It is with great pleasure that we are announcing that our former analyst, Hermit, will be stepping up to fill the role as Origen’s Head Coach with immediate effect.
Hermit joined Origen at the start of the year as our analyst and his impact was immediate. Bringing a tremendous amount of in-game knowledge, sharp analytical skills and desire to win was a recipe for success. He vastly contributed to our Challenger Series promotion and kept us on top of the Meta and the team’s champion pools.
Shortly after we began the LCS and once again he helped the team to achieve an incredible amount of success. Towards the end of the split, Hermit moved over from the USA to the gaming house in Berlin to get closer to the team and worked alongside the players and LeDuck to improve our strategy. We finished second in the regular season, came painstakingly close to winning the play-offs and then assisted in hauling ourselves through the gauntlet to get the third seed at worlds.
After a small break where Hermit returned to USA to rest from the intensity of August, he then flew out to Korea to reunite with the team and help with the bootcamp. Such dedication and motivation was the final deciding factor for Origen, so we promptly decided to make Hermit our new coach.
We decided to catch up with Hermit to ask him more about his background, how he got into the lCS and what the future holds!
Tell us a bit about yourself, your background and what you did before getting into League of Legends?
My background is primarily in glass, both glass blowing (producing cups, bowls, sculpture), and the industry around glass (furnace construction and operation, custom glass fabrication). It’s not something that makes a whole lot of use of my degree, but its definitely in my blood, and I can see myself going back to it.
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Some people struggle to make the bed, Hermit makes these
I started playing League in Beta, my best friend got me into the game, and my first champ was Annie, I think I liked her because of her similarity to Lina from Dota. I was in college at the time, and neglected my studies quite a bit to play. I would head straight from class to the computer lab, where I had figured out some workarounds to have it installed, since my laptop was terrible.
At what point did you decide that you wanted to work in the scene?
I applied for a writing job with TSM in Season 2, just after I finished college, the task for the application was to predict the bracket of IEM Kiev, the event which showed the world M5. At that time I was watching every go4lol I could, and teams also streamed their scrims occasionally. I knew M5 had very little competition at that time, and that prediction led me to get the position. However, I was quite unlucky and was only able to stay with them for 2 months, after my laptop was stolen in an unfortunate incident. My longtime association with the European scene is what has led me to favor the region.
How did you go about getting a job as an analyst?
I watched the scene very closely for Season 2 and 3, but at the beginning of Season 4, I realized the limitations of the r/lol subreddit for serious discussion, most of the people I was interested in talking to were quite active on twitter so I made one and started reaching out and tweeting all the time about the games I was watching. I grew close to the LPLen crew because I loved watching Chinese games and the English viewership was quite small. Through them I met the (now former) coach of Machi Reazony, who had faith in my abilities. He learned from former LD/NiP analyst Clement Chu and passed a significant amount of knowledge to me. I worked with him until he left, and I decided to try my hand at getting a position in EU, since most of my contacts were in that region. Eventually I produced a piece (that made the front page of r/lol) on the games that Origen was playing in Ranked 5s. xPeke saw it and offered me a trial.
What are your new responsibilities? How do they differ from being an analyst?
Life as an analyst is quite isolated, depending on the coach and team. Generally I have several documents I’m managing: our scrims, opponent jungle pathing, and warding tendencies. With LeDuck my focus was primarily on scouting, and creating this content for him and the players. I also worked closely with Amazing to discuss particularly jungle pathing and how to abuse player’s tendencies. Lane swaps and objective set ups I showed what top teams in other regions did, and helped the team to adapt them to our play.
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The ever pensive look of an analyst at work
As a coach, I manage a team of analysts I recruited for worlds, who do much of the stat tracking and scouting discussed above. Primarily my role has shifted to structure discussion and ensure the efficiency of our scrims. Origen is lucky to have 5 very intelligent players, but often over the course of conversation the takeaway message is lost. This means I must make sure everyone walks away from the discussion on the same page about what to do next time.
What was your personal highlight of the regular split?
My personal highlight was game 1 of the finals against Fnatic, we spent a lot of time working on playing comps like the one we played, and it was really excellent to see such a performance, and vindicated the faith I had in the boys to perform on stage in the finals.
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Amazing group effort, even better group hug
Thoughts on worlds? Your chances? Have you been able to learn from the bootcamp?
The bootcamp has been a good experience for everyone. Not only are we getting practice against teams from all the major regions, but we’ve grown closer as a team. Group D will be very difficult, but I think we have an excellent shot at advancing depending on the form that LGD and KT show up in.
What advice would you give to anyone trying to get into coaching and analysis?
Watch vods, take notes, stop playing the game. Focus on the area of the game you find most compelling and find ways to discuss that specialization in the larger context of killing the nexus. It is incredibly helpful to find others to discuss the game with, and explore your ideas. The most important thing is realizing there is not a road ahead of you, but a forest you must carve a trail through. It isn’t easy, and the only one you can really rely on is yourself.
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Getting your suit game on helps too…
How do you keep your long hair so intact and shiny?
Don’t wash your hair every time you shower, too much shampoo damages your hair.
Please join us on welcoming Hermit to the Head Coach position! You can follow him at @mtnhrmt