FLY Inspired on scrims and Split 1 of the LTA: "We were losing some games to Cloud9. They were looking pretty good after their time in bootcamp in South Korea."

Following their strong showing at Worlds 2024, FlyQuest are ready to come into Split 1 of the LTA and leave their mark on the new league. If the team wants to attend the first international tournament of the year, First Stand, FlyQuest will need to topple all opposition in order to claim the first LTA trophy first.

Prior to the start of the LTA season, Strafe Esports had the chance to talk to FlyQuest's jungler Kacper "Inspired" Sloma for an exclusive interview. Among several other topics, Inspired shed light on how scrims have been going so far, the strength of South American teams, and one unlikely team emerging as the squad to beat in Split 1 of the LTA.

After nearly upsetting LCK giants of Gen.G at Worlds 2024, FlyQuest are ready to continue their journey in the LTA. (Credit: Yicun Liu/Riot Games)

*The following interview has been edited slightly for clarity and length.

[Strafe] You guys obviously had such a strong showing at Worlds (2024). Now that you have started scrimming, do you feel like you guys will be able to carry that momentum over to Split 1 of the LTA?

"We'll try our best, but so far when we played scrims it didn't look too easy. Like, we were losing some games to Cloud9. They were looking pretty good after their time in bootcamp in South Korea. So, yeah, I'm not sure we look our best. 

We just started scrimming; we played maybe a few days of scrims. It's kind of too early to judge but we are for sure getting better and we will try to reach our top form before the season starts."

[Strafe] On the subject of Split 1, First Stand will only have first seeds at the tournament. Are you confident that a team from the LTA North will make it there? Or do you think the LTA South can give you guys a good fight?

"I mean, honestly, I don't really know how good the South teams are, because I only saw the Brazilian team at Worlds last year and I remember the other time when I played against a Brazilian team at MSI. So, I don't have much data from them.

I think I will have to start watching their games a bit more to learn about their strength level, but so far I feel like us, Team Liquid, and Cloud9 should be stronger than all of the teams in the in the other part of the league, so if I would have to guess who's gonna win the whole Playoffs, I think it's gonna be someone from our league."

[Strafe] You mentioned Cloud9 looking strong. I'm just curious, when you saw their roster were you expecting them to be this good? What was about their scrims that made them look strong?

"Mmm, I think they just had more direction in the game. I feel like, with the old Cloud9 I could tell the way they were playing they just didn't have captain in the game, someone that would call the shots and be responsible for the whole game. It seems like Zven is just doing it very well. Like, I don't really know like what's going on inside the team, but just the way they play it seems to me that Zven is involved in every play, which means that he might be the one calling for most of the plays. Like, he's involved in the rotations or swaps or if some team is making the play somewhere, he's not overextended on the other side, which means that he might be the guy that is putting a lot of effort into the game.

And I knew that if they are getting a Korean laner in mid, and they are also already having Thanatos in topside, then the laning phase will be their strength, and usually the teams that have the strongest laning phases are the strongest early on because the team play doesn't really matter that much since everyone is not really playing as a team. And if you get the lead for laning phase you are able to snowball the games.

I think Korean players are actually getting worse with the time passing. Like, playing in NA, they are not used to the fact that they can't really practice Solo Queue at all. They can only play in scrims and, other than that, there is not really much time to practice here. So, they still are fresh coming straight from Korea. But I think with time passing on a lot of Korean players are just getting worse, so I knew that Cloud9 might start hot especially because they went for the bootcamp right before everyone came back to practice. So, they are for sure warm and it's not like I got too scared of them I think they are just prepared well for the split, but I think we can easily catch up and be able to beat them."

With Zven back on the team, Cloud9 will look for a strong start to the 2025 LTA season. (Credit: Colin Young-Wolff/Riot Games)

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Image source: Marv Watson/Riot Games

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