Tony “Zikz” Gray Leaving CLG

With the chaotic meta and the new franchising system, League of Legends fans are now really familiar with change. Between trades and contracts being dropped, every team is looking for the right people and process to find the win. Counter Logic Gaming, at the bottom of the standings, needs to make changes. That change is, Tony “Zikz” Gray is no longer head coach. According to the official announcement, the current assistant coach, Zach Goldman, will take over the position of head coach until the end of the season.

With only two weeks left of the regular season, this seems like odd timing for CLG to simply kick off their head coach. Zikz has been a part of CLG for five years, and in that time, led CLG to two NALCS championships. While CLG’s performance has been lackluster this Split, no team in the NA LCS looks particularly good in recent patches. However, during the NA LCS Spring Split earlier this year, CLG placed seventh and failed to go to playoffs in the first time of their history. CLG values their results, and with Zikz as head coach, the team has not performed well recently.

CLG’s announcement regarding the coaching change. Photo courtesy of CLG’s Twitter

Most surprisingly, it appears Zikz is leaving CLG entirely. The announcement states that CLG will be working with Zikz to transition him to working elsewhere. It seems surprising that CLG would not just move him to another position. Zikz played a large part in CLG, and formed a part of what CLG meant as an organization. With notable players like Zaqueri “aphromoo” Black leaving CLG earlier in the year, and now former Coach Zikz leaving, CLG fans lose another part of what made CLG great.

While the announcement is sudden, CLG needs to make changes in order to come back to form. With a roster that does not seem to mesh well, and underperformances from former stars, Zach Goldman has a difficult job ahead of him.

Zikz posted on Twitter his response to the change.

“With great power comes great responsibility. I’ll never forget the memories that I’ve made with those I’ve worked with at CLG, especially the players. My time has come with CLG, but I’ll continue on. I’ll miss you.”

Good luck to Zikz to his endeavors in the future and to CLG to finish off the Split strong.

Featured image courtesy of Zikz’s Twitter.

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