Last Sunday,
secured a clean sweep over
to advance to the Upper Bracket Final of the
League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) Summer Split Playoffs. The match drew nearly 150,000 viewers, with some tuning in through the stream of Marc "
Caedrel" Lamont, who had a very specific, and assumed, goal in mind: hatewatching FlyQuest.
This hatewatch stems from a small controversy earlier this year, when FLY took aim at co-streamers in a video posted on their social media. Among them, Caedrel is currently the biggest co-streamer in the West. He is even a central figure in the video after his face was used as the thumbnail. It is therefore easy to imagine that the British streamer was pleased with the outcome of the series between the two North American teams.
While watching FLY vs. TL, Caedrel returned to the drama with FlyQuest on stream, explaining its origins. It stemmed from videos posted by the organization in which they discussed why they believe Tier 2 is "designed to fail," followed by another video discussing why, in their view, co-streamers are not saving esports, and even weakened the foundation of the esports ecosystem.
The streamer then said while watching FLY vs. TL: "FlyQuest is the biggest larping org in the entire industry. I won't go more about it because chat says it's living rent-free in my head, and lowkey it has been, so now we hate-watch. And from the bottom of my heart, I want to apologise to FlyQuest for stealing their viewers while I watch this match."
CoreJJ's reaction
After the match, TL's South Korean support Jo "
CoreJJ" Yong-in gave an
interview to lcsprofiles, in which he said: "
It’s a mixed feeling, because you know, I’m glad that Caedrel is happy and all the viewers are happy — but also, at the same time, all the players on FlyQuest are nice. I don’t have any hard feelings against them."
With their victory, Team Liquid officially qualified for Worlds, although they are currently only guaranteed a spot in the Play-In. They will have to beat Cloud9 on Sunday, September 27, to secure a place in the LCS Grand Final and advance to the Worlds Main Stage. At 32 years old, CoreJJ remains one of the pillars of TL, having joined the organization in early 2019.
The remainder of the LCS competition
In the Lower Bracket, where Fly have been sent, they will face Shopify Rebellion on Friday. The winner of FLY vs. SR will then face LYON for a spot at Worlds. Kacper "
" Słoma and his teammates lost to Cloud9 and will therefore have to win on Saturday, or risk a major disappointment after dominating the domestic season throughout the year and performing well internationally.
