Flyquest became the newest addition to the NALCS teams this split after qualifying as the Cloud 9 Challenger squad. Their members are far from being inexperienced though.
Mid laner Hai “Hai” Lam was the longtime Cloud 9 mid laner before stepping down due to medical/performance issues. Support Daerek “LemonNation” Hart thought he was wanting to retire and go into coaching, but his path lead him back into LCS. Top Laner An “Balls” Le was replaced on Cloud 9 by former SKT World Champion Jung “Impact” Eon-yeong once his play began to decline. ADC Johnny “Altec” Ru and Jungler Galen “Moon” Holgate were once heralded as upcoming young talents, but had failed to live up to those expectations on past teams.
Many analysts predicted Flyquest to be a bottom tier (7-10) team coming into the Spring Split. After their week one performance, nobody can call them down and out just yet. They convincingly finished the week 2-0 after sweeping Envyus and taking a close series against Team Liquid. Individually they may not look that strong, but Hai just has a way of being able to micromanage a team to victory like no one we’ve ever seen.
After stints on NRG and Team Liquid, it appeared Moon may never become the prospect many had hoped. He was heralded as being the next upcoming North American Jungle prospect, but never quite lived up to that title and was forced back into the challenger series. Flyquest decided to give him a shot, and he has come back stronger than ever. He finished the first week second in KDA and First blood percentage among NALCS Junglers. Maybe playing with Hai has given him the confidence he needs to perform well on stage.
While previous synergy does help, most of Flyquest’s victories have looked cool, calm, and collected. When they’re behind, they wait to scale, and take picks when they can. When they’re ahead, they know what to do to end the game efficiently. Hai gets his team to commit to baron calls and team-fights. Their wave management and control of the pace of the game looks superior to many of the teams right now.
We’ll need to wait and see if the NALCS teams with imports are able to cleanup their communication. Dignitas, Echo Fox, and Immortals have all shown the raw ability to gain huge early leads off strong individual talent. We’ve also seen how it has affected them in the mid to late game, especially for Echo Fox. It seemed that NALCS teams in the first week were struggling with how to finish games. Teams were constantly throwing leads throughout their games
Communication is key in being a top team in League of Legends. All members must fully commit to the call being made or the game can be lost in that instant. Hai is one of the most brilliant and decisive shot-callers in Pro League of Legends. People will still doubt how far Hai’s shot calling can really take this team, but they’ve started off on the right foot. Flyquest will look to pull the “original Cloud 9” by taking the LCS by storm heading into their first Split, with Hai leading the way once again.
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