To compliment our new assistant coach Froskurinn, Ram 'Brokenshard' Djemal has moved up to the role of head coach for our LoL.EU team. In this interview he talks about his path from a pro player to coach, his relationship with the team and his opinion of the EU challenger scene.

Hey everyone, I’m Dig Nightsend I’m here with Brokenshard and we are going to talk about his new role as head coach of our EU challenger series team. How are you doing today?

Brokenshard: Excellent.

First let’s talk about how you got there. You’ve done a lot of work in e-sports so far, both as a player ad with some coaching in the past. So why don’t you give us a quick rundown of some of the highlights of your career so far and what’s lead you to being a coach.

Brokenshard: I started trying to be competitive in the end of Season 1. Made LCS in the first LCS split ever with Dragonborns but didn’t play on the roster in the split. Made LCS again with Complexity, had visa issues, then played the last few weeks of LCS with Copenhagen Wolves. I was only a sub so they took their main jungler back. Coached Gamers2, has issues there so had to leave. Assisted H2K in the expansion tournament and parted ways when they made LCS. Joined “SK Prime,” I say that with quotations because we were only under the name SK Prime but not actually contracted with the org, which would then be Dignitas.EU in the challenger series where I was the jungler. Then had issues with the head coach so we split ways with him and coming into the new split I moved up to be the head coach.

Wow, that’s quite an impressive resume you have so far. Of all of those experiences where do you think you got the most practical experience to be a coach? Was it some of the coaching you’ve done before or the experience you had as a player?

Brokenshard: Watching Pr0lly when I was assisting H2K taught me a lot. Talking to other coaches when I was on Gamers2 and just in general. Ever since I left Copanhagen Wolves I’ve just been talking and learning from other coaches about how they play the game. Not how they play the game, how they lead their teams, and what their kind of style is.

So the best experience you’ve gotten for coaching is through other coaches?

Brokenshard: Basically, I’ve never really had a particularly impressive coach, one that I could say I really learned from. RNG did a lot of good stuff. Froskurrin, she was the analyst/co-coach she did a lot of good stuff with us. When I was on CW we had Ducky and he was technically the coach but wasn’t so active as much, but he did give us some good advice. I never really got coached by a super good coach, an amazing coach.

What experience do you can bring, a lot of coaches now are coming from being former pro players and moving into that coaching position, what kind of experience being a player gives you as a coach? Or do you think it’s relevant at all?

Brokenshard: It can be relevant but it’s not necessary. When I feel that it helps a lot is that it helps me get into the minds of the players and have a player mindset when I’m talking and discussing with them, setting up schedules and strategies. It’s being sympathetic to the player’s cause. It will help me generate some level of respect since they can say “yea this guy has done it as a player, he knows what he’s doing so we should listen to him because he’s definitely gonna know something as a coach.

Froskurrin mentioned in our interview with her that she tends to do the macro strategy stuff and you tend to do the more micro, individual work with the players is that mostly because you’re a former player?

Brokenshard: Yea, the dynamic between me and Frosk is that we both have a good amount of say in almost everything. Pick/ban, we’re both talking about what we need to do for picks and bans. General strategy and lane swaps, the big picture, she’s really good at stuff like that, rotations, lane swaps, turrets, objective control. When it comes to individual people, like “top lane needs to be using his teleport here, bot lane needs to be doing this,” anything specific to an individual and getting information from her to the players, that’s my job. So we both work with the players about the same amount but when it comes to leading, the direction and facilitating all the information I’m getting from her and the other analysts we have, I facilitate it straight to the team. I’m the bridge between the coaching staff and analyst and the players.

Are you also in charge of being the life coach, like getting scrims scheduled and making sure people are sleeping?

Brokenshard: I feel like I’m close with every person on the team. Everybody’s super cool after scrims, we just sit in the teamspeak server that we have and they play solo queue, they chat, they make jokes, we watch Counterstrike together. We have a lot of inside jokes. The guys are all pretty young. I think the oldest is 20 years old, they’re pretty young. They’re kids almost and I feel like in some situations I can be the older brother role, which is good because it gets me close to the players but not to the point where they’re like “we’re all buddy-buddy.” They still take what Frosk and I say very seriously which I think is really good. The best part about being a coach for this team, I wouldn’t trade it to be coach for almost any other team just because of the way the team atmosphere is. It’s fantastic.

And a lot of that comes from your “older brother but also head coach” role?

Brokenshard: They all like me and everyone is happy to be where they are and they’re motivated so we all share the same wavelength of energy and it just clicks.

What do you think of the current state of the EU challenger scene, both the teams and what Riot’s been doing to put more effort into making the challenger scene a secondary league instead of a feeder league foe the LCS?

Brokenshard: It’s a good first step but more needs to be done. It’s going in the right direction. When it comes to the actual level of the EU challenger series it’s lower than it was last season. Last season we had Gamers2, RG, us, LLL, Origen. Origen has left, I feel that Copenhagen Wolves Academy, former LLL fell of a little bit, G2 are losing a lot of their big players. RG, I never really felt that they were a super high level challenger team. We 2-0’d them but they got a playoff spot because we got disqualified for having underage players and not being able to field a roster for playoffs, I definitely don’t feel that they’re at a very high level. There are a few challenger teams right now that are good besides us. LDLC are ok. Copenhagen Wolves Academy are a lot more unpredictable than I would say. Sometimes they can do really well, sometimes they can do really poorly. Code, which is a challenger team that kinda came outta nowhere, are ok. They’re pretty good. Besides that I feel the overall level is good for us. We have one of the best lineups in the EU challenger series which means getting into LCS is gonna be, I wouldn’t say super easy, but more likely for us.

So do you think, everyone knew Origen was gonna stomp.

Brokenshard: They were the challenger series super-team.

Yea, do you think that right now the challenger series has a problem where former LCS players are coming in with a huge advantage and teams that have former LCS players get a bigger advantage or do you think that’s starting to get mitigated more by having a coaching staff and analyst staff?

Brokenshard: I mean, former LCS players that are good get picked up by LCS teams. If you’re a former LCS player and you’re not picked up by another LCS team you’re probably not amazing. I don’t think there’s much of an advantage. I think people are scared at looking at new talent to the point where in the challenger series new talent is what it is, new talent. It’s raw unbridled energy that you can just turn and refine into something a lot better. I can’t think of any former LCS players I would be scared to face in the challenger series, except for maybe Horo and Noxiak who are both from MYM. Besides that I don’t really fear any other former LCS player in the challenger series.

That’s a bit of a move then, because before the challenger series was where former LCS players went, so it seems like it’s getting to be a better breeding ground for new talent, do you agree?

Brokenshard: Well let’s take a look, Copenhagen Wolves Academy, none of these players were in the LCS but a few of their players did get offers for it. Gamers2, the lineup that was there, none of these players were in the LCS but some of them were close to it so they were at the high level. RG, 3 of their players were in the LCS and they aren’t exactly doing super hot. Former LCS players, just because you don’t get picked up by another team doesn’t mean you’re bad, it’s that not many have been successful enough to requalify, if that makes sense.

Yea, that makes sense. Do you have any final remarks or shoutouts for fans and viewers?

Brokenshard: Shoutouts to all the people that have been supporting dignitas in the online tournaments that we’ve been playing. I’ve been seeing a lot of turn-up, a lot of fans, a lot of people supporting us and really excited about the lineup. We’re really excited as well to be playing under dignitas, so shoutout to Team Dignitas for helping us get the resources necessary to bring the team together and help us find a support staff to make us as strong as we can be. And our sponsors, Corsair, Alienware, Multiplay, Intel, iiyama, Twitch, Scan, WD and TP-Link, thanks for your support obviously. We appreciate it. I’m wearing my dignitas jersey and my Alienware is right there, and I got my Corsair gear right here, and a mousepad as well. I’m totally not selling out by the way guys. Also shoutout to Scan for the tournament they ran over the weekend. That was really big for the challenger series. Not much going on but it’s nice to see other organizations taking interest in it and allowing us to have tournaments so that’s about it.

Alright, thanks Brokenshard and thank you everyone for watching.