The 2021 LCS season didn’t go too well for CLG, but the organization is hoping that the winds of change will bring brighter days for next year. The team has announced that Jonathon McDaniels will be taking over as its new League of Legends general manager.
McDaniels was previously the assistant GM for Golden Guardians’ League team. He also worked with teams like Cloud9, where he helped scout, develop, and manage some of the younger players in the scene.
“Jonathon has had a great career in the League of Legends space, from scouting to coaching, and ultimately leading to jobs in the front office,” said Greg Kim, head of CLG. “I’ve always admired his work and I’m excited to have him take this next step of leading CLG’s League of Legends program back to the ultimate goal of competing for championships.”
The general manager position on the team was vacated following the departure of Daniel “Tafokints” Lee, who officially left four days ago. Tafokints became CLG’s GM in 2019 after spending some time in the team’s front office as head of data management. But the following years ended up becoming some of the worst in the organization’s history—they’ve been a bottom-two team in the LCS for the past four splits.
This year, Tafokints was also involved in a situation where a private team meeting between him and the players was publicized on social media. In the video, he told a dejected CLG roster that after six weeks of unsatisfactory play, “this might be the last time that we have this roster of five playing.” The video was heavily criticized by the League community and was subsequently deleted.
Now, McDaniels will be taking his place to try to create a winning atmosphere for the roster. “I’m honored to join CLG and my goal is to build a League of Legends program that our fans can look forward to growing year over year and make them proud,” he said.
Rebuilding the culture around CLG will be a big task, but it seems like McDaniels is up to the challenge for 2022.
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