FlyQuest unlist costreaming video and issue apology to Caedrel

On Thursday, FlyQuest announced that they have formally unlisted their controversial documentary criticizing League of Legends costreamers. The club also issued a public apology to Marc "Caedrel" Lamont, whose face was used on the thumbnail, just 24 hours before their critical LCS elimination series for a Worlds qualification spot against Shopify Rebellion.

The conflict began five months ago when FlyQuest published a video discussing the impact of costreamers on the regional ecosystem, thereby using a British streamer’s picture in a clickbait thumbnail. The piece drew immediate backlash from both viewers and content creators, creating a persistent wave of community friction that overshadowed the team's competitive run heading into the LCS playoffs.

FlyQuest President & Chief Gaming Officer Christopher "PapaSmithy" Smith addressed the situation directly on X, admitting that the organization completely mismanaged the project and caused unnecessary friction for creators who actively drive viewership to the league. "In 24 hours our LCS team plays an elimination Best of 5 for Worlds, yet the match itself is going to be overshadowed by a tone deaf youtube doc about costreamers we published 5 months ago with a clickbait thumbnail of Caedrel."

Last week, Caedrel cast FlyQuest’s match against Team Liquid, openly embracing his deliberate hatewatch of FLY: “FlyQuest is the biggest larping org in the entire industry,” Caedrel said. “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."

The situation even reached the Liquid players, when our colleagues at lcsprofiles asked Jo "CoreJJ" Yong-in what he thought about it: “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.

Smith emphasized that the team holds no hostility toward independent streamers and apologized to figures like Caedrel, Christian "IWDominate" Rivera, and FlyQuest's own creators and players who were caught in the crossfire: "The worst part for me is that there will be reasonable people out there who think that FlyQuest hates Caedrel (we do not) or hates costreamers (we do not). That simple fact tells you how much a video intended to have a nuanced discussion on the rise of costreaming missed the mark in content and execution."

Rather than keeping the piece public as an internal reminder of their misstep, Smith confirmed shortly after that FlyQuest chose to unlist the documentary entirely to prevent further misinterpretation. "As a follow-up, after a lot of reflection and internal conversation, we are unlisting the costreamer’s video out of respect to Caedrel and his community. We want to recognize the damage this video has caused, as well as the damage to the overall reputation of FlyQuest as a whole in the League space."

With the video removed from public view and apologies issued, FlyQuest aims to clear the air before their decisive best-of-five series, leaving the external narrative behind to focus entirely on the Rift.

Following the public statements from FlyQuest, Caedrel addressed the situation live on stream, accepting PapaSmithy's apology and commending the executive for taking full personal accountability. While addressing his viewers, the broadcaster noted that he never had an issue with analytical discussions regarding co-streaming metrics, but felt the original video unfairly blamed content creators for wider structural issues in the scene.

Lamont explicitly asked his audience to stop hatewatching FlyQuest, emphasizing that the players had no involvement in producing the documentary and should be evaluated solely on their performance on the Rift. With the apology accepted and the video unlisted, Lamont confirmed that the matter is resolved, encouraging fans to focus entirely on the upcoming LCS playoffs.