NA Challenger and why we keep scrims private

This morning I woke up to a bunch of Skype messages telling me to check Reddit. I scroll down, and I come across a NA Challenger pentakill clip with a name I recognise. Here's the clip.



https://plays.tv/video/578eca30710e9fedef/sivir-1v5-?from=user



The clip is taken from a scrimmage yesterday between deftiy's team (I don't think the org's been officially announced yet) and Serpentis eSports White.



That's where I come in. Hi, I'm Strong, and among other things I'm currently assistant coach for the aforementioned team (which includes directing scrims, as it happens). Here's a quick primer on why things like this are a problem.



To start off: it's not really anything to do with the specific information in the clip, or even that particular clip itself. If full scrims were being streamed, that'd be a far more significant problem because seeing a team's level 1s, their early macro play, any particular strategies or tendencies they have in mid and late game - that's genuinely information that could make or break a set or a multitude of sets for a team. I don't think any more explanation is needed on why that's an issue.



From that clip, you can only really tell the picks and compositions we're running (and yes, there's not anything mind-blowing there) and that we got completely wrecked in that game. I'd rather not have that information leaked, but it's not a huge deal in the swing of things. If you're so inclined, you could piece together what a team's picking in scrims by just having their members added as friends and hovering over their name when they're in a scrim. It's telling of how little that information usually matters that a surprising number of LCS players don't even use specific scrim accounts when they get given unlocked accounts anyway.



Why do we keep scrims private in the first place? There's an informational element (although that's more as an aggregate than for any one particular scene or even game), but it's basically about environment and trust.



Why do even amateur teams book out as many scrim blocks as they do? It's because it is (and has always been) a much better and more efficient form of practice than ranked queue because it lets us focus in on certain things, get to grips with new concepts, and most importantly, play with as little glare from the community of pros and fans alike while they're trying things that they're perhaps going to fall on their face doing for the first time.



By clips going up like this, you're basically saying "hey, this is technically private, but if you mess up hard, it's going out to Reddit, baby!". Even if we set aside any ethical issues, that's just not conducive to good practice, and it's the sort of thing that scares players back into their comfort zone and stops them growing.



We've assembled a roster for the current Initial Championship League split and beyond that's relatively young and for the most part is fairly new to competitive play. It's hackneyed, but I think there's a hell of a lot of potential, and I want to work with them to make them the best competitive players they can be. That sometimes means falling on your face in scrims. One individual event like this is a non-issue, but again: it's about a precedent.



Yes, players gossip about scrims. I'm sure players even show off clips from scrims to one another sometimes. I didn't see the deftiy plays.tv before it went on social media, but I did see another plays.tv from another player on that team from the same scrim block where he gets destroyed in a 1v1 by one of our players. The guys showed it to me, and we had a good laugh, but my message was the same then: even though they posted it, and it's them getting destroyed in it, that stays in here.



I hold no grudge against deftiy or any of the other players on the org. We'll probably scrim them again, honestly; that Sivir game was unfortunate, but we had two pretty solid games after that one, and it was on the whole a good session. It was an error of judgement by deftiy and the team staff, probably done in a moment of hype after what was a very good performance. It was a mistake, but it's a teachable moment - not only for them, but for the Challenger scene more generally - which is why I wrote this as a quick clarification of what's up.

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