Ep. 5 - Nick Phan, General Manager of FlyQuest, on building a roster, navigating free agency, and developing NA talent

Nick Phan, FlyQuest's General Manager, talks through building the
2020 roster, the V1per/Solo change, efforts to re-sign Santorin
for 2021, developing player and coaching talent in NA through
Academy and Amateur, and much more.


Follow Nick at twitter.com/Swaguhsaurus
Follow Tim at twitter.com/TimSevenhuysen


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Show Notes


0:00 Introduction

2:01 Nick’s start in esports

3:41 Nick’s role at FlyQuest, past work experience, and key
skill sets

8:22 Building the roster for 2020

10:42 The importance of attitude, approach, and fit

12:35 Adding PoE and Ignar

15:21 Goals going into spring, and V1per/Solo change

23:24 Expectations for summer 2020

26:54 COVID-19 and differences in playing from home

28:20 FlyQuest at Worlds

33:15 Mental aspects of worlds

35:45 Playing to your strengths and opponent weaknesses, not
just the meta

38:16 FlyQuest’s 2020 MVP

42:10 2020/21 offseason: what changes are coming?

42:58 Will FlyQuest re-sign Santorin?

44:05 How much does free agency come down to being the
highest bidder?

45:15 Would losing Santorin have knock-on effects for other
roster changes at FLY?

46:40 Importing talent and Oceanic opportunities in the age
of COVID-19

48:50 Developing talent in NA, and the amateur scene

55:40 What are FlyQuest’s goals for Academy?

1:00:00 Developing quality staff and infrastructure to feed
into player development

1:02:40 Listener questions

Chase Schweitzer: What are the 5 primary skills/factors you
look into a player when building a roster? Baseball examples,
exit velocity for hitters, spin rate for pitchers, etc.

Joshua Gutman: Why does it seem that team's playstyles are so
dependent on their roster? Is this because the players aren't
good enough to play multiple playstyles, it's too hard to learn
other playstyles, or do not enough coaches exist that could
properly coach players to learn new playstyles?

1:11:20 Outro