NRG’s Head Coach Thinkcard took to Twitter and aired out management within the LCS for deciding the scrim schedule amongst themselves, rather than consulting the coaches for input on what works best for their players.
Communication between the players and support staff that make up LCS teams and the management above them has long been a pain point within the ecosystem. And, while many of these issues were tackled when the players staged a walkout, there’s still some tension between teams and their management.
Though players within EG and GG were burned by how quickly their orgs exited the LCS and left them without jobs, even those within the LCS have been vocal about wanting more transparency when it comes to day-to-day activity and team operations.
Thinkcard, NRG’s coach, aired his grievances with how the LCS operates as far as scheduling players’ scrim blocks, lamenting that he had no say in when players should practice.
Thinkcard calls for transparency from LCS team managers
NRG is a team whose success is, in large part, attributed to their coaching staff. While many members of their LCS Summer 2023 winning squad have been let go due to the weight of almost a dozen coaches’ salaries being unsustainable in the long-term, the remaining support staff is still highly esteemed.
Thinkcard remains as the head coach, and as a tenured figure within the LCS that has both coaching and competitive experience. He’s been around for years, and he’s undoubtedly played a huge role in NRG’s bombastic debut split.
He took to Twitter to call out LCS GMs for their lack of communication when it comes to things that affect both him and the players he coaches greatly like scrim block scheduling.
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The LCS GM chat has got to be published. Every year or 6 months they decide that a change must be made to the practice schedule without bringing in any coaches to the conversation and we just wait for our overlords to decide the ideal practice schedule. Are we going to be 2…
— Thomas Slotkin (@Thinkcard) December 21, 2023
“Every year or 6 months they decide that a change must be made to the practice schedule without bringing in any coaches to the conversation and we just wait for our overlords to decide the ideal practice schedule.” Thinkcard claimed.
He voiced his frustrations with the constant variance in scheduling, leading to him sarcastically mocking the process.
“Are we going to be 2 blocks of 3 with an hour break? 1 block of 5 with no break? 2 blocks of 3 with a 3 hour break? Will we start at 12pm? 11am? Stay tuned to find out cause as the Head Coach of the best performing western team last year I literally have no input lmao.”
Thinkcard’s callout led to a number of things being exposed, including Thinkcard alleging that there are other yet unnamed LCS teams who aren’t taking their coaches and players’ preferences into considering when it comes to creating a practice schedule.
Well this year between spring and summer I reached out to all the coaches and it turns out that some of them were in fact not being represented correctly by their GMs on their opinions of the ideal practice schedule (NRG did represent us correctly). Coaches should be directly…
— Thomas Slotkin (@Thinkcard) December 21, 2023
Additionally, the head coach claimed that just having his vote tallied isn’t enough; being able to provide a direct voice as a part of the conversation is what he’s ultimately after rather than team’s management having a conversation separate from the people it affects most.
its not about tallying a vote, its about how instead of pulling together coaches from all the teams to have a conversation, communicate their logic, and eventually vote, GMs do the whole process for us. We literally live the practice schedule, we know what works best for our…
— Thomas Slotkin (@Thinkcard) December 21, 2023
And, if coaches and players are kept out of the conversation when it comes to something like their practice schedule, who knows what else is being kept under wraps?