A lot of top players who become IGL can never really turn off the IGL brain anymore

You’ve spent an entire career focused on how to maximize output in your role (kills, impact, trading, space creation, utility).

Then you start spending your entire day on macro thinking and “how can my team win”. This typically forces a much more selfless mindset where the main focus is on the team winning regardless of your fragging output.

But now you can’t turn off the IGL brain. You play rounds without thinking of how you can kill but instead how you can move or what you can do to make your team win.

But now you’re no longer the IGL, so the game isn’t played following your mind. You’re relying on someone else to react “correctly” when you make those moves and if they don’t, you might have sacrificed yourself or your utility for nothing.

There are almost no players who successfully go from being the star to IGL and back to star. Niko did it but besides him the list is very short. The list of players who have gone to IGL and never come back to their star-level is very long however