Last year was probably the first time teams started developing solid alternates or substitutes for lanes. Cloud9 and Immortals added a number of members behind the scenes, perhaps after seeing what happened to CLG. After Stixxay became injured, CLG had to manically secure a new bottom laner, but on short notice, they could only red-eye a support – Joey – to fill in for his games, which forced Aphromoo to play ADC for the first time in years. While having a backup is understandable, it seems like the NA LCS could do fine with their Academy counterparts, so the real question is if maneuvers like Echo Fox’s switching of their midlaner and support are really of any value.

Substitutes make far more sense in traditional sports for a lot of reasons. One, the risk of injury is huge. A substitute is an investment in the future because injuries are almost an inevitability. Esports injuries – thought they do happen – are much less common. As with Stixxay, they do occasionally happen, but the much less regular occurrence of them definitely reduces the need to have substitutes as highly trained. The Academy makes sense for a lot of reasons, not just because it fulfills this role solidly so that no disasters like last year happen.

As for alternates, League of Legends isn’t the type of game that allows for swaps mid-game. It simply wouldn’t make any sense. While games like CS:GO or Overwatch could or do allow this, it would be too jarring for LoL. Similarly, trying to use alternates for drafting purposes doesn’t exactly work. If a team had two toplaners – one as a carry main and one as a tank main – the moment the team swapped in the player, their opponents would know what they are up against and could draft accordingly. It seems wiser to train a single player in new strategies and champions, sometimes holding in reserve a draft or strategy that other coaches and teams haven’t yet seen. But there might be more to Echo Fox’s strategy than just that.

Echo Fox’s decision in their final week of play to replace Fenix and Adrian with Damonte and Papa Chau seems a little more calculated than just replacing Fenix and Adrian. No injuries were announced, and there seemed little reason for Echo Fox to blow what was already a difficult set of games to try and secure their number one spot. This is on top of the fact that Fenix had been performing super all split. But considering Rick Fox’s background in traditional sports, he could be trying to do what many understand is a necessity for keeping alternates motivated, which is let them into the big league.

By showing his organizations willingness to put faith in substitutes on important matches, it solidifies their place and makes them more willing to contribute more. This is a fairly well-known coaching tactic. This would make far more sense than trying to replace their starting lineup, especially because the current stats show that Fenix and Adrian are well ahead of their counterparts.

Echo Fox might, then, be using alternates as something other than strategy against the enemy. It might be a long term plan for building the foundations of a team for years to come.