I'm talking about NRG Croissant. I noticed that after the match, the desk was talking about the team's support staff and mentioned pretty much everyone except for Croissant, NRG’s strategic coach.

I think it’s easy for people on the coaching staff to fly under the radar, especially in eSports, and it’s always hard to assess how much of a team’s success can be attributed to the support staff, but I think some respect is due to Croissant in particular.

A quick rundown of his career: Optic went from a bottom-of-the-pack team going 5-13 to going 9-9 the split that Croissant joined, and actually started showing some signs of life. He joined TL after they ended 9th in 2020 Spring, then TL absolutely dominated the next split, going 15-3 (for which TL won coaching staff of the split). Then he joined CLG in 2021 after they were dead last in the summer, and CLG won coaching staff of the split in 2022 after they had their best regular split since 2019. And of course, we now have that same team (basically) convincingly taking down the reigning two-time champs in a banger of a series.

The NRG players also looked super clean today, but I don’t think there’s any denying that a team that wins the championships without having any of their players in the all-pro team owes more of their success to preparation and strategy than your average top team. Also, in my (admittedly lackluster) experience, the teams that Croissant has been on have always looked to have good drafts and game plans going into games, and I don’t think that’s an accident.

Finally, I think it’s telling that Croissant is one of the only people in the scene who’s not a former pro or someone with some prior connections to the scene – he was just a cold hire by Optic as an analyst. For those of you who are not familiar, Croissant isn’t a content creator, but he made a video analyzing the TSM vs G2 MSI match back in 2017 and it’s clear that even as someone who was not yet involved in the scene, he had a very strong understanding of the game. He’s also not one of those analysts/coaches who are all talk and can’t play the game worth shit, because when he used to play solo queue back in his Optic days, he hit challenger playing multiple (maybe all?) roles, even while working full time as support staff.

At the end of the day, the NRG boys played very well, and of course praise should go to everyone on the eight-man coaching staff, but I wanted to show some love for someone who I think doesn’t really get enough credit for his role on these teams.