Hotshott’s Building Blocks
George "HotshotGG" Georgallidis is one of the most polarizing figures within the League of Legends community. As the founder of North American powerhouse CLG, he is often criticized for poor roster swaps and poor team management. While CLG constantly struggled to maintain a strong and consistent lineup, Hotshot had a knack for understanding how to make the organization stronger. Over the lifetime of CLG, Hotshot has pioneered roles within the organization, always looking to improve the development of CLG.
The First CEO
In July, 2012 Hotshot realized that he needed help with running the CLG organization. Between traveling with his team and maintaining his streaming persona, he had little time to work on the business end of CLG. He needed to find someone who could speak on the behalf of CLG, attend sponsor and partner meetings, and focus on the general health of the organization. On July 2, 2012 Hotshot appointed his mother, Helen Georgallidis, as acting CEO of CLG.
The creation of the CEO position would be the precursor to Hotshots brilliant and progressive stance on organizational development. Having his mom oversee operations and relationships with CLG allowed for Hotshot to continue to do what he loved, compete in League of Legends. During this time he would learn how to play the jungle position, travel to Korea to compete in Azubu the Champions Summer, and play in the Season Two World Championship. Meanwhile, CLG continued to grow under the guidance of its newly appointed CEO.
While Helens time as CEO would be short-lived, spanning the length of six months, the impact on CLG would be profound. This experiment would set Hotshot up to look into other ways to support his organization. And with the start of LCS right around the corner, he would look to East to decide what structure he should adapt.
The First Coach
The first LCS split proved to be disastrous for CLG. After narrowly avoiding being relegated into the amateur scene, Hotshot knew he needed to change how the team was managed.
During this time, North American teams were heavily reliant on players to devise pick and ban strategies along with in-game strategies. Many teams had not adapted the ideas of the east, having dedicated support staff along with coaches for the teams. On July 24, 2013 Hotshot would go on to sign Korean OGN caster and analyst, Christopher "MonteCristo" Mykles, to coach CLG, being the first western team to sign on a fulltime coach.
While the initial split after MonteCristo joined CLG was subpar, the team was able to avoid the promotion tournament all together, avoiding any chance of being relegated out of the league. The following split MonteCristo would go on to make massive changes to the CLG roster while focusing on developing relationships amongst the team members. During the first split of 2014 CLG would have their best showing at a LAN tournament since 2012, placing third in the North American Spring Playoffs.
After the crushing loss to TSM in the Semifinals of the Spring Playoffs, CLG members would lose faith in their coach, MonteCristo. He would eventually be unable to overcome the problems of remote coaching, and the team would go on to have another abysmal LCS performance. The poor performance would lead to MonteCristo leaving the organization.
Despite the negative publicity that following MonteCristo dismissal, Hotshot was successful in changing the North American scene. He was one of the first adapters of hiring a full time coach for his team. This led them to having their best showing in North America since Season Two, and set a trend that every other team would follow. After the 2014 Summer Playoffs, Hotshot would go on to tweet “I won’t let this happen ever again… Change will come, I promise”. By the end of 2015, he would make good on that promise.
A Refined Effort
The start of 2015 would be a similar story for CLG. The team would look strong during the initial part of the split, and eventually fall off during the Spring Split Playoffs, resulting in a 5th – 6th place finish. Shortly after the Playoffs, CLG would announce the departure of current couch William "Scarra" Li.
With only a few weeks until the start of the 2015 Summer LCS Split, CLG was in desperate need of a new coach. Hotshot opened up applications for the new role, but this time around the requirements were different than before. His team was not looking for an ex player like Scarra, or even an analyst like MonteCristo. On May 28, 2015 CLG announced Chris “Blurred Limes” Ehrenreich as the teams new Head Coach.
Blurred Limes brought a unique skillset to the CLG coaching staff. He was not brought on to deal with picks and bans, or even discuss strategies on the map. Instead, he was to focus on the aspects that the team was struggling in. Having experience in athletic curriculum building from Clemson University, He had experience working in traditional sports environments. His experience is focused on building his coaching team, as well as developing his players into stronger athletes.
Bringing on Blurred Limes and reorganizing his coaching staff worked. CLG secured a second place finish in the 2015 Summer Split, guaranteed themselves a second seed into the LCS Summer Playoffs, and a chance to qualify for the World Championship. But before playoffs started, Hotshot had one more surprise announcement for all his faithful fans. On August 6, 2015 Hotshot announced he would be moving into a President/Owner role of CLG, bringing on ex-Dignitas Life Coach Devin "Mylixia" Nash as the new CLG CEO.
With Mylixia heading organization direction, and Blurred Limes rallying the League team, CLG looked poised to have their strongest playoff run since MonteCristo coached the team in the spring of 2014. All of the gambles that Hotshot made would finally pay off, as CLG would sweep through their playoff opposition. They would move onto the championship finals where they would dismantle their longtime rivals, and reigning champions, Team Solo Mid. This win would be CLG’s first LAN tournament win since 2011, and would secure the team a North Americas region 1st seed going into the World Championships.
Why these Changes Matter
It is easy to look at the results CLG has had over the last split and give the credit all to the players. After all, the lineup had so much talent that it would be hard for them not to have a top finish. But a roster filled with potential is nothing new to CLG. The difference this time stems from having the proper support structure in place to facilitate the growth of these players.
When Hotshot first brought on MonteCristo he showed the North American scene the importance of a coach. CLG was able to go from a bottom ranking team to a top three finish within one split. The leadership and structure MonteCristo was able to provide the team with, even from a remote location, was unparalleled in the North American scene.
While the remote coaching situation would eventually be too difficult form MonteCristo to handle, and player-coach Scarra did not work either; Hotshots gamble in Blurred Limes paid off. Blurred Limes does not need the game knowledge to coach the team. He has coaching staff, such as his strategic coach and analysts who are able to handle that for him. What he does have is experience dealing with growing a team, and tackling the mental blocks that these members might be going through as they grow within competitive scene.
By bringing on Blurred Limes, Hotshot not only takes the pressure off of himself, but also his players. If a player messes up in game, they no longer have the deal with the stress of answering straight to the owner of the team. Now they answer to Blurred Limes, who has authority over the team from Hotshot, to help overcome whatever might be holding back their development. Hotshot no longer has to painfully deliberate on how to motivate, support, or even bench players that are underperforming in games.
With the team showing results under the leadership of Blurred Limes, Hotshot looks to expand the organization. Mylixia allows for Hotshot to take a step back from the development and growth of CLG. He can now watch as Mylixia, who has experience with starting organizations and developing infrastructure, flushes out CLG as a brand. And Mylixia has already shown results as he continues to develop the CLG Counter Strike team, and he spearheaded the Visa issues with a League of Legends player.
The brilliance in Hotshots structural changes is that they work. He no longer has to worry about the daily dealings of the team or the organization. Both branches now operate separately from one another, led by their experienced professionals, and report to Hotshot. As this split has shown, these changes have already had results in the League of Legends team who is geared up for a strong Worlds Championship showing. With Mylixia looking to build the CS Go team, Halo 2 team, and expand into more games, this might be the start of the CLG organizations “#FaithAge”.
Photo Via Riot Games/Flickr