Thoughts Coming In
This week FlyQuest took on OpTic Gaming in the first match this split where FlyQuest were favorites to win. FlyQuest showed their prowess yesterday as they dismantled Team SoloMid with Omran “V1per” Shoura’s signature Riven pick. OpTic Gaming looked to continue their surprising quiet surge early this split after improving to 3-0 over Counter Logic Gaming last match.
The Featured Matchup
The featured matchup today showcased Lucas “Santorin” Larsen Vs William “Meteos” Hartman. Meteos spent a stint on FlyQuest Academy following a trade from 100T in Summer 2018 where he and Santorin worked closely together to build one another up further. This was ironic as they were once renowned as the top two junglers in the LCS in the past, as rivals on TSM and Cloud9. Both Junglers play a controlled style, prioritizing vision and pinpoint macro.
Keys to the Draft Phase
For the draft today the big key for FlyQuest was an aggressive Jungler for Santorin. The Lee Sin pick was important is because it gave Santorin the ability to control the tempo of the early game. The rest of the FlyQuest draft was rather explosive with a Xayah and Lux in the Bot Lane, and the often flexed Jayce in the
Mid. V1per was given what he excels on most, a champion that allowed him to harass the enemy Top Laner early, and build an advantage in the one on one with Kennen.
OpTic Gaming took to a more standard Sivir team fighting comp, with the only real wildcard being Lee “Crown” Min-ho’s signature Twisted Fate.
Early Game
Action started early as Meteos attempted to move into an early Raptor Camp steal. Reading the play, Santorin waited for Meteos, and with the help of Eugene “Pobelter” Park, they were able to punish and set Meteos behind.
With a rather quiet first 10 minutes of play after the Raptors mishap, a Mountain Dragon was secured for FlyQuest, while OptTic found priority Bottom Lane a reset later. Terry “Big” Chuong managed to land a flash prediction anchor onto Pobelter resulting in a kill for OpTic.
Approaching the 13 minute mark, FlyQuest attempted to sneak the Rift Herald. Unbeknownst to them, they were in OpTic vision. OpTic looked to make a counter play when V1per made a beautiful Flash/Slicing Maelstrom resulting in a kill onto Niship “Dhokla” Doshi, and the Herald reset. On the back end of this play, OpTic managed to secure the Ocean Dragon. To close out the early game OpTic forced a Rift Herald down with their first item spikes and took the Mid Lane turret
Late Game
Moving into the Mid Game with the third Dragon of the game spawning, FlyQuest had the tempo on the play quickly nabbing themselves an Ocean Dragon. Through this Mid game Crown was seen accumulating a strong experience and CS lead while threatening with his Ult.
The Twisted Fate pressure didn’t stop there, while Crown managed to find a pick onto Pobelter’s Jayce in the bottom lane with the help of Meteos. With this pick in hand FlyQuest attempted to start Baron, but with 3 members of OpTic so close they were forced off, also losing their Mid tier 2 and Bot tier 2.
After a second Baron attempt from FlyQuest, OpTic managed to respond swiftly taking down three members of FlyQuest and securing the Baron. OpTic forced a 4-1, relentlessly hammering FlyQuest’s Mid lane then resetting for a final push. Quickly pushing their advantage and brute forcing their way through FlyQuest’s base, OpTic was victorious.
Final Comments
FlyQuest showed a few different things this week. For starters V1per showed his hand in Riven and Kennen. However, it was a rather shaky performance from WildTurtle and JayJ. To find success FlyQuest needs to be able to convert on their early advantages instead of falling apart in the Mid game.
Looking towards Week 3 FlyQuest will be playing against the likes of Team Liquid and Clutch Gaming. Both Team Liquid and FlyQuest have had a very rough start by their teams’ standards. Team Liquid currently sitting at a 2-2 record, while FlyQuest moves to a 1-3 record. It is expected that Team Liquid comes away with this victory, as they have very high expectations this season.
Clutch is a top focused team where FlyQuest looks to excel through V1per winning his lane while Santorin takes over the rest of the map. The key to this match is if Cody ”CodySun” Sun is able to stay alive through lane and Heo “Huni “ Seung-hoon can get ahead with the help of Nam” Lira” Tae-yoo.