After stepping back from the spotlight in the esports scene, Ainslie "maplestreet8, Wyllie, has taken on the role as the head coach for the Japanese League of Legends team V3 Esports. In the past he's been a part of Velocity Esports, Team 8, and Renegades, and was unfortunately known widely as "TheOddOne's Brother" rather than being able to develop his own personal brand. We had an opportunity to speak to with maplestreet on this time in the North American scene, what he has been up to during his hiatus, and his thoughts on taking up the mantle as a coach for a new team in the JPL.

It’s been a while since you’ve been in the competitive spotlight. What have you been doing during your time away from the LCS?

A lot of time has passed since I was in the spotlight. I had struggled with a few teams and bad situations and sort of got sick of playing the game from there I studied a bunch of psychology and gathered greater understanding of my personal struggles. I’ve always been passionate about mechanics and other knowledge in the game so becoming a coach was something I wanted to explore. In terms of coaching I've been on and off coaching various teams in OQ.

I don't usually keep the world updated on things but I've been trying to become a coach for the past year and additionally I've been spending a lot of my time studying psychology to both improve myself and improve my ways of teaching.

How did it feel to be known more as “the Oddone’s brother” rather than having your own recognition as Maplestreet?

I think I am very fortunate to be his brother. It's been typically a positive thing in my life because most people may refer to me as Oddbro and ask me questions about him but they are generally not making me feel directly inferior by asking things like why I didn't play world's like he did. I do get to dip into the fame and have a personal relationship with someone who understands the highs and lows which is an amazing plus! Also he gave me my first desktop to play the game with more than 20 fps thanks bro!

How have you prepared yourself to take on the role of a coach?

I've tried to best prepare myself by studying other coaches, mostly from interviews and podcasts like Summoning Insight and reading as much information I can about coaching and sports performance. Going to a foreign country is an entirely different beast though but firsthand experience along with the excitement of meeting new challenges is definitely the biggest help in increasing my skills as a coach.

I understand that the job is very important as I potentially can create or ruin 5 superstar players. I just want people to know that I'm not the most social media-centric person so I haven't kept everyone updated on my progress as a coach which has led to many people doubting me but I hope that I can make results that speak for themselves.

Are there any coaches both in and outside of esports that you look up to either as a role model or inspiration from their coaching philosophy/methodology?

I've had personal experience with Hermes the former coach of Renegades and Immortals. I consider him to be the best coach I've ever had. I greatly appreciate his ability to give concise reviews and to properly talk to all the players one on one. I can respect all long time coaches since the job is very difficult but the limited information in terms of what each coach brings to the team makes it hard to pick them specific names as role models.

I would say the biggest reason why a lot of team’s fail is because of lack of maturity in terms of communication between players and coaches. This can lead to a great stall in terms of player and team growth. Any coach that can facilitate proper discussions and gather the respect needed to lead the team is a coach I can commend.

You were part of the new generation of players once the LCS really got started. Most of these individuals have either found success with teams to this day such as Wildturtle and Xmithie, while others have either went onto work for Riot or disappeared. What are your thoughts on how the esports scene has developed over the years?

The infrastructure has improved greatly since I played but I do have my concerns with how the whole system of how people play. The game has continually become more balanced in nature and it feels like the ability to solo carry has greatly diminished. League is different than most games because it is super team oriented.

I feel that a lot of players get too stressed with playing the game because they feel too locked into playing metagame. I know I grinded the most and had the most fun when I played a huge variety of solo queue champions which is exciting to me but most players lose motivation to play because they don't get excited about the game and try various champions. I didn't understand this concept well while playing but I truly believe that there needs to be a good balance of interesting new things to learn and practice on metagame stuff.

The relatively carefree players find great success on streaming and grinding at the game while the hardcore players tend to get more stressed and less motivation to play because of how the game is balanced around teamwork more than individual skill.

Logically speaking the older players still have the advantage of knowledge but a lot of them grind less because they feel they don't experience anything new or interesting in the solo queue environment. I feel that a lot of metagames stagnate simply because we don’t adequately explore the available counter picks.

You were part of the new generation of players once the LCS really got started. Most of these individuals have either found success with teams to this day such as Wildturtle and Xmithie, while others have either went onto work for Riot or disappeared. What are your thoughts on how the esports scene has developed over the years?

For now, I wish to challenge myself and work hard to achieve results in a different environment, NA is a little too laid back I feel in terms of solo queue and scrim environment so I feel that it would be more difficult to improve my skills in that familiar environment. However, nothing is final in life and I hope that one day I might be able to bring glory back to our region since I've always cheered for NA teams at worlds.

What would you say were the highs and lows of your competitive career? Does any particular moment standout?

Huge mechanical outplays always gets my heart racing and most of my favorite experiences were from playing graves on team 8, there was so many great moments. My favorite one in particular was a game against team Impulse and in that game we were very ahead until the late game where slowly we lost our gold lead but the game was decided off a teamfight at baron which I carried.

During the game my heart was racing really fast and I knew the pressure was on me to carry in the super late game and I felt proud of myself to know that I kept my focus and played well despite my heart racing like it’s never done before. I've always felt very introverted and unaccomplished so being able to defeat my inner demons and have the feeling that I achieved something of value felt exhilarating.

Many of my lows came after losses, I took many losses hard and always pressured myself into playing more due to conning myself with regrets and other things but being too serious about it negatively affected the environment. Sometimes because I was unapproachable in my grind and often skipped dinner and other social events and a byproduct of that is that I made the team worse off.

Eventually, I sort of experienced the lows of that and later on felt really disappointed when I got replaced by Freeze which is logically fair since he is a better player. After that situation I later ended up being in a different contract-hell sort of deal which further decreased my internal motivation when I felt that I couldn't play when I felt like I was at a somewhat peak of my performance level.

We know that you enjoy Japanese culture, but from a competitive standpoint what made you choose to work in Japan as opposed to other regions?

I'm actually not particularly crazy about Japanese culture but I've greatly changed over the years and I've come to an understanding that the way I've lived my life in a shell playing video games and experiencing few things was a foolish way to live my life. I now believe that any involvement in something that puts me out of my comfort zone is a good thing. Japan was the most different of the options I had and I am very grateful that I have this opportunity to live and coach in a foreign country.

What are some things you look forward to with your new team?

While communication is difficult I still have great aspirations for the team. I wish to eventually bring our team to the top of Japan and allow them to get results in a world setting. I think it is always a great story to hear about the underdog regions being able to compete with the bigger regions and for me to have the possibility to bring the passions of an entire region together for MSI or worlds would be a tremendous honor. Of course that is still a long way to go from challenger series.

Most people remember you from house tour videos and funny stream moments. Over the years, the scene has become more professionalized with more investments and plans of franchising in the near future. Many pro players and personalities and mentioned this trend as of late. Do you feel that there needs to be more fun again?

I was very carefree in nature never particularly caring or thinking things through. Something that I always tried to do was make others laugh generally with self-deprecating humor and sarcasm. With the evolution of the scene and the amount of money that is getting pumped in I can see why people think it needs to be more professional.

I think however that being laid back and interactive with the fans is undervalued and sponsors that back away from that are very foolish. A major issue though is how connected we are to social media, any “mistake” can become a meme that is attached to a person for far longer than it should be.

I’ve experienced much hate and praise and I know have a good understanding that people are fickle and that looking deeply into their opinions is a bad idea.

Japan has never been a big scene for competitive esports titles outside of their passionate fighting game community. From your understanding of the Japanese competitive scene and the results of MSI, how would you describe the strength region and the popularity of League of Legends?

I think the Japanese players are relatively skillful in terms of mechanics, it is merely their macro which is very lacking. In terms of player count I think Japan is far behind all other regions but if we all work hard we can make esports a more widely accepted thing and hopefully bring more stability to careers of the Japanese players.

Do you have any final messages you want to send to your past, present, and future fans?

Thank you for all the people who support my dreams, I hope to bring a lot of interesting adventures in Japan and to one day make the world a better place.

Image credit: V3 esports