Pressure and expectation are high, but new FlyQuest captain INS wouldn’t have it any other way.
FlyQuest is fresh off a dominant performance at last week's Austin Major qualifier, but the biggest test for Joshua "INS" Potter and his men come in the opening match at IEM Melbourne against Team Vitality.
Vitality is far from the first opponent anyone would like to face at an event, but in the team's return to LAN for the first time since Chris "dexter" Nong's benching and only a month after the addition of Corey "nettik" Browne from ex-TALON, FlyQuest will have to face the ultimate test.
Esports.gg caught up with INS prior to the team's opening match to discuss his return to the in-game leader role, how nettik has settled into FlyQuest, and what INS plans for the squad after a rocky start to 2025.
INS on keeping up with VRS: "We don't want to drop off the face of the earth"
A truly horrid flight schedule for you guys, most travelling from interstate Australia. In all seriousness, how big of a deal is jetlag, especially for an event this far away and smack-bang in the middle of the season?
"It was a nice little two hour flight for regali and I from Brisbane, and then obviously Declan [Vexite] is from Melbourne, so it's nice to just be able to do a short travel day. I think every other team is experiencing a pain that they probably experience once a year maybe, if they're lucky.
“I think you see a lot of these teams are playing all these events back to back as well, so it's tough for them, there’s a lot of burnout coming in; teams like The MongolZ who have played probably every single event this year as well. It works in funny ways — it'd be like six days before [the event] and people are at 100%, but then fatigue sinks in."
There’s a lot of pressure to open an event at home against the number one team in the world in Vitality who are looking to go for that Grand Slam. Have you put a lot of individual prep into this matchup, or is it still about working on the team’s game as a whole?
“It's a bit of both, I would say. A team like Vitality, they're pretty hard to counter. There's a reason they're the best team in the world. For us, we're kind of just focusing on ourselves.
“We had a really good bootcamp before MRQ which is important. We’re trying to bring in a new system and a new player with nettik into this system, so there’s been a lot more work on us more than them. We don't expect to be like world beaters straight away.
"We have a little advantage with other teams being jetlagged and stuff but we're just focusing on ourselves mainly. At the end of the day these players are tier one and it's hard to counter them."
Let’s talk Nettik and this new system. You debuted at last week’s MRQ but that was an online event with the team playing apart. Here, it’s tier-one squads and on LAN. Has preparation with nettik been more about accommodating for him and getting him up to speed in the system? How have roles in FlyQuest adjusted to slot him in?
“When we brought him in I pretty much just asked him what he wants to do, like what his comfortable roles and positions are, and we tried to give him as many as possible. With me shifting to IGL I have to take some of those roles as well and we have Vexite who is a similar player to nettik. We’re making nettik as comfortable as possible, and so far it’s been working out well.
“[Nettik] is way more ahead than I expected, he’s a better player than I expected. I knew he was a raw talent but I think we all still need to improve and he needs to develop into our system as well because it's completely different to his old team. He's been really strong for us in bootcamps and at the MRQ."
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Was his move to FlyQuest in the works for a while or was it sudden after TALON’s departure from the scene?
"It was more touch and go, it just kinda happened and it was the right time for him. We saw that he was a free agent so we took the opportunity to take him, and he's a real talent so we couldn't pass it up."
You return to the IGL role following dexter’s departure. We know you had been in the position before dexter came over, but how is your game evolving to adapt more to the IGL role now compared to when you first took it before?
“I would say it's more individual mental rather than my game. Obviously it's been a while but I've matured a lot and I've learned a lot from my time spent with erkaSt and dexter and the way they did things. Mostly it's just mental.
“Before FlyQuest I would say I had the goal of playing for a tier-one European team, and I was focused on myself more than the team. Nowadays I just want to win and show the best and represent Australia — that's my goal.
“I think also the Counter-Strike meta has changed a bit. It's more about bringing in firepower and rolling with the trades. That's the main thing we're focused on with this roster change. Back in the day I was pretty confident I was a good caller, but the pieces in the team weren't fitting well and that's why we had to get dexter in.”
How much impact do you feel this role is going to take on you individually and have you looked into avenues to mitigate this?
"I personally felt like I didn't really drop off that much as an IGL in terms of my individual performance. I think we just didn't get wins, so it's hard for anyone to have good games in that sense.
“It's all about just playing as a team and focusing on our trades. If people are entrying, they may have bad games where they just entry purely and they're going to have bad stats, but they're doing their job for the team. Everyone just has to focus on themselves, and that's my main goal as well.”
2025 as a whole has been a little topsy-turvy. You came back here and dominated the MRQ as I think a lot of people thought, so you've got the Austin Major spot, but along with that you have some pretty rough tier-one tournaments. What are the expectations for the back end of the year for you guys to balance out the start of the year?
“I think first of all it's all about getting our VRS points and attending these tourneys because obviously we don't want to drop off the face of the earth and not be able to attend tier one events with the way the system is.
"After that, we just want to be better than we were to start the year. Obviously we made the roster change for a reason and we're hoping this brings more confidence into everyone individually."
FlyQuest begins their IEM Melbourne homestand against world-beaters Team Vitality later today. For more CS2 esports news, stay tuned to esports.gg.
