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For FlyQuest support Juan “JayJ” Guibert, his team’s decision to trade for former G2 Esports support Kim “Wadid” Bae-in wasn’t exactly good news at first.
FlyQuest may have finished fourth in the 2019 LCS Spring Split, but they’ve been a middle-of-the-pack team since joining the LCS in 2017. After two weeks in the 2019 LCS Summer Split, FlyQuest are tied for eighth with a 1-3 record.
FlyQuest kept the same roster moving into the Summer Split, but after barely missing out on the finals this spring, an extra push seemed warranted. That’s when FlyQuest traded academy mid laner Marcin “Selfie” Wolski to Rogue for Wadid.
While the trade may have come as a surprise to fans, JayJ told Dot Esports that he “knew already that [FlyQuest] were going to look for a sixth-man LCS level support.” What JayJ didn’t know was whether this sixth man would be an academy player, someone to split scrims with, or a star coming to take his place.
The trade for Wadid was met with concern from JayJ.
“When I got told the news that we were signing Wadid initially obviously there’s like some kind of like, ‘oh man, this guy could like take my job,’” JayJ said. “As long as I’ve been on the LCS team, our academy support equivalent usually hasn’t been LCS level.”
But after bonding and splitting scrims with Wadid, JayJ feels they have a great relationship and there’s “no fire under [JayJ] at least.” He even praised Wadid.
“I think I learned a lot from watching him play as well,” JayJ said. “Just a lot about like general macro and control that kind of stuff. He does most of those things very well.”
While JayJ isn’t stressing over the trade now, he mentioned the purpose for signing Wadid was to add additional pressure to the team through internal competition.
“That’s what our management and coaching staff wanted to do with Wadid and they’ve definitely done it,” JayJ said.
The team may have succeeded in mixing things up this season, but JayJ believes FlyQuest’s greatest strength is the synergy built from keeping the same roster.
“I think having the same five teammates as last split helps us a lot because we already know, kind of, all of our problems and we work on fixing them,” JayJ said.
Although the start of the Summer Split has been rough, all of FlyQuest’s losses have been against the current top three teams. As the split continues, we’ll see how this trade affects FlyQuest moving forward.
