My first year in Esports
My first year in Esports
I’m Alexandre “DrPuppet” Weber, 19 years old and I’m a Brazilian guy that lives in Germany for 10 years by now. In the following article I will share my stories and experiences of the past year I spent working in the E-Sports business. Also I will be sharing advices on how you can start and grow as a content creator and Coach in League of Legends and the general E-Sports scene.
The Beginning
I always wanted to do videos or give coaching lessons to newer players. I was not a Diamond Player, but I read, watched a lot of games and had a certainly good understanding of the game. In fact I loved every part of League of Legends and in general of E-Sports more than playing the game itself. Coming into the end of 2014, I decided to start content creation again and go all in into E-Sports when I wrote my Final Exams and had finished School. It was early December and we had a Project week in School and I was bored. So I decided to plan what kind of content I wanted to produce. Since I wanted to start studying Cinema one day, I came along the idea that doing video content of all kinds of stuff and having Journalism as a second option wasn’t a bad idea. So in the exact same moment I decided to interview the people that are not on the spotlight, this means Content Creators, Journalists, Coaches, etc. That lead to me just randomly tweeting to Thorin and ask him for an Interview. I need to be honest here, I only did two Interviews before that and they weren’t that great (I still have the Matt Demers interview on my Youtube Channel if you want to watch it), I literally didn’t have a clue what I was going to do, but I decided to give it a shot. And for my Luck (or not haha) he agreed to do the Interview and I was extremely excited about it, but also extremely nervous. I prepared some questions in a few days and went quite confident into the interview. I have to say I was inspired a lot by Thorin’s in depth interviews for the format “Behind The Scenes”. Besides me being extremely nervous and my camera deciding to stop working 5 minutes before the Interview was going to start and my Overlay being extremely amateur, I think I did ok for my first interview. I mean Thorin gave me a very solid feedback on what he liked and disliked about the interview and all I wanted was to do better next time. It was a great first experience only making me hungry for more. However I was forced into a break to write my final exams, so I couldn’t do as much content as I wished for a few months.
After School
In the timespan between December 2014 — March 2015, I finished my exams and had a lot more free time after that, but in January I did some work for Penta Sports (Thanks LocoEX for the opportunity!) and at the same time I created my first League of Legends team. Well the Team was created for a master tier friend I had at the time and due to a bet I started managing and coaching that team. Well that’s the moment I started coaching, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, so I decided to sit down and study it. The only problem with that was that I really enjoyed coaching and I wanted to be really good at this. This means I not only analysed many videos, but I also wrote analytical pieces for EsportsGO, GP10, SK Gaming and a few features (Thanks to everyone that I worked with, especial Thanks to CD_Mangaka and BrayllCS who always helped me a lot with my content and also to Ryan Tang for all his effort with GP10). This wasn’t everything, I wanted to learn, not only for myself but also from the best, so I decided to Interview people involved in E-Sports for Behind the Scenes and to share this experiences with everyone. So I interviewed 2 people that helped me a lot throughout my coaching career in many, many ways. One of them is INTZ Coach Alexander “Abaxial” Haibel and Weldon Green, who was entering the E-sports scene at that time. The Interviews were fun to make and they are definitely cool people, but they also were very insightful for someone that wanted to learn something. In regards of my content I did a lot analytical content but also journalistic content and breaking down a few stories. All I can say from that experience, is that being a journalist isn’t easy, but it’s a fun job to do. I respect everyone that does this for a living in the Esports scene!
Early Coaching Career:
Besides all the content creation I kept coaching and managing League of Legends teams. My first team disbanded after 2 months, it is so hard to build a roster and maintain it, however it was an extremely good experience and I was motivated to continue doing it. I met a lot of cool people and learned a lot of things that made me be the Coach I am today. The only problem is, keep building teams wasn’t an option for me any longer, since I wanted to go a step further and test myself. Due to all the networking I did, I got into the TGN network and found an NA challenger team wanting to qualify for the NACS, Aware Gaming. I did a week long tryout, investing all the time I could to get the position and convincing the managers that I’m the best fit for the job and thanks to you Nolan and Kyle I got the chance. The Roster was Anda, Beautifull Korean, dCard, Ciscla and Hakuho (he is currently playing for Frostbite). Sadly I only had a week time to work with them before the qualifiers and we lost in the first round to Mancloud’s and Bloodwaters team at that time. However it was an amazing experience to work with extremely talented players like dCard and Hakuho, but also all the funny moments I had with them and to meet the guys from Renegades and I’ve learned from our scrims together. You could say that it was like a small dream becoming true. Sadly we couldn’t get any financial support so we could stick together. I had to work 1 am to 7 am with them to watch their scrims, due to the time zone difference from the US to Germany. It was very hard at times since it was a 9 hours difference. In the end it was worth since I learned a lot and could finally call myself a “coach”. After my NA adventure I built a team in EU once again. I picked a bunch of talented people and they played together for a few months and did have a small success in the challenger scene. However I got offers to coach a turkish challenger series team, that I only coached for a week since I didn’t like the structure and a few players got mad at me that I wanted to create a schedule for their training. So I started working with Kev1n’s and Sola’s German Supa Hot Fire a German ESL Meisterschaft team. I had the chance to work with a lot of cool people and had a great opportunity to learn a lot from working with an ex-LCS player like Kevin. Sadly we lost at the semifinals of the Summer ESL Meisterschaft and I was sad about it because I knew I could have prepared them better and drafted better. Besides that a huge thanks to Sola and Mori from Summoners Inn to invite me to the Summoners Inn studios to be their Analyst and even cast some games. I hope to do it again one day. Well this roller-coaster ride didn’t end here then directly from that I started my next Coaching Job with Kaos Latin Gamers.
KLG and the Wildcard tournament:
I experienced a lot during all those jobs and experiences I had in E-sports until working with Kaos Latin Gamers. However this was my first professional Coaching job. I was a bit nervous since I was relatively new to coaching. After some meetings and Interviews, I got into a 2 week Trial phase to test my skills, knowledge and consistency at my new position. This 2 week trial that KLG’s manager R4ver gave me, was at the same time the preparation for the Closing Cup Finals against Lyon Gaming in Mexico. I studied a lot to prepare the guys as much as I possibly could, had some great help from my friends HeartlockLoL, CD_Mangaka and who I could call my Mentor Last Kings Head-coach Exorant. They did not only help me prepare my strategies but were always there to talk with me. And you know the biggest fears that a young coach can have is to be accepted and respected by the team and this is by far the hardest part of being a coach. I always had the luck that the people I worked with respected my work and ideas from the start, luckily KLG was one of those.
So we worked hard in that 2 weeks, we scrimmed, we analysed, we did everything possible to prepare for the finals in Mexico. I made it clear to the boys that we need to go with the mindset to not only beat Lyon, but we need to go with mindset of winning against Brazil at the Wildcard tournament. Then I knew how important it was for them not only to beat their Rivals Lyon Gaming but also to play in the Wildcard Finals in Chile themselves.
Sadly I couldn’t be in person in Mexico, but KLG’s Sub Primoo did an excellent job at executing the plan and stepping in as a Coach. And since that day I was the official Head Coach of Kaos Latin Gamers. It felt extremely good to win my first title as a coach, but the next step was to prepare extremely hard for the Wildcard to be able to beat paiN Gaming and Hard Random.
I went into that preparation with the same mindset. Our goal was to play the finals and then head to worlds. This meant also that I was flying to Brazil to train them during the tournament. We boot-camped a week in Sao Paulo (which is my hometown by the way) and all I can say is that we have learned in that 1 week more than we had in the previous weeks. I was quite surprise how well they welcomed me when we first met in person and we had a very good time together. I think certain moments marked our way together after losing all games day 1 into coming back stronger in day 2. Was definitely a true test for us to reset the mindset and come with a winning mindset in day 2. We managed to do that and with a little help of paiN beating Hard Random so they have to play the decider with us, we had the chance to beat them again that day. It was an amazing feeling and experience, we had support from everyone and this was great. Still huge shout outs to Hard Random, we got to talk a bit after the group stage was over and was fun getting to know them!
I can’t even describe that trip properly in words, it was just an amazing experience and everyone welcomed me with open arms and all the Rioters were all really great people.
I love travelling, I love coaching and then staying on stage in front of a 10000 people audience was impressive and to quote Melao13 “Once E-sports bites you, you don’t want to leave it”.
It is just amazing.
Coming Back to Germany:
After the incredible 2 weeks I started streaming and doing a lot of videos once again. With the intention to help people to get better at the game and give overall advices on coaching, soloq and sharing thoughts on the competitive scene. I noticed nobody was really doing anything for the brazilian community so I decided to start doing that by analysing my viewers games on stream and people enjoyed it that much that I even created a coaching series on Youtube. Due to my plans not letting me commit full time to Esports for now and a lot of offers not getting through due not being able to delay my start at university. I started studying Cinema in Hamburg Germany, but I kept coaching and doing content as my side gig. I’m looking to do a lot of projects in 2016 to help the Latin American and Brazillian scene grow and improve!
Right now I’m studying Cinema in Germany, Coach the BR Challenger Series Team Robot E-Sports and I’m analyst for Last Kings, while I also write for Liquid Legends and MyCNB.
What I learned :
In this year I learned a lot about content creation, marketing and coaching.
The first thing I had to learn as a coach was how to accept mistakes, defeat and how to learn from them. Sometimes it isn’t that easy to accept a mistake when people count on you to be right.
However this is also the thing that might differentiate you from being a good or great coach.
Or how important it is to be confident in what you do. Then how could someone believe in you if you don’t even believe in yourself? I really learned to believe in what I wanted to achieve and believe in myself to do so. Those were the most important things I took for myself this year.
And even though not everything was a great experience, wasn’t really well handled or after some personal struggles my first year in Esports was extremely fun and rewarding.
Some advices for everyone wanting to get into content creation and going into Esports :
Be Original:
When I first started doing content, I tried out a lot of different stuff.
I didn’t specialize myself in a field or tried to find acertain characteristic for my content.
I wanted to experiment and learn with different kind of content. This isn’t something bad by no means, but if you want to create a brand you have to find something only you can offer.
Basically you need a concept and a script. Before you even start working on your content you need to know how it should look like at the end. When you got the idea you either find a way to do it in a way no one has ever seen it before or simply something original, something that fits your personality. Original content doesn’t mean bringing out something new every time, you can be creative and do content everyone knows and add your style to it. I like to reference here to films and series, a lot of the things that we have watched throughout the years weren’t necessarily new ideas, just certain ideas reinterpreted or reinvented.
Be creative, experiment a lot and try a lot of new things.
You’ll learn and find something that fits you in no time.
Keep On it:
One of the things people tend to struggle with is to keep on doing the content.
A lot of my friends said I should stop doing content, nobody is watching it and you aren’t even getting paid for doing the content. However the most important thing is keep doing it. Never expect of getting paid for content right of the bat. You are new and lack on experience. You should focus on learning and improving. Only a few people get lucky and noticed right of the bat. So you need to create constantly content to get noticed. I highly recommend to maintain a schedule if you want to create a fan-base. Just never give up success comes with time,effort and dedication.
Networking :
One of the most important things that most people tend to forget is networking. A lot of people in E-sports are either extremely shy or don’t know how to network. However networking is extremely important for every job you do and its not different in the E-sports scene. The most people got their jobs in E-sports through contacts, friendships or previous working relationships.
Networking isn’t that hard, just go ahead and try to contact people of your field in social media.
You don’t have anything to lose and it could open up opportunities for you. Look at my example, I got my first interview by just reaching out to Thooorin on twitter and he was nice enough give me the opportunity. You should give it a try. Adding to that you could simply chat with other people from the scene and interact with them in social media. I learned a lot from people that I can call friends today, who helped me a lot along the way. Just be friendly and you should do just fine in terms of networking.
Shout outs:
So I hoped you enjoyed my Story and could take something for your own path and before I get to the end of this article, I would like to thank a few people that helped me a lot throughout my career and were always there for me when I needed them.
First of all thanks to Ryan Tang and the GP10 crew. They all are a cool bunch of guys and has been always fun to work with you guys on content or simply to chat in our lovely Skype chat. GP10 offered me a place to start posting my content and I made a lot of friendships there. So thanks to all of you guys!
Another huge thanks to my co-hosts and friends from the lovely Hold the Lane Podcast Jacob “Brayll” Wolf and Colin “CD_Mangaka” Nimer. Thanks for all the help on creating awesome content and all the fun time we had doing the podcast.
Huge shout outs to the guys I worked with at Aware Gaming and German Supa Hot Fire, the guys gave me the opportunity to grow as a Coach and fight my way up. I had a good time working with you guys and also learned a lot.
Huge thanks to R4ver and the KLG guys for giving the huge opportunity to expose my work as a coach to the world. I am still sad I didn’t get you guys to Worlds, but I had an amazing time with you guys and I will come back stronger next time, expect me!
Here again a huge thanks to Exorant,Cd_mangaka and HeartlockLoL that helped me a lot in my preparation for the Wildcard tournament and was always there for me to chat a bit about the game and in general. Not being a talented bunch of guys to work with, but also good friends!
Also huge shoutout to Scarlet and Luis who helped me a lot to get my stream and content in Portuguese going and became really good friends. Other friends that helped me a lot that deserve a hug and a huge shoutout Rose, Arthur, Kalina,Yono, Gotey, Tales (our lovely Gringo) and Michael.
Huge thanks to the guys at Robot E-Sports and Last Kings that I work with nowadays. It’s been a pleasure so far and it’s only the beginning. It will be a fun climb to the top!
But the biggest thank you goes to all of my followers, fans and friends, who supported me through all this time.
