A lot of eyes are on the MSI 2019 Champions in G2 Esports from the LEC in Europe, and the rest of competitive world have now put a target on their back, but that's not going to stop the team from having fun and getting better.
We were fortunate enough to spend some time talking to G2 Esports owner and founder Carlos 'Ocelote' Rodriguez about all sorts of things G2 and League of Legends. In part 1 of our interview, the player-turned-owner Ocelote took us through the experience of playing at and eventually winning MSI 2019 and crowning his team the World's best team in League of Legends.
Part 2 of this chat begins with a question about the team's all-European line-up and quickly blew up into a larger look at how G2 Esports is built, what it stands for as an organization filled with people, and the standards Ocelote himself sets for his players.
The Culture of G2 Esports
Does the win at MSI mean anything more, doing it with an all European roster, being an EU team? Having had Korean and other regional imports on the team in the past? Yeah. We’re not against importing from different regions. We’ve done it before, and we won in Europe with Trick, with Emperor, with Expect. So, we’re not new to importing. As a matter of fact, I think Trick was the first-ever unknown import that happened in Europe and he was amazing. Right, and he’s coming back. Yeah. Good for him. He’s really really good. Incredibly underrated.
There is always a payout, right. Everything is very mathematical here. It’s a very simple formula. If you import talent, you have higher access to better talent. Why is that? Because it’s a bigger player-base. The problem is that every region is different in terms of culture. Hell, even countries within Europe are very different in terms of culture.
If you import someone from South Korea to live in Berlin with a couple of Danish players, a Spanish player maybe, that’s a bomb. That’s a ticking time bomb. Because the cultural differences are too high in some areas. It’s not just about speaking English. Right. It’s definitely a problem in some cases. Complex problems often require complex conversations, and you can’t have a specific high-level conversation if you don’t speak the language. That’s number one.
Number two is simple things like being on time. I’m Spanish, I’m often not on time, and I’m living in Germany where people want you to be on time. People in Spain don’t mean wrong by being 3, 4, or 5 minutes late. Neither do I. It’s a cultural thing and you develop those habits as you grow up. That is the problem you face [in a team] with players from different regions.
Jankos is the only member of the current roster that isn’t extended through Nov ‘21, are there plans to extend him? Yeah, he’s the only one that hasn’t signed three-years. We’re not worried. I’m sure by the end of this year we will get them all in the same time. That’s got to be hard. Actually, it’s not that hard. Players know we’re a good org. Players know what to expect from us. Players hit their career peaks with us. So, I mean, if you’re a player and you know these truths, there’s nothing that can convince you differently or that you should join a different team. In a way, it’s happening with many other players and many other games. The best players in the world just want to join us because they know what we expect from them and they know we want to negotiate success in the sense of entertaining and in the sense of having ambitious goals. Competitively. Players love that. I mean good players love that. Mediocre players don’t really love that. And that’s okay. That means we dodge a bullet.
That seems really hard to do, especially in a sport like League of Legends. These big teams that were brought together for success never seem to stick around together for very long. Well, the challenge is that if the players are good and they are not winning and they want to win, they try to make changes or evoke changes in the line-up that they believe will make them better. That’s example number 1. Example number 2 is some of the players’ contracts just run out and they join different teams that can pay more, or they simply have a better line-up. What we have here is honestly a diamond. What we have is unprecedented, there’s nothing like what we currently have here, it’s never existed. If you asked me right now if you had asked me 6 months ago, ‘would you change anything from your line-up?’ I promise you I would say no. I wouldn’t change one player. Not even one. It doesn’t matter who you bring to my attention right now, there’s nothing I’d change. That’s a feeling I’ve never ever had with any team. And I’ve had (with G2) more than 100 different teams? Maybe more? I’ve never had this feeling.
Do you take a lot of credit for that? I was looking through old League of Legends photos and these players couldn’t have been farther apart, all on separate teams going so far back, and now every piece falls into place. Honestly, we have a staff team that is absolutely insane. We have Danny (Head of Team Ops) and Jamie (Head of Gaming Development). Those two guys are legends. Jamie has been with me and G2 since four years ago, and he’s my right hand. He has spoken with every single player that is in the organization even the creators. Either he sends the offer or I send the offer. He’s always there. So I give him [Jamie] a lot of credit.
A lot of this is a cultural matter. I know that when I’m not in front of the guys, they are doing the best they can. Not only in gaming, but in content, in social media, in sales. Whatever it is. And I think that’s because we have a really strong culture of over-performing. A high threshold of standards. That leads to the result where it’s not enough to get 2nd at MSI, for example. Everyone would say ‘getting 2nd is pretty good’ but we have created a culture where this is just not good.
What are some of the surface-level things you guys do to instill that culture? Well, first of all I am very happy and positive, but if I see a lack of proper attitude I actually go bananas. I just don’t accept mediocrity I don’t accept anyone slowing the rest. Because I take my job as a game, and I want to make sure that why I am competing against my competitors under the same ground rules, I beat them. It’s a game. A fun game. Actually, it’s not fun to lose. It’s fun winning. Winning at being more entertaining [as an organization], winning by having more fans on board, winning at getting more fans to cry at your content or smile at your content, and winning at raising trophies. Anybody that’s not on board with that mindset either gets replaced or doesn’t get hired. Simple as that.
Surface-level things, there’s a lot of team talks, lots of staff talk. You know, when things go south, I think we have a very good approach to problem-solving. It’s a combination of a sense of urgency, combined with -- you know, I am the sense of urgency -- the patience, which Jaimie is the sense of patience. And I think we have a very good combination right there. Also, Danny is very patient. I’m not patient at all, you know? We have a very good balance in there [G2] that allows us to tackle problems while still having a roadmap on how to tackle the next one, and how to avoid future problems. Also, we’ve been operating for four years and a half. We have a lot of systems in place that allows us to know when a problem is becoming a problem. You know, I spend a lot of time recognizing patterns, I think that would be my greatest strength. I see things and I ask questions.
If I see a team that is doing really bad in scrimms but still doing really good in official games, then I connect the dots and I know what happened the previous 15 times I saw this. Okay, so that means that maybe there is a lack of proper attitude towards scrimms and right now you don’t see the result, but probably three-four weeks from now you will start seeing the bad results of not having proper scrimms going. You know?
How do you (as someone looking from the top) feel about the team’s joking nature then? Nah, it’s perfect. I saw their switch flip once they were down against SKT, they became serious. I mean, they’re humans, right? You can’t always be joking all the time. Some moments make you react differently than others. I’m just very happy. Honestly, the team has the exact same culture that the organization has.
A culture of taking this s*** really seriously, it’s our job and we want to win, but we’re doing it while smiling, while trying stuff and being creative. I would be angry at you [the players] if your attitude doesn’t reflect that you care. Right. But I’ll love it if you show that attitude while having fun, you know? Right. Or, if you good off and don’t win. Yeah, I mean, if you’re having fun and you don’t win and still your attitude reflects that you’re working really hard then I still see no problem. Okay. Different people cope with losses in different ways.
You know, I used to get angry, and now I try to make jokes. I become self-deprecating. Like, we lost the CS:GO Major, so time to become a monk. *laughs* *laughs* That’s how I deal with the anger. Most of the players on our League of Legends team deal with it the same way. They will be like “oh my god, we suck, time to go back to flippin’ burgers.” *laughs* *laughs* At the end of the day, they’re doing this because they love the game. That’s something people should never forget.
I will get angry if you don’t have a mark to miss. If you don’t try s***. Right. I want to see happy s***, or aggressive, ambitious, and offensive s***. Uhhh … not offensive. *laughs* You know, banter. I want to see you having fun. That to me is number 1.
That kind of air of victory and goofiness that’s within the organization definitely translates into how you guys learn. They used to ask me “hey, can we tweet this?” but now they don’t. They know.
As long as you’re not being a terrible human being. As long as you’re not being a racist, misogynist, just things that are a no go, for anybody with any kind of common sense, anybody that can be considered a “normal” human being. That’s just very clear, and I tell them that. You have this box. This box of racism of all these things, and you never touch them. You never get even close to touching them. Otherwise, you’re a piece of s*** and there’s no place for you inside this organization. Inside this box, let’s play with it. You want to have fun and banter, just do it.
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With only a few weeks before the start of the 2019 LEC Spring Split, it's no wonder that the players on G2 Esports' League of Legends team have such great chemistry. In an environment that promotes the use of humor as a mechanism for coping, and fun as the number one ingredient to success, there's not a whole lot of room for strife.
Sure, we may be singing a different tune right now had G2 Esports' Spring Split gone terribly wrong, but as Carlos says, it's about showing the people around you that you're working to be the best and maintain that. Not the wins and losses that matter.
We wish the best of luck to Ocelote and his entire G2 Army heading into the remainder of their season and hope to see more organizations employ the fundamentals of trying your hardest and having fun.
