After a strong run at the 2024 World Championship, FlyQuest returns to the League of Legends Championship of The Americas North (LTA North) as the league's reigning champions. However, the team now faces a league vastly different from when they last left it, with the introduction of fearless draft, a major rebrand, and several gameplay changes along with the 2025 season. In an exclusive interview, the team's jungler, Kacper "Inspired" Słoma, reflects on the past few months, shares his mindset returning to North America, and discusses the numerous new changes impacting the league.

How have you been since returning from Europe to America? Did the offseason go well for you?

Kacper "Inspired" Słoma: "It's been basically the same as last year and well, we just started practicing. I think this offseason didn't have as many changes as I'm used to having. I think like the whole game, like in theory, changed a lot because they added the new mechanics and objectives, but in reality, it didn't really change that much. So, we are just starting to figure out what's good, what's not good. And yeah, just thinking about what we should start playing going into the next split.

What are your thoughts on FlyQuest having tried to acquire Jojopyun? Would you have liked to play with him, or do you feel it's better the roster stayed the same?

Inspired: I mean, I was not really aware of everything that happened because it was our management talking to him and deciding on everything. I would be fine playing with Jojopyun, I like him as a player, same for Bwipo. I like how he plays and how we are working with him. So, I don't know, it was a decision made by management, and I guess in the end, it didn't really happen. So, I guess we're going to be playing the same as we were last year!

Does having the same roster give FlyQuest an advantage over the rest of the LTA? Should FlyQuest still be considered the best team in the league, given TL also kept their roster?

Inspired: We should probably be considered one of the best teams since we won last season, but I think the game has changed quite a bit, so every team needs to find a new way of playing. I don't really feel like keeping the same roster gives you a huge edge. I’ve never agreed with what people say when new rosters are formed. I always hear people saying things like, "Why are they making changes after just one split? They haven't even had time to get to know each other or how they play together."

In my opinion, it's always kind of a bullshit argument. I think if you put good players together, they can start playing well together after like two weeks or something. So, I don't think having a new roster should ever be a problem for you. And yeah, I think it might be a little bit of an advantage at the beginning of the split for us, but going forward, I don't think keeping the same roster gives you that much of an advantage.

How does the team feel about returning to regional play after such a close match at Worlds against Gen.G? Is there a strong desire to get back to the international stage for revenge? Have you struggled with motivation to play locally again?

Inspired: In my eyes, it doesn't really matter if I play at Worlds or in LTA. Whatever the game is, I don't really play it differently depending on who I'm facing. I always try to play my champ in the most optimal way and focus more on the team comps rather than the enemies. The only time you switch up the team comp or playstyle is when you know the enemy team is way better than you, which rarely happens.

Usually, you know that opponents are either worse or on a similar skill level as you, so you just play how you think your champ should be played. Not everyone has the same approach as me, though. I can tell by the way my teammates play when they were up against players making mistakes I tried to point out to them. They weren't mindful of those mistakes and kept repeating them because they weren’t getting punished for it.

But when they started playing against the best players in the world, they were getting punished off cooldown for those same mistakes. I think that was a good lesson for the players on our team. As for me, I kind of read the game the same way. Even if you're playing against a worse team, I don’t think you should change your approach. You should play the game as it should be played.

With the introduction of Fearless Draft in the first split, many people are talking about how it might favor FlyQuest. Do you have any spicy picks ready, or are you still getting back into everything?

Inspired: We are still getting back into everything. I think Fearless Draft actually favors the worse team. The best teams usually have a good draft plan. In my experience, my teams have always been good at drafting—it was pretty straightforward to figure out which priority picks we wanted early, what answers we had for those picks, and what we didn’t want to let through or needed counters for. That made practice easier.

But now, I feel like after game one, going into game two, the drafts are going to get way harder. I can see situations where the drafts will be one-sided in game two or three because one team makes a mistake. They may realize they can’t pick a certain champion anymore, or something is already banned, and they’re stuck.

Going into game two or three, you have to start thinking much more about draft scenarios because it can get tricky when there are a lot of champions out, and the enemy still has bans left. They could pick something you didn’t think of, or you might forget about a pick. At that point, it’s really hard to come back from that mistake in the draft. So, I think Fearless Draft favors the worse team because it’s more chaotic.

What are your thoughts on Season 15 and the snowballing issues people have talked about? Riot recently mentioned the stats didn’t really support it, but some have went as far as calling it the worst season ever. How do you feel playing it so far?

Inspired: I had similar thoughts to Nemesis. The first games I played in scrims didn’t feel enjoyable. It seemed like the team that won the early game would just run over the rest of the game, getting the Atakhan buff at 20 minutes, then Nash at 25, and ending the game pretty quickly.

But when I think about it, I’m not sure if that’s how it’ll play out. In scrims, the games feel way too volatile. Junglers often get a free kill before even hitting level 6, and they get stronger before the raptors spawn. This lets them snowball faster and get more items, and if they can fight, the carries get stronger too. That makes it easier to take the Atakhan faster because everyone’s stronger, so you burn the objective quicker.

However, I’m not sure if that’s how it will be on stage. I think the slower Nash spawn might make drakes more important, and getting the early two drakes could help you play towards the soul. In scrims, the game is pretty snowbally, and I don’t like that. Before, you could play side lane for a longer time since you couldn’t really do Nash at 20 minutes. When Nash spawned, you could still react to it, especially with the old TPs that were fast and often unseen.

But now, everyone will see the TP coming, and Nash spawns at 25 minutes when champions usually have enough items to take it really fast. Once the objective spawns, both teams need to be in the area. There’s not much macro involved—either team will rush the objective and get away with it. So it seems like there’s way more fighting, but we’ll have to wait and see how it plays out in competitive games.

With the respawning Nexus turrets, do you think Team Liquid has a chance of beating you this time, especially after last split and the changes that were made?

Inspired: If towers had respawned in that final game... I think we were the reason the change was made. I guess the FlyQuest minions will never ever happen again. It's for sure better for them. So, we'll see. We'll have to try harder to beat them this time.

Sheep Esports: Do you think they have a chance now?

Inspired: Yeah, I do think so now. Now that our minions can't backdoor the game, we'll have to rely on 5v5, instead of 6v5."