Clutch Gaming makes another coaching change amid struggles

Clutch Gaming has parted ways with head coach Brendan “mcscrag” McGee.

Clutch is changing coaches yet again. Mcscrag is leaving the position after just one and a half splits spent in charge of the LCS squad.

“Grateful for the opportunity to have worked with these players and wish them the best. I learned a lot this past year and look forward to applying it in whatever’s next,” mcscrag said on Twitter.

Mcscrag joined in December 2017 as the Clutch Gaming Academy coach. In October 2018 he moved up to the LCS after the exit of previous coach Joo-sung “DLim” Lim.

The change is not surprising considering the team’s results in the past two splits. Clutch finished the LCS Spring Spring in 2018 in fourth place, a great achievement for a new organization. From that point on, the team has been in a freefall.

In the summer of 2018, the squad finished ninth and repeated the same position in the following spring. So far in the current split, Clutch is hanging back in seventh place and is likely to keep falling. On week six, the team has a rough schedule going against TSM on Saturday and OpTic Gaming on Sunday.

Clutch appointed Thomas “Thinkcard” Slotkin as the new head coach with Connor “Artemis” Doyle as an assistant coach. Thinkcard is a former professional player who has since turned to coaching. He was a jungler for Counter Logic Gaming in 2015, and later joined Cloud9 as a substitute.

Clutch Gaming went through a drastic roster change heading to 2019. Clutch exchanged three of its players for top laner Heo “Huni” Seung-hoon and mid laner Tanner “Damonte” Damonte. Bottom laner Cody “Cody Sun” Sun and support Philippe “Vulcan” Laflamme got promoted from Clutch Gaming Academy. Nam “Lira” Tae-yoo kept his place in the team.

More changes are now to be expected. The team was recently acquired by Dignitas and will be rebranded with the new name in 2020.