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At 3:49, FlyQuest support Zaqueri "aphromoo" Black lands a Zenith Blade onto CLG's Juan "Contractz" Garcia. His lane partner, Johnson "Johnsun" Nguyen pushes in the bottom lane wave while the rest of FlyQuest collapse onto the bottom lane Tier 1 turret. Even top laner Colin "Kumo" Zhao is there, having roamed down from top lane on his Smite Janna.
In a few seconds, Contractz is dead at the hands of a long-range snipe from Johnsun's Jhin.
"Okay, you've always got to keep your eyes forward for this strategy," LCS shoutcaster Sam "Kobe" Hartman-Kenzler says. "Next step, you never want to waste a second. Dragon is coming up very quickly, you just killed off Contractz again, and you know his entire bottom side is already gone. So you ward up in preparation for this dragon."
After warding, Kumo looks for a potential kill mid lane, helps mid laner Loïc "toucouille" Dubois get a good back timer, and FlyQuest end up securing the dragon almost on spawn.
Forty-three minutes and twenty-nine seconds later, FlyQuest win their first game of the 2022 LCS Spring Split.
It only took until Game 2 on the first day of the 2022 League of Legends Championship Series to see the unconventional strategy of Smite top lane Janna for FlyQuest. They continued the Smite top trend in their next game, a 34-minute, back-and-forth slugfest where Kumo played Karma instead.
A week earlier, I asked aphromoo what FlyQuest would look like this year as a team.
"I think we can be really good at early game. We need to practice that into snowballing around objectives and with our vision. I think that FlyQuest last year was lacking that a lot just early game macro and how to snowball and all that. And it's definitely spilled over into this year. We can get there. Teamfighting is obviously going to need some work because it's been looking ugly."
He laughed, recalling their uncoordinated fights on the first day of the Lock In Tournament. "Erase that from the memory guys, let's go forward," he said.
Now, I can't help but wonder if he was laughing internally throughout the entire interview, knowing that Smite supports in the top lane would be his team's strategy for Week 1.
In fairness, it is technically an early game strategy.
FlyQuest kicked off their Lock In appearance with a rough 0-2 first day, and bounced back with a stronger 2-0 second day of games. They were swept in the quarterfinals by eventual tournament winners Team Liquid, but showed a few interesting runs of play and generally looked much improved from both their Day 1 Lock In performance and the team's struggles last year.
"Yeah after that first day of games we were just like, 'Damn we are shiiiiiit,'" aphromoo joked, laughing to himself. "So going into review we were just like, let's do our best to be as cohesive as we can. Just keep talking. Right now we have a lot of chaotic comms, a lot of people trying to involve themselves on the play. So we just have to take our time and whittle down the bad comms, make sure we understand how people want to play. All of us play a lot differently. It just takes time."
Aphromoo joined FlyQuest this past offseason, partially at the request of bot laner Johnsun, with whom he'd played on Dignitas in 2020.
"For this season, I personally asked aphro because I had a good relationship and experience working with him when I was on Dignitas two years ago," Johnsun said in an LCS features interview. "And then I noticed that one of our problems as a five-man unit for FlyQuest in 2021 was we didn't really have a good leader in game who also knew how to direct the players on how to play the game inside and outside of the game."
Johnsun went on to describe last year's FlyQuest and their mid-game macro specifically as messy and awkward at times. He thought aphromoo would be the perfect choice for the team to help shore up the team's decision-making and macro calls.
Describing coming to FlyQuest as "coming home," aphromoo reiterated that one of the main reasons he came to FlyQuest was at Johnsun's behest, and he was excited to play with the bot laner again.
"When I played with him before he was a noob, happens," aphromoo joked. "It was his rookie season. His mechanics are there. He plays everything, mages and AD carries it doesn't matter to him so he's very versatile. Plus he's just so funny. It's always a good time as well."
Johnsun was one of the more publicly maligned AD carries in the LCS last year, something that aphromoo attributed much more to the team's overall lack of coordination and decisiveness more than his individual mechanics.
"Most important is making sure that the team play is there so you can showcase that: good setup, and then he'll just perform off of that," aphromoo said. "It's very easy to problem solve with Johnsun on my team. I just think that we need to work on our team play and he'll be able to showcase it. It sucks that he couldn't last year, I know that he finished ninth or something but it's okay. I'm here now."
Aphromoo laughed again at this, but the idea that the 29 year-old support actively makes the teams he plays on better is an LCS community-wide thought that has followed him from team to team. A cursory list of tournaments aphromoo has participated in starts in 2011 at IPL 3 in Atlantic City as an AD Carry main and ends currently with his time on FlyQuest as their starting support in 2022. The middle of those years includes a Mid-Season Invitational Finals appearance with CLG in 2016 and two LCS titles.
Now on FlyQuest, he hopes to help the team coordinate better and return to playoffs with a stronger identity as a five-man unit.
"Helping be the glue and narrow it down," he said when asked what his goals were with the team. "I value making the first proactive play in any game. That's a big goal of mine. And then from an organization standpoint, making sure we make playoffs. I want to do well. Give the boys a dub, you know?"
In League of Legends, players are expected to age out of the game (gracefully or otherwise) in their mid-twenties at the latest. Aphromoo's continued presence in the LCS is an anomaly, but one where his experience is valued and considered an asset to whatever team he ends up on.
"I'm just a lot more patient and disciplined now," aphromoo said. He added that this is particularly valuable when on a team with a lot of rookies or younger players. "I know when I was young I always wanted to go for the big outplay and stuff like that and that happens a lot when you're playing with the younger guys. That's just important, having someone who is patient and keeps a level head. I never really yell, either, just having a good tone and demeanor, that's me."
His answer to what keeps him motivated to play at all was simple.
"I just love competing. In any kind of game. Just being on a team is super fun and this is going to sound terrible, but I just enjoy shitting on people. If you can do it while you're competing and playing for a championship I'm all for it. I do actually enjoy the game, currently I love playing the game right now."
