Doruk Hacioglu has coached teams at all levels all over the world, from Excel in the United Kingdom to Chiefs Esports in Australia, but now he is back to his native U.S. as the head coach of the best team in collegiate League of Legends, Columbia College. Today we talk about coaching, his team, Mid-Season Invitational (MSI), and the development of North American talent.
Doruk Hacioglu: I was a player when I was studying in Edinburgh for my degree. As a coach, I just applied to several different organizations and institutions and the Columbia College offer ended up being the best option.
Well, if I’m including [the] entirety of collegiate, it’s a massive downgrade in skill. If just looking at top 2 or 3 teams, it’s still a lower skill level but not quite as bad. Mainly that it’s more casual since players have school work; they can’t dedicate one hundred percent of their time like in OPL.
I never thought the team was dead. I think the roster in itself is stronger than it was last year by a large margin. I expected our results to be frank, so [we’re] just working to perform our best.
Yeah, I think overall attitude of the team is very easy to work with and everyone gets along very well. Every player brings positives to the team outside of just their play.
Maryville and UCI. UCI is the best team in CLoL in my opinion. They just don’t have time to practice during the school year. I expect when it comes closer to the championship, they will clean up their play.
I think NA has very poor amateur infrastructure, especially when compared to its western counterpart, EU. It has improved this last year thanks to investment from third parties Bloody Gaming and PlayerOne. Amateur scouting in NA is still very poor. Seems to be that NA Scouting Grounds is the only thing teams look at.
I think people seem to still be sleeping on LPL. Honestly, LCK has been playing at a lower level then they have in the past even though SKT and Griffin have been looking good. I wouldn’t be surprised to see LPL taking the trophy.
D.
Hard to say — esports world is growing pretty rapidly, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see people put more investment into it. However, the world of esports doesn’t necessarily require a vast amount of resources, so amateur teams will always be able to compete against collegiate.
