League of Legends: YamatoCannon Joins SANDBOX, Becomes First Western LCK Coach
| Tags: League of Legends
| Author David Hollingsworth
The former Team Vitality coach becomes the first Western coach to a League Champions Korea (LCK) side in that position.
Jakob “YamatoCannon” Mebdi, is most known for his role as the coach of Team Vitality and League of Legends European Championship (LEC) analyst, who will now move to a new role as coach of LCK side SANDBOX.
#official
팬분들께서 궁금해하셨던 부분에 대해 추가로 안내드립니다.
–We are delighted to announce that a former Team Vitality head coach and LEC analyst Jakob "YamatoCannon" Mebdi has been appointed as the new head coach of SANDBOX Gaming. pic.twitter.com/5MpFVRvQoF
— Liiv SANDBOX (@LiivSANDBOX) May 15, 2020
He will lead this new role remotely from Europe due to COVID-19 before joining up with the team in Seoul, South Korea at a later date. While South Korea has dealt with the coronavirus well thus far, recently the country saw a small spike in infections which has led to this new concern.
A Historic Move
Yamato now becomes the first Western coach to take on a coaching role in the LCK. Current LCK English-language caster Nick “LS” De Cesare had a spell with BBQ Olivers in late 2018. However, the side was only involved in the LCK sister league Challengers Korea.
Yamato joins SANDBOX after a successful spell in Europe, most notably leading his 2018 Team Vitality side to Worlds. The side nearly made a heroic escape from their group after going 3-3, defeating Gen.G twice and Royal Never Give Up.
Failure to beat Cloud9 ultimately cost the side qualification and Team Vitality hasn’t quite been the same since. After two mid-table finishes, Vitality would qualify for playoffs in both Splits of 2019. Unfortunately, they failed to progress or challenge for the title. Vitality suffered a devastating 10th place finish in the LEC Spring Split as they look to regroup for Summer.
Yamato has spent 2020 on the LEC analyst desk and providing match reviews on his YouTube channel. Yamato has also spent time as a coach of Team ROCCAT and Splyce. He’s quickly become a favorite amongst LEC fans.
Images via Riot Games.
David has written for games media outlets for the last ten years. With his first major esports role being with Esports News UK covering mostly UK League of Legends. David is also a member of the British Esports Association and is an advisor to them on World of Warcraft Esports. More recently David has worked for Esports Insider and Red Bull as an esports journalist.
David later became Editor at ESTNN and now leads the current team.