IMT Inero – “I don’t know if you’re going to see me next year”

Immortals' fell short of their expectations for themselves this split. One of only two teams, alongside Shopify Rebellion, to not make the LCS playoffs. After their final series, Inero sat down with esports.gg to chat about the evolving meta, what went wrong for his team, and what is on the horizon for the esport. We chatted with Immortals' Head Coach Nick "Inero" Smith, about his team's performance, and his trepidations looking forward to 2025.

You've just finished the split, and I can't imagine the series or the split is anything but disappointing. Where is your mind on the series, how are you feeling?

Nick "Inero" Smith: "Ugh, mind on the series...not feeling so good, not feeling so hot. Really disappointing, really frustrating. Game one was just like, despite all the changes it's still the same problems plaguing us. It's really depressing from a coach perspective. I feel bad for the players, I know they're trying, but we're just fumbling the same type of situations over and over, in similar ways. I was happy, at least, we recognized what was supposed to happen in each situation. It is what it is, someone's got to win, someone's got to lose, today that just isn't us."

Are these issues the same ones we discussed earlier in the split? Or do you feel like you've managed to address some of those previous problems?

"Yeah, I think it's a lot of similarities. If I could tell you why, hopefully we'd be able to solve them. Really just not sure. We've had a lot of different approaches, a lot of different discussions, on how to address this, how to fix this. Taking a more soft approach, a more hard approach. We've got buy in from everybody that was we're supposed to be doing is this or that. The team as a whole agrees what we're supposed to do and how we're supposed to do it. But you've got to be able to do it when it happens, you've got to be able to be there to make the vision in your head real. And we've struggled to do that when it comes to stage. Ultimately, that's where it matters. So I'm not too sure what should have made it easier for us, just couldn't figure that out."

We talked earlier in the split about your opinion on lane swaps and the evolving meta. From your point of view, it was a heavy priority on Void Grubs as an objective. Now that we've seen the dawn of these high-agency AD solo laners, do you think that's a symptom of the same meta, or is it something else?

"Not necessarily, it's primarily just damage spread and it's really helpful for the AP junglers to have an AD solo laner for it. But yeah, not necessarily. The lane swaps have still existed, a lot of swaps happen around the 10-minute mark for second grubs, for teams wanting to contest there. Mostly it has transitioned away from swapping for first grubs. Then, if you have an AD mid lane, you're usually winning against mages and have the support move so the mage can't do anything early, that definitely has an impact. There's definitely a little bit of influence there, but not too much."

There's been a lot of discussion of mental health in LoL esports in recent weeks. We had a conversation with Sniper in which he was very transparent about the cost of the split on his mental health. The same week, Meech stepped down for mental health reasons, and Faker had an instance of visible burnout after T1's match against Gen.G. As somebody who's a veteran of the NA scene, how do you view the balance that players have to strike with the very real personal and emotional costs of competition?

"It's a competitive sport at the end of the day. For people who have been around or aware of traditional sports, the mental health stuff is always there. There's lots of stress. It's a stressful job, it's a stressful experience. There's not much you can really do to change that apart from just really being aware of yourself and aware of what is good for you and bad for you. I think for the esports space, a lot of it is finding ways to be healthier. I think it's really, really undervalued, I mean, we're all gamers.

"The lifestyle of a kid who's sitting at home, eating snacks, playing video games all day isn't the healthiest. And you're not having the healthiest social life, the healthiest eating habits. That stuff really, really matters and is important. You need people around you, you need a social life, you need to have healthy eating habits and a healthy body or it's really going to cause problems later down the line.

"You need to maximize how much you're training and you can't really drop that, but you have to be aware of the rest of life around you. Traditional sports guys, it's all physical so your practice is shorter than it is in esports. But there's a lot of film time that people devote time into. They have more social life and they're naturally healthier because they're athletes. So it's a part of the job. In esports, as a whole, that aspect is sacrificed a decent amount in the name of getting a few more solo queue games in, rather than necessarily having good practice. That stuff is important, I think it's something that really needs to be addressed for each person individually. Easier said than done, you know?"

We're staring down a huge year for League of Legends in 2025. With the LCS league changes, wider infrastructure changes, and more set to happen. As a veteran of the esports scene, what are the biggest hurdles that you see yourself facing in next year?

"I think the biggest obstacle is the one that's remained for LCS in general. It's making a product that people care about and want to watch in general. That's something that hasn't been figured out by Riot or the teams. I don't think it's been figured out at all. That's the one that's really going to matter. On the competitive end of things, it's not really gonna change too much, we're gonna have a similar amount of competitive teams. It will make it harder for younger talent to really get into the scene, unless they're huge standouts, but that's already been the case. I don't think it's going to change too much. I don't even know, maybe that's the biggest hurdle, I don't know if you're going to see me next year on stage, if we're being realistic here."

Any final words to sign off the split?

"Just, yeah, I appreciate fans as always. I've always had a decent amount of people reach out to me privately from the side fan side and give support. I appreciate those people very much. The Immortals fans, fans of the players that are on our team. I'm disappointed in what's happened, I'm sorry we couldn't figure it out as a coaching staff for what to do to get these guys to a place where they can perform. Ultimately, it's a failure from our side, so yeah, sucks for that. Thanks for the support, happy for the teams in playoffs. Happy to see a lot of former GG people qualify, and hopefully they have a successful time and can make it to worlds."

Well, whatever comes next year, you are a legend in my eyes for the Golden Guardians dream runs. Those are LCS all-timers to me. So, thank you. The teams you've put together have given me many hours of love for the game, so thank you for that.

"Appreciate that, man. Thank you very much."

Inero and Immortal are eliminated from playoffs and will not return to the stage this year. Next year, two teams from the LCS will be cut - leaving Inero and IMT in an unknown limbo. Playoffs continue this weekend. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more updates.