FLY Thinkcard: “I think [FLY] have earned the trust that the off-season went the way that we wanted it to go.”
Q: How was your offseason? After 2024 and 2025, coming into FLY must feel great.
Thinkcard: I’m excited about coming to FlyQuest. I think, at this point, it’s pretty clear it’s not going to be the same FlyQuest as the last two years — it’s like a completely different team. No Inspired, no Bwipo, no Busio.
So it is kind of a rebuild. In terms of going to the season […] it’s pretty clear that everyone needs to set their expectations straight. It’s a young team, with rookies — two of them — that haven’t really played in Tier 1.
So we know it’s gonna take a little bit of time, but still very confident with the team and I think, by the end of the year, we’ll be in a spot that we want to be.
Q: At what point did this direction for the roster become clear? Were you involved in that decision?
Thinkcard: Pretty early in the offseason, I expressed to FURIA that I wanted to explore my options and we came to a mutual agreement. […]
I had a pretty high buyout on my contract, so they were like “We’ll just mutually terminate the contract and then we can find a coach,” and then I could do my own thing. That was really nice of them.
And then, pretty early on when I talked to FlyQuest, we were pretty aligned. I really don’t like it when teams that probably aren’t going for the championship try to build these pseudo-contesting rosters instead of going the full rebuild route.
On CLG, in 2022, we did the full rebuild route — we got five Tier 2 players and then [many] of them ended up being really good pieces. We had Palafox, Bobjenkins, Contracts, Luger and Poome from Tier 2. And then, after a few splits, we made [two] changes to the roster and boom, championship roster.
To me, that’s how you rebuild, and that’s how you built a dynasty.
And so when FlyQuest [built for] 2024, they got Inspired obviously, but they got Busio his first real huge opportunity, they bought Bwipo back — and then obviously they had Quad and Massu that both came up from Tier 2. So they were able to do that.
So now, instead of getting all these veteran players — and some of them I do think are pretty good — we’re trying to do the same thing: We’re bringing in Gryffin, we’re bringing in Gakgos, we’re bringing in Cryogen — who I’ve had my eyes on for a while — and we’re gonna give them all the resources they need.
I’m very confident in my ability to train rookies and get everyone on the same page, and we’re gonna see where everyone’s at. I’m very confident that these guys are gonna be top players if they’re given the time.
Q: FLY announced unique in-person tryouts for the team’s new support, which was pretty unique. In reality, was it just a final check with Cryogen already in mind?
Thinkcard: So the tryout situation was kind of interesting.
It was basically a scouting combined boot camp with SIDO, so it wasn’t really specifically a FlyQuest tryout per se. It just happened to be that [I was already very interested in a player] who was already organized to be playing at the FlyQuest facility.
I was able to see how he practiced, the way he acted, his ability to talk to his teammates, his ability to deal with frustration, his ability to deal with good things that are happening, and to deal with high pressure. It was just a good small experience for me to just see how he dealt with all those things.
Q: Internally, do you think missing Worlds would be a disappointment? Is that what the team’s goal is?
Thinkcard: I’m good to see where we’re at. If I’m going to be talking to just like fans and the community in general, [over the last few years] all of the people involved with FlyQuest have earned your faith [that] we’ve made some good decisions in the offseason and the team’s gonna go in the direction we want it to go.
This is my third rebuild for rosters in a row. The last two won championships.
Naser — Empyre — I think he’s one of the best scouts in the entire world. He’s the one that got Gakgos, helped me scout Cryogen — and his eyes were on Gryffin as well.
Q: He helped bring up Jojo and Danny too, right?
Thinkcard: Yeah, he’s basically got most of the really young, good players that have entered the scene — and he knows basically every single region. He knows the really good players in China, Korea, [etc] too.
And then Andy Barton [GM], he’s done really good work with FLY, and PapaSmithy. All the people involved with these decisions, I think have earned the trust that the off-season went the way that we wanted it to go.
Q: Do you see particular teams at the top?
Thinkcard: Not at the moment.
If I were to predict the way that the year is gonna go, I would say C9 is probably going hit the ground running. I think they’re going to have the most immediate synergy. Especially bringing in APA, who’s pretty easy to work with. So I wouldn’t be surprised if they were, in the beginning, the best team that meshed. I don’t know how high their ceiling is — I think TL has a higher ceiling. So maybe TL eventually becomes the best team in the league.
And I’m not really too sure how everyone is going to mix together on LYON. […] So those are the question marks. SR can also be a good team, but I haven’t really seen anything too special from them [recently]. I need to see something a little bit extra from them before I put my faith in those guys again.
Q: Does the state of League in NA add extra pressure to how you’ll perform? Especially with how popular FLY has become?
Thinkcard: I mean, it weighs on me a little bit — that’s why I get a little bit upset when I see teams that build rosters that don’t really make too much sense to me, because the more teams that commit a little bit of time to Tier 2 players and players that are up and coming, it’s better for the scene.
So when I look at the way that we did our offseason, I think it helps just everything in general in NA. It motivates young players to keep playing the game. It motivates talented players to play in NA.
We literally have talented players going to Europe because NA teams aren’t giving them opportunities.
And it’s good for the scene and you build long-term fans. If we do really well — and I think we will do well — then Gryffin’s going to become a really popular player. Cryo’s going to get a lot of fans.
Gakgos is only 17. Imagine the stories [people] will be able to tell around Gakgos in four or five years and this guy turns out to be really insane. Just overall, it’s really good for the scene.
That’s why I get frustrated when other teams build these rosters that you look at and you’re like, “This is probably not gonna be a championship roster. It’s probably gonna be like a 5th/6th place roster, and there’s not really a lot of talent development going on on the team.”
It’s just a waste of a spot.
Q: At first glance, that rings true of rosters like SEN and DIG, but would you say SR falls into that category too?
Thinkcard: I think SR can … they have like a reason to make me believe that they can be a dark horse. I think Sentinels and Dignitas seem pretty unlikely. It just seems they’re trying to get immediate results and not be last, instead of developing a little bit.
Q: Would you support a return to the academy system in some way?
Thinkcard: Yep, I love having an Academy system.
We were trying really hard to actually put together an Academy team this offseason. It might still end up happening, but not to the same extent that I wanted it to and that we were trying to. But yeah, I think having an Academy team, especially when you rebuild like this, is so important.
If you go back to CLG, we had Dhokla in Academy, and then he had a really great resurgence and that’s why we brought him to LCS. The Academy system is pretty important for rebuilds like this. [This isn’t final], but I’m pretty sure we are going to be partnering with the Academy team to an extent and doing our best to help those players develop, so that we do have a bit more of a Tier 1 and Tier 2 team like back in the day
Q: Are you familiar with two-way contracts in VALORANT? They could be a way forward for LCS, but it feels like there’s not a lot of incentives for them.
Thinkcard: Yeah, I agree, I think there’s not too much incentive for [two-way] contracts to exist. I think, in general, most Tier 1 teams just partner with Tier 2 teams for image. They don’t help that much — it’s just so that they can say they have a Tier 2 team.
There’s a lot of kinks we have to work out in the system. We were trying really hard to get an on-site, in-the-same-building Academy team, but I don’t think it ended up working out. I think it’s not a perfect system — it kind of sucks that it came to this, where if you do partner with a team, it’s remote.
It’s hard to get inter-team conversations going, [we just] do the best we can do to make it work. But I don’t think two-way contracts are going to be a thing.
Q: Any final message to the fans?
Thinkcard: Just trust the process. It might take a little bit of time. It might not, but it might take a little bit of time and I’m very confident that the talent that we have on this team is going to be very, very exciting to watch.
I hope that you guys root for us — and that you guys are respectful and treat our players well.
