CBLOL 2024: How to evaluate a staff? – Turtle talks about the Liberty 2024 project

O CBLOL 2024 starts soon and the More Esports will feature a series of interviews with players from each team. Today we have a conversation with Turtle – o Head-Coach da Liberty 2024.

Stay Closer

To bring the community even closer together, I would like to tell you a little more about the tone of the interview. Turtle he’s a professorial guythose teachers who explain calmly, jovially – like Liberty 2024. Each answer has an explanation and a touch of review.

I think you can see the interview this way, it’s the closest way to capture our conversation.

Change of scenery: why Liberty?

It’s not like Turtle isn’t working with young people in Fluxo, and with some even more “walking” in CBLOL. Why be the head coach of a project like Liberty 2024?

The main point that led me to Liberty was the structure and organization, I felt that what Liberty offers in terms of facilities, both for players and staff, is very similar to what I saw at EG (Evil Geniuses), which It is an organization that I have a lot of respect for offering so much support to both sectors. And I really like working with younger players, developing talent. Combining the two things, I felt like this was where I wanted to work.

For those who don’t remember, it was at EG that Turtle became the first champion coach in a major league (LCS). That team had promising young people, like Jojopyun (C9) and Danny (retired).

At Liberty 2024, the cast will feature 2 young talents debuting at CBLOL – Makes e Drakehero (he played a few rounds, but was not a starter in the squad), 2 young talents with a slightly longer experience – Piloto and Cavalo, and the veteran Micão.

However, what stars the Liberty 2024 project is the staff.

Liberty 2024: Coaches at the heart of the operation

Still going back in time, in 2019, Turtle and BeellzY worked at Keyd, which finished first in the CBLOL regular phase and third in the play-offs. At Liberty 2024 the duo returns after 3 years and many assistant-coach titles, who participated in the third consecutive LOUD championship.

Was it already a desire to work with BeellzY again?

Since I came back from the United States, BeellzY and I were always talking to see when we would work together again, it ended up not happening in 2023, but in 2024 we did it. So it was a desire since I arrived in Brazil. We just wanted the right window, opportunity and organization to join forces again and especially developing talents, which is a passion we have in common.

And do you think there is a change between BeellzY pre-LOUD and post-LOUD?

Look, he (BeellzY) certainly had a step-up after all this experience with LOUD, and especially in the Head-Coach experience, I think he will be able to transform this knowledge to the part he likes most: Positional Coach. It added a lot to him, just like my experience at EG, and we add much more to each other than before.

Keeping the subject on staff, I asked the coach about the number of coaches: The more the merrier?

Having a larger Coaching Staff is certainly something that can help your team a lot, but there is an important point in this. You have to know how to organize everyone, right? Because it’s not an easy job, so you have to get everyone on the same page, not only valuing the professional, but also allowing them to see the effectiveness of their work and add to the other. I think it’s not just a question of number, but how you organize it, I think it’s the part where they fail the most in general and in experiences previous ones I hadwithout being here by you EG.

Coaches and the meta

A lot will change in the game, and of course the backstage group also has views on it, so I asked what we can expect, given that from the mix’s to the start of the leagues, a lot has changed in terms of goals and priorities.

I think this change has happened, and even among the major leagues themselves there is a lot of difference. The beginning of a patch is always a discovery because you want to fit what you think is strong with what was already taking priority, without having much support from what’s going on out there, and now that we’re seeing a little bit (of what’s happening out there ), it is too late for CBLOL teams to adapt 100%. It’s difficult to know what to expect, but it looks like there will be very different goals for each team in the CBLOL.

And Turtle told me that this is a moment in which the Liberty 2024 staff shined:

This larger staff is certainly helping a lot, especially at the beginning of the 2024 Season, because, for example: when we started playing in the new tournament patch, which pro players had early access to, we were already working a lot on about what the new items would be like, especially the hello, he was in charge of discovering the functions of the new items. And he did a sensational job in being able to identify the changes and bring to us and the players what is stronger and what is not.

Turtle claims that he, BeellzY e hello take care of CBLOL, but do not fail to exchange ideas with Sephis e Koga (Academy). Apart from the analyst team (Mytka, Carlins e Eryon), that accumulate data for the team.

We even managed to train with coaches to test things on the patch! Because we have such a large staff that we managed to close a 5v5 with everyone on the staff, then we called two more people to be able to test more things while the players trained, so that we could have as many new things happening as possible, so I feel like Our preparation is a little ahead of other teams in relation to the new changes.

Liberty 2024 – from staff to players

I tried to understand with Turtle how the new players were recruited, and he replied that they went after players – according to the coach – who were aggressive.

Players who seek to play the best they can in the match-up are not aggressive for the sake of being aggressive. They try to make the most of the match to gain individual advantage and distribute the lead with the team.

And the veteran Micão? Why precisely him?

Micão was chosen because he had a lot of experience in many different teams. We identified that within the game he still manages to make great progress, this combination caught attention. It wasn’t anything so specific to the ADC role, but it was the person who fit in with the team. He was a very important piece in putting together this cast.

How to evaluate a long-term job?

Something that is highly questioned in the community is the talk of long-term work, which for some seems like lip service, and in other situations seems to be effective. Seeing that this project is like this, I asked Turtle what he considers a satisfactory objective for this first moment for Liberty 2024.

I don’t like working for results. I like to work on the process, so at first our goal is for our players to get to the stage, show the things they are learning and their evolution: not only to the public, but to them as well. This is our expectation and nothing more. Obviously, as the season progresses, we will always want a playoff, to be champion, and to go abroad – mainly – to have an even better experience. But we are focusing much more on this process, especially in this first year, seeing what went right and what went wrong and what to improve for the following year.

And since what draws the most attention and focus on the project are the coaches, I asked what always generates debate: cHow can the community determine that the staff’s work is good?

That’s a good question!

Coaching staff is a difficult thing to see, it is something very internal, to be honest I also don’t know how the public can understand it more. But one thing has to be kept in mind: the draft is not just the responsibility of the coaching staff or just the player, it depends a lot from team to team, I’ve been on a team that was 80% player and 20% coaching staff and in team that was the opposite. It’s not just the draft that is the result of the coach.

The Liberty 2024 coach concludes:

What the public can notice is that, for example: the evolution of the team throughout the season or even the adjustment to the meta, I think these are two comparisons that allow you to see how the work of a staff is being both monitoring the meta, a team countering another team, and countering certain player picks and the team’s evolution. Even so, it’s still difficult for you to see, you have to have a very analytical eye, but there are two things that you can identify whether the staff has an effect or not.

Expectations for Liberty 2024

To end the interview, I asked Turtle to tell us what we can expect from Liberty 2024 and a message for the fans. Check out:

I think you can expect a very active and fast game from Liberty, and also a fun match with personality. And I was very happy that Liberty fans liked our project and continue to follow us and thank you for everything!

Liberty’s debut at CBLOL 2024

A Liberty debut in the tournament against INTZ in the fourth game of the day. Follow complete coverage of CBLOL 2024 1° split with game calendar, results, table and other information here on More Esports.