oPlaiD joins NRG as coach

Earlier this week NRG announced that they had brought in two new players to their roster, clockwork and numlocked. They have now announced that former player from their early beta days and respected journalist, Sam oPlaiD Lingle, has also joined the team as coach and manager.

oPlaiD has history with the team as a TF2 veteran as well as playing with the original NotEnigma roster back in early closed beta. He was with the team playing Lucio from early November to late December 2015, but did not continue playing when the NotEnigma roster moved on. oPlaiD is well known for his work at Dot Esports, where he wrote feature pieces for years, becoming their first fulltime esports writer. He has left his role at Dot Esports to pursue coaching for NRG.

The acquisition of numlocked on maincalling hard support puts NRG in a new position. They have almost no time to find their feet before their next game at OGN APEX against KongDoo Uncia, and the lack of practice may result in synergy challenges that oPlaiD has to solve. There will be scant time before that game, but the moves seem to be designed with NRG’s long-term success in mind.

NRG stated that they had been having leadership issues with their former roster due to a delocalised calling structure. The raw skill appears to be present on their roster, and the addition of a committed coach could be the key to unlocking their potential as a tier one team. The team will also benefit from preparation against the Korean teams in particular at APEX, an area that has tripped up some Western teams already.

I spoke a little to oPlaiD about the change from journalist to coach:

Going back to your time playing for NotEnigma, why in the year since then have you not pursued playing or been involved in the game itself coaching etc.?

I'm not as young as I used to be and it was tough both competing and working full-time, and at my age it's also harder to have the luxury to focus on one when it isn't paying the bills. NRG gives me the opportunity to get back into what I love - competition - and make it my only focus, and I'm excited and grateful for the opportunity.

Why have you decided now to make the leap from journalism into coaching? What was significant about this opportunity with NRG or this time in your career?

It's a confluence of a ton of factors. Esports has never been in the position it is today. An FPS game like Overwatch which caters to my own personal experience as a player and team captain with such esports momentum has not existed until this year. Ironically journalism was one of the most stable career paths in esports over the past decade, but now there are more opportunities, so I'm exploring them. Doing it with a great organization like NRG and with a team of smart and professional players who I've competed with and against in the past made it an easier decision.

What do you forsee as your roles within the team as coach? Different people take different approaches to coaching a team, what do you envision your tasks being with this new NRG roster?

I'm going to start by taking over administrative duties from players like Enigma so he has more time to focus on his individual game, and spend a lot of time scouting to make sure we're prepared for whatever comes our way. In-game it's going to be a learning process to figure out how best I can assist the team. The players on this team are older and more experienced than most and we've all worked together before, so in many way I can trust them to take care of themselves. But I also feel there's a huge opportunity to make a major impact as a coach in Overwatch, and I plan to make that impact.

The new NRG roster is: