last week and find out some information about his history, about the struggles that Winterfox has been going through, why certain decisions have been made, and where they're going from here.

Could you introduce yourself, and tell us a little about yourself?

I'm Tristan Young. I had previously worked with an Irish team, getting some experience, and then moved on to become an analyst for Winterfox. Some things fell through with the organization in Ireland, and Winterfox decided to take that opportunity and pick me up for my experience in team bonding and communication and fixing a lot of problems.

At the start of the season you were an analyst with Winterfox while working with the team in Ireland?

I started working with Winterfox in January. That was very simple: all I did was a few pick-and-ban related things, some scouting on other teams – what makes sense for them to play, what kind of comps. But nothing to big.

What kind of a relationship did you have with the people involved in Winterfox before you took over as the head coach?

I think it was pretty obvious to everybody that they were doing fairly standard at the beginning, but as things started to slip away they really started to scramble to pick up those extra wins and make sure they solidify their spot for the summer split. There was a lot of talk about how WFX was going to be a summer split team, about how they're prepared to get better then and not too worried about this split, but then they needed to solidify that summer split spot first. They couldn't just plan for that and ignore this split. So I could see the teamwork and team communication falling through, disjointed shotcalling: some people want split-push comps and some people like team-fight comps, and trying to get the best of both worlds just wasn't working.

When you ultimately took over, what was it that you wanted to bring to the team and the position?

I really wanted them to feel comfortable with what they were doing and be an outlet for them to express ideas and opinions. The way they were working, they didn't really have a big influence as far as coaching staff, support staff, and things like that. It was very focused on the players and their decision making. I feel like it's much more productive if they have someone they can tell an idea to, sit down, talk about it one on one, have an unbiased opinion on it, and then talk about it as a team: some kind of mediator.

How is that different from the way Paragon or dx30 were approaching the team?

I don't know too much about their individual one on one performance, but from what I've heard from the team, a lot more of my focus is on how they're working together. Maybe you don't necessarily win games, but as long as everyone's on the same page for now, we can fix strategy later. We just need to be in the same mindset. In the past, I think it was a lot more heavily focused on individual play and being better in the 2v2 lane matchup, or 1v1 mid lane, rather than team strategy as a whole.

As I said, you're the third person to take up the head coaching role. Is that something you notice? Is it difficult to get the players to get used to a third person changing the style again?

I think they were not too serious about it at first. I think they figured “Okay, we're gonna go ahead and get a new coach...and hopefully things'll be different,” but I don't think they put too much thought into that. But I really think after Day 1 and Day 2, they realized, “Oh hey, this guy is actually going to make us do something now.” Because actually, the first night I arrived – about 10 PM on Saturday – we decided that very night we were going to bring Gleeb back. I just got introduced to the players, and we immediately sat down and asked what's working, what's not working, and what are the pros and cons of what's happening right now. We fixed those problems immediately, and then they realized that I was going to take it more seriously than anyone else.

So you were involved in the roster choice to bring back Gleeb?

Yes.

Do you know what happened with the decision prior to that, to switch Altec to support and bring Paragon in as ADC? Because no one really heard anything about that after that happened.

I think a lot of that was on individual skill, and needing an extra carry role to be involved in the game. With Pobelter obviously, everyone knows and hypes up Pobelter, but we want to have a backup plan. If for some reason he doesn't do well, what are we going to do in that position? Paragon obviously has previous experience and Altec's mechanics are really good, and his idea was maybe if we tweak something it'll work, maybe not, and immediately after seeing it you could tell there's potential for it to work but not enough time to get used to that change. It's not something that you can just change from one week to the next and assume you're going to do better.

Are both Paragon and Imagine no longer a part of the WFX roster?

We have to wait to disclose anything more about Paragon, but for now the plan is to keep Gleeb and we'll see where things go in the summer split. For now, the roster will be solid.

The communication between all the players has always been the big question mark for WFX. Helios has been in America for a year now with Evil Geniuses, but Avalon is fresh from Korea and both the coach and the support were as well. How has that experience been for you as a coach coming into this environment?

I think it's actually a lot easier than a lot of people would think because of the amount of time Helios has spent here. His English is very good, and maybe he's just a little uncomfortable to use it frequently. As far as ingame communication goes, communication is 95% of the time all in English, so there's no real problems. If things get way too specific in discussing lane swaps or individual matchups then maybe Pobelter has to translate just a little bit, but I don't think that's a problem.



Coming into the house though, on an individual level, it was a little difficult to get used to at first. Just changing vocabulary and taking things maybe not so seriously, or maybe one word meant a lot more than you thought. By now, I feel extremely comfortable talking to everyone and I feel their English is superb.

How is the relationship personally between the players? I know you haven't been there for too long, but for example CLG last year had players who weren't really friends outside of the game, and that led to trouble in the game. Are the WFX players in a comfortable, friendly relationship with each other at home?

I think for the most part yes, I think sometimes there's tension between what some players are expected to be doing and there can be frustrations just like any team, but I think it's very good. Right now, a big thing is getting Altec with Gleeb on support again because of all the changes impacting him a lot. It's definitely growing very quickly, and I think everyone is very comfortable with each other.

The big question for everyone who has had high hopes for WFX is obviously that Avalon has not performed to the standard that some of the other players on the team have. A lot of people have wondered why the bottom lane has been the focus of the roster changes, and why they haven't tried out another top laner. Is Avalon for sure returning for the summer split?

There's no guarantee for any player's return for the summer split, but I think a lot of the problems that have come about because of top lane are because of his passive demeanor and the rest of the team wanting to focus on mid and AD as the carry roles. Putting him on more supportive top laners, like Lulu, and occasionally we throw in Kennen or Lissandra, the job is still the same – initiate, and let everyone clean up. In a lot of the decisionmaking as a top laner, he'll contribute, sometimes it's not too much there. I for the most part think it's a very unfortunate coincidence that he's targeted so much. But there are problems, he can end up losing some 1v1 matchups. It's much better than it was a few weeks ago, and I think my working with him on a 1v1 level and really trying to understand his thought process, he's improving. The only problem is that he hasn't had that experience to climb the Challenger ladder, and things like that. It's definitely a work in progress, but I wouldn't say he's the sole reason why we're losing games.

We've only got one more week until the end of the split. What are your priorities to finish strong, because you've got Team Liquid coming up who could be a pretty tough match-up. What are you focusing on for the next week?

A lot of it is gonna be fleshing out the communication and making sure everyone's on the same page. I'm actually extremely pleased with their performance today (Sunday), seeing the changes that've been made in scrims and leading up to now. Granted, we did lose, but I think that was because of a strategy perspective on everyone's part. We lost as a team, which I think is extremely important. If we win, we win as a team, and if we lose, we lose as a team – not because one player underperformed. Going into next weekend, I have extremely high confidence that we'll do well. Team Liquid is doing really well and we play Coast as well, so if they do well, they do well, if we do poorly I think we'll understand why. I think that's more than half the battle to begin with. I think the only thing that we need fixing is fleshing out picks and bans and strategy as a whole, but as far as the way they're coming up with decisions, it's spot on.

Unless TL were to lose a couple of their matches coming up, WFX is very likely to end up in relegations. Are you confident you'll be able to remain in the LCS for the summer split?

Yes, I think so. I'm extremely positive going into relegations. There's always a chance, but it's extremely small.

Winterfox's fans really came into the split with a lot of hope, really excited about the team, and even amidst all the struggles they've been very supportive and it's been a fast-growing brand. Do you have any words of encouragement for those fans?

I think if everyone could see what's happening behind the scenes, now that we've solidified the roster with Gleeb and Altec on ADC for sure, if they were there at the house in the same environment, they would be very pleased with the changes that we've made. I can guarantee that the team as a whole is growing, and learning, and we should hopefully not disappoint.