LYON Rigby: "We couldn't get any scrims in the last week of playoffs"

Only a few days away from First Stand, sets its sights on São Paulo, hoping to deliver strong performances and represent the newly reformed League Championship Series (LCS) to the best of its ability, proving that North America remains a region that deserves respect. Still, with and in their group, the Mexican organization faces a daunting challenge.

In an exclusive interview, coach Han “Rigby” Earl sat down with Sheep Esports ahead of his trip to São Paulo to discuss the team’s preparation for the event, their first opponent , and to reflect on what happened during his previous tenures with Evil Geniuses and .

Han "Rigby" Earl: “Honestly, we haven't been practicing for a while because all North American teams are in their off-season, or on vacation right now. So there are not really many teams to scrim. Until this week, we’ve been on vacation ourselves, since we had a long season. We didn’t really have an official moment where we said “let’s get back to work.” Everyone just started practicing on their own, and that really made me feel good.

Still, even during our vacations, I often came to the practice room just to watch some games ahead of First Stand, and I was glad to see everyone on the team doing the same. We’re going to Brazil on Thursday, and the practice will take place there. I’m just really happy with the mindset that the players have, and really happy to be on the team with those players.

But yeah, we haven’t scrimmed at all since the LCS Finals. Our first scrims will be when we arrive in Brazil, on Thursday. Luckily, I’ve been on teams with LCK players before, so we might be able to get some LCK or LPL scrims. It’s usually hard to arrange those during international tournaments, but we might have that opportunity, especially thanks to Lira (Nam Tae-yoo, coach of

BNK FEARX

, and past colleague of Rigby on

Dignitas

).

Rigby: No, we didn’t have a chance to scrim the Brazilian teams at all because the ping difference is too big, so we usually avoid that. But ever since it was announced that would be our first match, everyone on the team has been watching their games. I looked into how LOUD played, and also how and played in the Americas Cup. I think LOUD has a very different playstyle compared to the other teams in that tournament.

They seem to play heavily around their Korean players, especially and . To me, they’re a bit similar to when we played them in the LCS. They’re a team that plays a lot around botlane as their main win condition. When they take fights, it’s usually with the bot duo and the jungle playing around them.

That’s basically my understanding of how LOUD wants to play the game. If botlane and jungle is their strength, then I think we should be favored, because that’s also one of ours. I think we could even match against Asian teams in that regard. We know how to play around a strong botlane, but we’re not only reliant on bot. That’s probably the biggest difference between LOUD and us, and in a best-of-five, we should be favored.

Rigby: Both teams are quite competitive, not just on the scale of the CBLOL, but also internationally. Personally, my roots are in the LCK. Many of the people in , like YoungJae or Bull, and even their head coach Raise (Oh Ji-hwan), were players I watched grow over time. Since I’ve known them for a long time, it’s much easier for me to prepare against them compared to . So in that sense, I would probably prefer to face LOUD.

But speaking generally about the Americas Cup result, confidence seemed like a big factor. In the LCS, we were the team that won in the end because we believed we understood how to win the game. Some of the teams we faced, like or , seemed to lose that confidence during the series or in practice. But when I watched FURIA in the Americas Cup, regardless of whether their plays were always correct or not, they looked very confident in how they wanted to play the game. I think that was the difference-maker.

Especially in Winter, every region has a different understanding of the meta, and every team has its own way of reading the game. At that point, it’s really important to believe that your way of winning the game is the correct one.

Historically, the difference between wildcard regions and major regions was often the laning phase. But when I watched the Americas Cup, I didn’t feel like they had problems in lane. That’s why I think it shows how strong the CBLOL region has become.

Rigby: During playoffs, and especially in the two weeks of practice before them, we prepared a lot. That was actually the first proper week of scrims for me because I arrived in LA pretty late, only about two days before the DSG series. After arriving, my focus was mainly on getting the team on the same page while also preparing as many tools as possible, since the format was fearless best-of-fives.

During those two weeks, we prepared a lot of different options to use against enemy teams. We actually saved many of them during the LCS playoffs, so there are still three or four things that we prepared but never had to show on stage. Even though the patch has changed, some things remain the same, so I’m excited that we might be able to use them here.

In terms of the new patch, it’s usually important to get scrim data about the champions that were buffed or nerfed, but since we haven’t scrimmed yet, I can’t be very confident about the meta. I do think the Azir nerf is pretty big. I’m also curious about the buffs Mel received.

For Ryze, I think it’s more about the team than the champion itself. Ryze gives you a very clear win condition, but it depends on whether the team is confident enough to snowball the game and execute it without making mistakes. In the LCS, it was quite hard to play perfectly with Ryze from early game to the end. So I’m excited to see how the Eastern teams play it in scrims and to understand the value of the champion better. In our scrims so far, we didn’t really feel like the champion was that strong.

In general, every region has a different read on the meta. I’m excited to see how our understanding compares to the others and then adjust once we start practicing.

Rigby: Personally, I don’t really think about it as an advantage or disadvantage. It mostly comes down to whether your team is someone other teams want to scrim with. Big teams, like Gen.G, BFX, or top LPL teams, are always in demand, so they don’t have problems finding scrims. Our region is not on that level. I want us to use First Stand as an opportunity to show how good we are. That way, in future international tournaments like MSI or Worlds, we won’t face the same problem.

The one disadvantage we did have was during the last week of playoffs—we couldn’t get any scrims because teams avoided practicing against us. They didn’t want to give us any prep in case we faced them, which felt really frustrating. That’s just a bad culture in the LCS. For example, I think TL were doing in-house practices, and C9 didn’t want to scrim us at all because they assumed we might make the finals.

At the end of the day, the team that wins has a responsibility to try to change that kind of culture. Since we were the champions of the LCS Lock-In, I think we’ll probably have a different approach in Spring. Overall, that culture just feels really bad—sorry, my English isn’t perfect, but “dog shit” is really the best way I can describe it.

What’s hard about this region is that if you can’t get an LCS scrim, you basically have to book NACL teams. But the country is big, and the teams are spread out, so you end up practicing with different pings and lower-level teams. That’s the tough part of being in this region.

I don’t want teams to be afraid to show what they’re prepping in practice. You can hide certain things if you want, but practice is also about learning how to win games and how to approach different types of teams. There’s definitely a more mature way to handle it than just avoiding scrims because you might face a team later.

I think we should try to be good role models. Last week of playoffs, we didn’t have proper scrims before the last three matches, which felt really bad. I understand it from TL or C9’s perspective, but it still felt frustrating. I also want to say thank you to Sentinels—they were the only team willing to scrim properly and help give us a fair chance in practice. That kind of sportsmanship is really important.

Rigby: The role of head coach and coach isn’t really that different, especially if both of you just care about winning. I just do whatever I think will help the team win, regardless of whether it’s traditionally my job or not. We split responsibilities pretty evenly.

Reignover had been with the team about three weeks before me, so when I arrived, I spent a lot of time at the office—sometimes until 2 a.m.—just talking with everyone. Even during meals, we’d discuss the game. That kind of constant communication helped resolve a lot of problems.

has been a really admirable figure, especially on an LCS-level team, because of what he brings and has achieved. When you respect someone like that, it can be intimidating to ask questions, but because I already had experience working with these players, I was able to engage with him, joke around, and have meaningful discussions.

I’ve also been talking a lot with the rest of the team—, , , —and we’ve started having more conversations as a group of five, which really helps build cohesion.

Rigby: What people don’t really know about him is that, while he’s known for being straightforward with his teammates, he’s actually the most strict with himself. If you start a conversation about his own play or how he could improve, he doesn’t need anyone else to point it out—he processes it himself. That self-discipline is what makes him really good.

He’s straightforward to others, but because he’s also self-critical, his teammates don’t feel bad about it. He only cares about winning, and as long as the people around him also care about winning, they respect how he’s direct with them. That combination—caring about others and being highly self-aware—is the first thing that makes him special.

The second part is how he approaches the game. After IG won Worlds in 2018, a lot of young players focused more on mechanics and micro-play. Inspired still focuses on creating good situations first. The principle is: if you set up the right situation, even if you make a mistake, it won’t cost you the game. That mindset—prioritizing strong positions and macro thinking—is rare, and it’s something he consistently brings to every team.

It’s similar to what other top players emphasize: studies macro to compensate for potential bad mechanical days, and prepares runes and builds to cover for stage performance variance. Inspired applies the same philosophy, making sure the team is always in strong positions to succeed and minimize the impact of bad days.

Those two things—his self-discipline and his focus on creating good situations—are what make him such a strong player and why he elevates any team he joins, not just in his region but on the international stage as well.

Rigby: I feel lucky to have the chance to speak about this now. Regarding EG, most articles about the team came out after I joined the military. At that time, I couldn’t respond because my freedom of speech was restricted in the army. For Dignitas, the team didn’t have great results, and as head coach, you are ultimately responsible for results. That’s why I didn’t speak out about bad atmosphere at the time. There were mistakes on my end, but a lot of the negative perception is based on misconceptions—things I heard from fellow players or coaches.

The main issue was that the players were relatively inexperienced. As people, they were great, and I would be happy to have them as friends, but they weren’t mentally prepared to be pros. By that, I mean putting the team above yourself, focusing on winning above everything else, and letting personal feelings take a backseat to the team’s performance. That mindset is hard to have, but without it, you don’t succeed professionally.

Our roster lacked a figure who could model the mindset of a pro for the team. Lira and I as coaching staff tried to guide the players on mindset and professional approach, but sometimes hearing it from a teammate carries more weight than hearing it from coaches. That gap affected the team’s development, and I feel responsible for that.

From a self-reflection perspective, I think I expected the players to be more “pro” to take the first steps, but we weren’t functioning as a fully professional five-person unit throughout the year. There’s definitely some fault on my side, but I also hope the players learned from the experience. Even though the year wasn’t successful, processing it has helped me this year, and I hope it helped them too.

Rigby: Honestly, I feel sad about it. Last year, as a team, we didn’t achieve good results, and I feel especially bad for Srtty because he was the most rookie on the team. Winning would have helped him feel more confident in his decision to go pro and see that his solo queue skills could work at the professional level. Not giving him that opportunity is something I feel sorry about the most.

As a person, he’s one of the nicest I’ve ever met—gentle, respectful, and kind—but in my opinion, he wasn’t ready to be a pro last year. On top of that, last year was an exceptionally tough time for toplaners, with the lane swap meta making solo queue experience almost irrelevant. We tried to support him as a team, adjusting drafts and gameplay, but nothing fully worked, and he had doubts about his role as a pro.

During one game, after a loss, he even said in front of everyone that he was happy we lost because he didn’t want to play the matchup. As a head coach, I couldn’t allow that type of attitude on the team. Professional teams require everyone to prioritize winning, and expressing defeat in that way isn’t acceptable. That behavior ultimately led to him leaving the team.

I understand why he felt that way, but it was still unacceptable professionally. I did speak with him after, explaining why it couldn’t happen, and I hope he took it as both a pro lesson and a life lesson: no matter where you are, you need to stay focused on your primary goal and act professionally.

Despite everything, I genuinely like him as a person. He’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met, and even though the experience was bitter, I hope he learned from it and will grow from it. I want him to become a better person, and that would make me happy. It’s a complicated feeling for me, but that’s the honest perspective.

Rigby: EG was completely different. The atmosphere was really good—everyone liked each other, and even though we were very straightforward with each other, we still cared as human beings. The atmosphere between players and coaches was great. That showed even when Danny (Kyle Sakamaki) wanted to retire and we had to emergency-sub in, we still made Worlds.

Some people have said they thought I was the reason Danny retired and had issues. I think that was because of an interview I gave at MSI, where I said we “forced” Danny to play champions he wasn’t comfortable with. That wasn’t just for Danny—it also involved Inspired, for example. MSI was during COVID, ping was high, and we had to adapt.

The real issues were with the performance team. I first heard about Danny’s retirement three weeks after he told them. I felt we shouldn’t force him to play; retirement is a big decision. The performance team hiding this information, combined with not submitting Kaori as a substitute, caused problems. Kaori was available and capable, but management didn’t submit him, which forced Danny to play extra games while we applied for an emergency sub.

Even with Tomio (Tomio Phanlith Chan) as a sub, I suggested letting Inspired play mid, bot—just play with Tomio. Forcing someone who wants to retire makes it harder to achieve your goal of Worlds. I was the last person who wanted Danny forced to play. What frustrated me most was the staff giving reasoning like, “Danny won’t feel like that in playoffs, he won’t feel that after losing once or twice.” That was just coping.

I kept telling the performance team to approach these issues, but they didn’t. They just coped all year and didn’t allow Danny to retire or manage subs properly. I feel bad that Danny had to play two or three more high-pressure series than he had to because of the sub issue and the staff’s reasoning. All the players were good, and that was the real problem.

Rigby: The team’s focus—not just mine, but everyone’s—isn’t just about winning against LOUD, it’s about winning against . That’s how you make it to the semifinals, and everyone is thinking about that. I hope fans feel excited because we’re really locked in.

This is also a really important opportunity for Saint and Jonah, since it’s their first international experience. Our team isn’t just satisfied with making it to the international stage—we want to perform well. We’ll use First Stand as a valuable experience to eventually realize that dream. So please keep supporting us. We’ll always try to win and make our fans proud, no matter the circumstances.”