Despite being hyped up as one of the best ADCs in the LCK back in 2022 and having a stellar debut split in LCS Spring, FlyQuest’s Summer nosedive necessitated change. That change has come, with Prince being off the team for 2024.
FlyQuest’s 2023 arc is a tragic one. The team got a massive cash injection from a new investor, something that’s increasingly rare in the esports space these days.
They used those funds to try and secure some of the best LCK talent available in VicLa, a player who also won’t sticking with FlyQuest in 2024, and Lee ‘Prince’ Chae-hwan. Prince narrowly missed Worlds 2022 and fell at the hand of DRX, the team that would ultimately go on to win the entire championship, in the last game they needed to qualify.
And, while FlyQuest was hoping Prince’s mechanical excellence would take them to the top of the LCS for the very first time, the team ultimately wound up having a historic nosedive that put them near the bottom of the LCS in Summer. The ADC prodigy won’t be sticking around to try and fix things in 2024.
Prince departs FlyQuest after disappointing LCS Summer
Prince had to overcome a lot of hardship to prove himself as a player worth importing. 2022 Liiv SANDBOX was lost without Prince at the start of the year, ending in ninth place in the LCK Spring Split as they scrambled to find a team that’d work.
However, LSB had a massive comeback in Summer, managing to put up a good fight against GenG and narrowly missing Worlds 2022 qualification in what was Liiv SANDBOX’s best finish in the history of the org. This turnaround was largely due to Prince’s triumphant return to the LCK stage.
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Prince came over to North America to try and capitalize on the success he had in the year prior, using his mechanical skill to smash the competition. This led to a curve that’d be, oddly enough, the polar opposite of Liiv SANDBOX’s 2022 success and ultimately brand 2023’s FlyQuest roster as a failed venture.
It's a terrible day for rain…It's with heavy hearts, we part ways with @FLYprince0405. A force of nature with the brightest future ahead of him. We wish him nothing but the best on his next adventure. pic.twitter.com/0fgEUbpNp4
— FlyQuest (@FlyQuest) October 1, 2023
The star player of FlyQuest’s next generation has departed the team. While they still have strong NA talent in the form of Impact, a player who’s essentially an NA player at this point considering how long he’s been playing in the region, as well as Vulcan and Spica, there’s still strong talent on the team.
At this point, it’s hard to predict what FlyQuest’s 2024 roster will look like. Though the players they still have command a strong record on their past teams, it hasn’t yet been proven that they work well together.
While FLY could feasibly invest in them, it’s still possible they completely gut their LCS team ahead of 2024. It remains to be seen what happens to FlyQuest now that the roster they gambled on has failed.