For the video version of this article, check out the link here FlyQuest are fighting for the top of the 2024 LCS Summer Split as Week 5 comes to a close. After a three game series, FlyQuest have toppled 100 Thieves and also separated themselves from the rest of the league at third place. Esports Heaven spoke with head coach Nukeduck to discuss their series against 100T, Nidalee as a pick in the meta, integrating Mithy into the coaching staff, and their anticipated matchup against Cloud9. I wanted to specifically ask you about red side and blue side. You guys picked blue side twice. So what was the reasoning for that, especially in game two? I felt like I was confident with my strategy on blue side. I don't want to go too deep into it, but I just kind of had it prepped pretty well. I knew everything they were going to do when we were blue side. So I was able to plan and then we were able to practice that and so I just felt confident with it. I think in game one we just lost our mind. They were getting completely out drafted and out played in my opinion, but we just lost sight of what was important and we just started playing into their win condition. I believe they were not able to play the game if we were playing correctly. So for game one, it seemed like you guys switched it up completely for game two as far as the draft. You had a lot more engage in game two versus game one. It looked like you guys were very reliant on the Bard for getting your picks and engage off. Could you tell me the difference between your game one draft and game two and what you were kind of thinking about as far as your team composition? I mean like it was just different. They did some different things, we did some different things. I draft according to what the enemy drafts, not just thinking about my own team comp. I won't go too much more into it than that. But it definitely made the game easier to execute for us. So I guess that helped in a kind of a do or die game. We have some more like in-depth strategies I don’t wanna talk about. Okay, well let me ask you about the Nidalee pick that's been going on in North America. It seems to be quite high priority and of course all the Reddit comments and people on Twitter are just like, this is NA Nidalee. It seems like a bait pick. And even for your guys' game one, I wouldn't necessarily say that Nidalee was the problematic part of the team composition, but I know fans are going to point towards that. So what do you find is alluring as far as Nidalee as a pick? Why is she good right now in the meta? Obviously it's AD carry mid meta. We picked her today, so we do think she has some merit. She's a little difficult to execute. And yeah, I actually don't want to talk too much about that as well. I'm going to be honest with you. Like we think it's a hard champ to play for sure. It's mechanical ceiling is very high. So sometimes it doesn't work. We want to become a good team that we don't want to dampen our ceiling for no reason. I think we have great players that can pull off like all kinds of champions. So if we think [a champion] is something we want to use, we're not going to be like, “wow, this is too hard for us to play”. We're just going to try and do our best with it. So talk to me about integrating Mithy. Of course way back in the day, I want to say on Origin you both were teammates actually. We were teammates in 2019 Origin but also in 2013 on Lemon Dogs. Oh yeah! If you want to go way way back, yeah Lemon Dogs! Okay, so how has it been interacting with him again and integrating him into FlyQuest? It's been pretty easy. He's obviously a very experienced coach and I knew that he's a very smart person. So of course when C9 dropped him it was no-brainer for me that I wanted him to be our assistant coach. Because basically, I don't know why, but they got third place; It's not that bad, they're probably going to get third place again. So it wasn't a terrible result for them. And people just were hating on him basically because they thought it was his fault. But I know him, so I know he's very good and smart. Easy pick up for us. He has a special, like very, special competence, a very deep competence in how support plays and how all [support’s] decisions impact team decisions. So he definitely filled in there and made us just a better team for that. Also had some other things that he brought to the team like strategic things. So I would say he's a very good strategical coach for me. It wasn't [a hard decision] at all. He also already has a report with Busio. He worked with him in 100 Thieves and he worked with Bwipo in Fnatic. So yeah, we're very happy with him. So you and Mithy are probably some of the only people now that were playing the game during the lane swap meta way back in the day, we're talking like 2015, and it seems like that would give you guys an advantage as far as discussing how lane swaps work, what worked in the past, and what can kind of work now. So during the entire beginning of the lane swap meta, how were your discussions with the team on how to handle lane swapping? Were you and Mithy able to give really good insight on that? As the staff, we think it's like we do talk a lot about lane swap. And I think that's something where the coaches should be helping the players. And you can actually really see which teams know what they're doing in swap and which [don't]. When you see, for example, TL is good. I think we're good. I think some of the other teams, especially the bottom teams, are pretty bad at it. And that's something we take pride in trying to improve, but the meta is too different. So we rather study VODs and theory craft. It's way too different back then. There was not even plates and it was just very different, but it's something we're still very focused on though. The only same thing is that you go to the other lane and you try to dive the guy so he loses farm. It's just like step one of the process and everyone kind of understands that. So I also want to get your thoughts on integrating new picks into stage games. So I had talked with a player actually a long time ago, I want to say it was like 2018, I talked with Xerxe who was an old school jungler and we had talked about the idea of integrating new picks and it's kind of difficult because you have to get buy-in from the rest of your team to say “I want to play Ivern top” lane or something, and you have to get buy-in from the rest of your team. So how is it as far as FlyQuest's ideas of integrating new picks or integrating niche picks, like say Urgot or Darius? Are you guys very open-minded about playing new picks or trying out new things? What is the criteria for you to put in a new pick as far as scrims or even stage games? I mean obviously Darius isn't like a new pick for us but it was at some point right and we try it, we make sure we understand the strengths and weaknesses and then we understand when to draft it and then the player also needs to show some skill on the champion so it's very case-by-case basis. For example, Bwipo he likes to be in the lab himself and then some other players in our team, they need to be more pushed into playing new champions. Not pushed, but like they also have some ideas, but it just depends on person-to-person. As staff, you can also play out the draft, like, okay, what do you think they're going to ban? What are we going to ban? Play it out and then think, okay, this champion, if we could play it would be relevant this weekend. So maybe we try to pick that [champion] up. So it could come from any part, like let's say a player thinks I can counter the meta picks with this, or the coach is like, the draft is going to go in the direction where this is going to become relevant. Some people need to get pushed and some people might need to be held back a bit depending on how much they want to experiment. So your next big matchup that everyone's kind of looking forward to is against Cloud9. What do you think about Cloud9 as a team? Their top and mid have a good laning phase, I would say. Their macro is pretty good. So, they can be a tough opponent, but I do think we are better. I think when they play against bottom teams, their mid and top just wins lane automatically. I think against us, that won't be the case. And then I think Blaber is gonna have to do more stuff because right now Blaber, he doesn't have to do anything, right? He just farms. And I think against us, he's gonna have to be way more uncomfortable and it's gonna be more of an interesting game because right now their wins are too easy. They're winning laning phase and then they pick scaling team comps. So their games are just too easy in my opinion. So we're gonna try to not let that happen to us. _______________ Izento has been a writer for the LoL scene since Season 7, and has been playing LoL since Season 1. Follow him on Youtube for more League content. Photo courtesy of Stefan Wisnoski/Riot Games For more LoL content, check out our LoL section