FlyQuest AD Carry Johnsun sat with Gamelevate to discuss his reactions after the LCS Spring Split’s Super Week, reuniting with support Aphromoo, and saving the bees through BeeQuest.
FlyQuest has had a meteoric rise to the top of the standings ending the SuperWeek at 5-4. The team has surpassed all expectations and have seen many players return to top form. One player who has performed well has been Johnson “Johnsun” Nguyen who has been a key part of FlyQuest’s wins during the first half of the split.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Johnsun, thank you for speaking with us this week. We’re talking a bit after the Super Week. Now you guys have completed the first half of the round-robin, what are your thoughts overall on FlyQuest this season?
I think FlyQuest, in the first half of the season in Spring Split, I think we did not do too bad. We were able to get five wins, and four losses in the first-round robin. Honestly, we could have got more wins to be honest if we just had better preparation and just played better individually. I think for at least a Super Week, we could have gotten like one or two wins out of the three.
If we’re looking at FlyQuest as a whole, a lot of people had FlyQuest towards the bottom half of their preseason Power Rankings. But you guys were able to surpass a lot of expectations. And players like yourself and Josedeodo have been returning to form and you’ve been seeing Kumo, toucouille, and aphromoo stepping up to the plate. Why do you think that FlyQuest overall has really surpassed the expectations of a lot of analysts, fans, and other individuals’ preseasons?
I think FlyQuest this season is surprising teams, and like, obviously, like people’s narrative about us being like the bottom team, because obviously the last two splits, we were like bottom four, right? So it makes sense to be rated so low, because like going into the season. There are not many like big-name signings compared to other teams and organizations, which is why some teams are not as supportive, or not highly rating us as a team.
And I think, at least some of our success is due to our teamwork in a sense. Like in the mid-game, and how we were able to kind of get onto the same page early on into the season compared to like other teams that were struggling. And like, now you can see like mostly like, like, starting to pay better whereas like some teams are just still struggling. So
I’ll just say we’re improving at our own rates for other teams that like are not playing to their fullest forms. So it just becomes a race of who gets better faster.
You had a little bit of a rougher Super Week. But still, there were definitely moments of competitiveness. Can you talk to me about your thought process about that past weekend?
All I’ll say is that going into the Super Week, I wasn’t the most confident about how we were going to do because of the teams we were playing against. Preparation-wise, I don’t think like as a team, we were like, good. And going into Super Week, we had like a lot of our struggles. And I’ll say personally like, the struggles and inting moments where inting was like being reflected in scrims the past week. So it’s not too big of a surprise that we were losing that weren’t going to play the best during Super Week. And hopefully, you know, doesn’t happen again, or lose every game because I think at least two of the games were competitive on our side and it was winnable if we just play better and our little things change.
I want to pivot a little bit from FlyQuest itself and I want to talk about you and Aphromoo. One of the biggest notes of the offseason was the two of you have been a top-performing bot lane in the LCS this spring. Now you’ve had some time to I guess gel with Aphromoo again, what has it been like reuniting with your former support and how have you been to have been settling in the Spring Split?
I’ll say like, getting reunited with Aphromoo again is pretty good because you have past experiences of working together. And, coming together again, we have just been able to work on the previous relationship we had together.
So like, it’s easy for him to give me tips and advice on what I need to do to improve. Like, let’s say, if I am inting my laning phase, he’ll tell me “what the **** is that?” And vice versa. I could give him good tips on like, what he should do or like, why isn’t he doing this. It’s easy to give each other good, constructive criticism.
You said that you two call each other out when there’s something wrong. Do you think all bot lanes should have something [a level of communication] like that?
I think that one: it becomes how good you are as a player, so the opposing player listens to you, and then two: just getting the good trust and like and I guess working hard, like, makes other people want to work harder too.
So I guess some bot lanes in LCS right now, including us since we went 0-3, have been struggling. I’ll say the best bot lane right now is CoreJJ and Hans Sama. They have a good relationship, you know, and then they make each other play better. So it just shows.
I want to talk about the AD Carry meta. In the LPL they’re saying the most played AD Carries are Jinx and Aphelios. And those in total, those two had about maybe 200 plus games. Yet the third most-played was Zeri. In the LCS, we have a little bit of a different meta as you know, there is more room to play different kinds of bot lakers such as Jhin for example. Why do you think ADs such as Jinx, Aphelios, and Jhin are the most played?
The reason why I think Jinx and Aphelios are being played the most is because both champs are good into each other and there are times where like one champion is better than the other. And then their kits also have a lot of damage. And I would also say like every other ADC is kind of like nerfed in the sense. So that’s why those two are like the most played bot laners.
And Jhin is just good because although it doesn’t like so when you like the early to mid game, he has good setup and enables like your top side to play like strong side because whenever you play Jhin, you usually have like CC from your W and your ult. And then you can like the CC for your team, like the AD/Support. Because in some comps like there’s no like crowd control, so you need to be the set up.
Overall, would you say that the bot lane meta is in a healthy position? Or do you think there should be some changes to allow more diversity and flexibility?
I’ll say like the bot lane meta is defined by like some champions being OP and annoying. LIke Zeri is kind of annoying. And then Jinx/Aphelios is just like trading. And if one team bans one, you kind of want to ban the other one too, unless you have like a counter. I feel like right now in the LCS, the AD and Jungle role is pretty boring, because it’s the same two champs and if one champ gets banned, you just go to the next channel.
I want to look ahead a little bit and ask you about the future for the next few weeks. You got nine more games to go. What would you say for the remainder of the split is FlyQuest’s main goal?
I would say our goal is to try to get as many wins as we can and not take them for granted and just try to improve week to week because honestly, I don’t think we were really improving from Week Three to Week Four and I thought that was really bad. And if we’re able to play better individually, and also improve our team, we should be able to qualify for playoffs and make it far.
What about you personally? What do you think your goals will be for the next few weeks?
My goal is just to continue to try to play good, and keep trying to play better, because I could always play better and just try to use my lead to carry my team and not lose in an embarrassing way.
Looking ahead, you guys are playing Dignitas and TSM in Week 5. I believe you beat both of them in the first Round Robin. Without giving anything away, what will your thoughts be heading into those two games?
I would say going into the week I think, Dignitas, their team is like, I’ll say like they’re really good with their teamwork. The jungler is a 1v9 player. It’s all about like, our, what do we plan to do against this team? You know, because we had like a plan for last time, and it worked. And we just got to have something prepared for them again. With, TSM, they’re struggling and then I’ll say like, their playstyle is like, different than ours. And depending on who they play in bot lane this week, you know, like, drafting would be different because both supports like to play different champs.
I won’t be too cocky to say like, we’re 2-0, but I’ll say, for the games, we’re hoping to be prepared for it so that we’re able to like, win against both of them.
You’ve been a member of FlyQuest now for over a year. FlyQuest has had a massive environmental push, whether that BeeQuest, TreeQuest, SeaQuest and even WorldsQuest when you’re at Worlds in 2020. I want to ask you, out of all the campaigns that you guys have done, which has been your favorite?
I’d say for me, I think the campaign I liked the most was probably the BeeQuest because I like the bee skins in League. I think through the fact that I got to play BeeMaw. and kind of represent like the I think the design and the campaign for the bees, and the memes as well.
Finally, is there anything you’d like to say to fans of FlyQuest reading Gamelevate’s articles?
I’ll say to the fans, you know, thank you for the support. I’ll keep trying my best. Hopefully, you know, we don’t run back to lose streak era, you know, and we just keep it at three. And we hope we’re able to not disappoint you guys going into this weekend.
