Coaching request: How to navigate building a last place team
Recently, I spoke with a friend who works as a strategic coach for a tier-one team. I asked if he was facing any challenges. His answer was interesting:
“We just finished building our roster. We scouted several strong rookies, but couldn’t hire them in the end.
The team now has three rookies and two veterans. The head coach is very experienced and has worked with the veterans for years. The vets are excellent. But two of the rookies lack the mechanics needed for tier-one play.
Our staff only includes a head coach and a strategic coach. No psychologist or analyst.
Every year, the league gets stronger. I’m genuinely worried we’re building a last-place team. How would you approach this?”
Having a “Frankenstein” roster isn’t rare, even in tier-one. What’s unusual here is having rookies who lack mechanical skill. Normally, rookies have strong mechanics but little competitive experience. This situation is tougher.
Understanding the Context
A balanced mix of experience and hunger
Three rookies and two veterans can be an ideal setup.
Rookies bring hunger and energy. They take risks and push boundaries. Without veterans, though, that energy often turns into chaos or ego battles.
Veterans, on the other hand, offer stability and experience. They help rookies avoid major pitfalls. But sometimes their experience makes them rigid.
The mix works because each side balances the other: the veterans add structure, and the rookies bring curiosity and drive.
Quality and continuity from veterans and coach
Continuity is undervalued in esports, especially in tier-two or regional leagues where rosters change constantly.
Veterans who have long worked with the same coach can act as an extension of him. They already share synergy, habits, and a clear sense of what works. That accelerates team development.
It can also be a double-edged sword because experienced players sometimes resist change. But the short-term benefits far outweigh the risks, they help the team find its foundation faster.
What Could Make the Team Fail
The main risks are:
Rookies’ mechanics don’t improve fast enough.
Rookies struggle to adapt to tier-one competition.
Veterans refuse to accept rookie limitations and adapt to them.
Poor synergy between veterans and rookies slows down finding the team identity.
Any of these could lead to the most dangerous outcome:
Team morale collapsing after early losses.
The fifth point is the critical one. Weak teams that spiral aren’t as bad as their results suggest. But along the way, the staff failed to manage the situation, causing the players to lose trust in the staff and hope in themselves.
How likely is this to go wrong?
Honestly, quite likely. A group with limited experience and subpar mechanics will probably have a rough start.
But that doesn’t mean it’s doomed. It just means you must prepare everyone mentally for what’s coming.
Prepare Them for Failure So They Can Succeed
You’ll need to sell a harsh dream:
“We’re going to struggle early, but if we keep working, we can become great.”
That may sound disheartening, but it’s the truth. Pretending things will go smoothly only sets everyone up for disappointment. Be clear about the challenges and teach them how to respond when things inevitably go wrong.
When reality hits (and it will) you want the team to stumble, not implode.
Step 1: Address the Elephants in the Room
Be open from day one about the main struggles:
We’re a new team and need to find our identity.
Rookies need time to adapt to tier-one competition.
Two rookies must improve their mechanics. This will slow our progress, but the staff will support them completely.
Step 2: Lay Out the Plan
Build around the veterans and head coach’s strengths while accepting rookie weaknesses.
Support rookie mechanical improvement.
Commit to a grinder mindset and trust the process.
At first, players will agree because the plan makes sense. You’ll get rational buy-in
Later, when results disappoint (and they will), you’ll need emotional buy-in: the belief that the struggle is still worth it.
Build on Strengths and Accept Weaknesses
1. Establish a Strong Foundation
The veterans and head coach already share synergy. Use that as the foundation to shape the team’s identity. Build every development plan around their strengths, and identify how rookies can complement them.
In this article I explain in detail how to how to do it.
2. Accept Rookie Weaknesses
If rookies have several weak areas, accept them as structural until their mechanics reach a baseline level. Trying to fix everything at once leads to slow progress and frustration.
Instead, leverage their strengths, even if that means using off-meta picks or unusual playstyles.
3. Embrace Your Weirdness
If you’re potentially a lower-tier team,stronger teams will simply out-execute you playing standard meta.
But if you lean into your weirdness, your unique strengths, you can outperform teams unprepared for your style.
You’ll be stronger with a distinctive identity than with a half-baked meta one.
Improve Rookie Mechanics
Create the Right Environment
Everyone must understand that developing rookie mechanics is a team goal:
The staff provides structure and feedback.
The veterans create room for growth.
The rookies grind outside scrims.
Everyone stays patient.
To speed up progress, reduce the rookies’ mental load in other areas.
Limit champion pools, simplify communication duties, and tailor strategies around their comfort zones. Their gameplay might dip temporarily, but the long-term trade-off is worth it.
When judging scrim performance, always factor in this developmental focus.
Train Smart
Rookies must work like maniacs, but efficiently.
Mechanical skill includes two parts:
Accuracy: raw execution, timing, and precision.
Pattern recognition: reading situations, predicting, and reacting fast.
For accuracy, use any available aim or reflex trainers. For MOBAs, even simple online precision games help.
For pattern recognition, study matchups, cooldowns, and champion interactions. Watch montages, pause, and ask, “What would make this play impressive?”, then analyze what happened.
Daily practice is non-negotiable. High-level solo queue should be a constant. Smurfing should be banned except when learning a new champion.
Adapt to Learning Styles
If a player learns fast through repetition, focus on volume over review.
If he doesn’t, help them learn champion cooldowns, interactions and memorize key matchup rules like, “When they do X, you do Y.”
His learning relies more on memorization and repetition than adaptability. Once the patterns are ingrained, adaptability comes naturally.
The Grinder Mindset and Trusting the Process
Having a “grinder mindset” is often associated with working hard, but hard work is frequently misunderstood as simply putting in high volume and intensity.
In reality, it means:
Embracing challenges mentally, socially, and physically in both practice and competition.
Working with focus, especially on bad days.
Refusing to surrender mentally, no matter the score.
Increasing workload when required.
Resting seriously to perform well.
Talking openly when something’s wrong instead of letting it rot.
In this situation:
Rookies grind mechanics and solo queue.
Coaches guide and protect their development time.
Veterans focus on their own mistakes instead of blaming others.
Everyone will commit their time and energy and continue to support the plan, even when things go wrong.
Trust the Process
This is about emotional commitment, believing things will eventually pay off even when results don’t show it yet.
It means fixing your own mistakes before pointing fingers.
And it means respecting the time rookies need to catch up.
Coaches must constantly remind everyone why this hard path is worth walking. Problems are part of the process, not proof of failure.
I recommend holding an “empty the backpack” session every three weeks, an open meeting where players can vent frustrations before they pile up.
When Things Go Wrong, Protect the Weakest Link
Things will go wrong.
Rookies will underperform. The team will lose early matches. Confidence will drop. That’s when your leadership matters most.
Coaches sometimes become players’ worst enemies, they lose patience and, consciously or not, throw struggling players under the bus. Once teammates start being passive-aggressive, it snowballs.
It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the coach expects someone to fail, they’ll coach them like they already have.
Instead, look for misused strengths.
If a player spends all his time operating in his “3s” instead of his “7s,” that’s on the staff.
Put him where he can use his strengths. Accept the weaknesses.
If his mechanics only go from a 3 to a 5, treat that as a structural limit and adapt.
Question yourself as a coach: if your job were to extract the maximum performance from a player’s current skill set, not their potential future one, how would you do it?
Veterans must also be reminded not to give up or build resentment. Don’t allow gossip or blame groups to form around the weakest player. That’s how teams rot from the inside.
Final Thoughts
Building a winning team with uneven pieces is a very common but one of the hardest challenges in coaching. When some players aren’t mechanically ready for tier-one, it tests every layer of the staff.
This team will probably struggle early. Losses will pile up, frustration will grow, and doubt will creep in. That’s normal.
What matters is how the veterans and staff respond. Their role is to protect the process, stay grounded, and keep the group together.
Veterans bring stability, rookies bring energy. Both need room to grow without being crushed by expectations.
If the team stays united, keeps grinding, and refuses to break under pressure, it can still surprise people later on.
In the end, success comes down to patience, consistency, and the will to keep going when things look worst.
It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
