The sky’s the limit for Flyquest’s Josedeodo

The League of Legends Championship Series (LCS) welcomes new stars every year, whether they come from Europe, South Korea or its own developmental leagues. This year, though, Flyquest welcomed a player from a region never before represented in the LCS — Brandon Joel “Josedeodo” Villegas of the Latin America league. Josedeodo put in the work to make it to North America and he has rewarded Flyquest with his never-ending hunger to improve in hopes of carrying his team to the top.

Biding his time

Josedeodo is turning 21 this year as a prototypical young talent, but League of Legends has been his life for almost seven years now. When it came to becoming a professional player, it was never a matter of “if,” but “when” as he patiently awaited his 17th birthday — the minimum age to compete in a professional league.

“When I was 14, I [made it] to Challenger,” Josedeodo explained. “I was kind of expecting to be in the professional league, but I didn’t know when because I was too young and couldn’t compete in anything.”

Even so, he looked for more ways to challenge himself as he got older.

“Then I went to [the] Brazilian server and hit Challenger with a 70% win rate,” Josedeodo, who grew up in nearby Argentina, said. “At that point, I was like, ‘I really want to do this.’ That was always my dream, hitting competitive.”

Read more: Why a Cloud9 player was the key to Dignitas’ offseason roster strategy

As a bright-eyed kid dreaming of the highest level of competition, Josedeodo was not without his role models growing up. As a jungler himself, he specifically looked up to a player now retired, but well-known — Choi “inSec” In-seok of Star Horn Royal Club at the time.

“I always say that when I was young and watching [League] in school, I would watch inSec. I remember watching him a lot during his Fiddlesticks games,” Josedeodo said. “If you remember, [at the 2014 world championship], he played Fiddlesticks during one series and I was really hyped … I was in school at that time so I was watching during all my classes. “

inSec might not be around these days, but a day rarely goes by when someone doesn’t use his namesake to refer to an awesome Lee Sin kick. It’s that type of notoriety and mystique that pushes burgeoning players like Joseodeodo to reach the very top. Playing at the highest level is exciting, but it takes work to be remembered by fans for years to come.

Josedeodo’s work ethic speaks for itself, as he has consistently pushed himself to reach the top of any ladder he plays on, whether it was Latin America South, Latin America North, Brazil, North America or even China during the League of Legends World Championship last year. That kind of effort is how he reached the top of Latin America with Rainbow7 in 2020 after playing competitively for three years, earning his first trip to Worlds.

Josedeodo competed with Latin American team Rainbow7 at Worlds last year. Photo: Riot Games

Worlds and joining Flyquest

Josedeodo and Rainbow7 didn’t exactly have the greatest expectations going into Worlds given Latin America’s past performances, but it proved to be a great opportunity to both learn and showcase his talent on a global stage. Rainbow7 weren’t favorites to win Latin America, but competition was still shallow and the difference in talent was palpable for Josedeodo.

“Playing in Worlds was a really good experience for me because I got to learn the real difference between me and the good players,” Josedeodo said. “I remember playing against [Suning Gaming’s] [Lê “SofM” Quang Duy] in solo queue and learning the difference between me, a Latin American player, and a good player like SoFM, who is one of the best junglers from my point of view.”

Read more: 100 Thieves rise to top of LCS with cohesion, camaraderie

From a team perspective, it wasn’t as fruitful, but Josedeodo believes that it was still a positive experience for everyone involved.

“I feel like, Iater on, I started to learn some team stuff … we weren’t the best team for sure, but as the weeks went on, I think we caught up really well to the competition. We didn’t make it because it was a short time, but I think it was really good for us.”

Perhaps more importantly for Josedeodo, his electric Worlds performances and continued solo queue efforts opened a door to another Worlds qualifying team with its eye on the future, Flyquest. Players from minor regions such as Latin America or Brazil tend to have less opportunities to jump to a major region, so North America was certainly a big upgrade.

“He really became a player that separated himself when we were at Worlds, and noticing how well he was climbing not only in the NA server, but also the Chinese super server,” Flyquest general manager Nick Phan explained. “After hearing feedback from some of the other teams … even if Rainbow7 wasn’t the most exciting team to hear about coming out of scrims … there were generally positive reviews about Josedeodo. At that point, he was already on our radar.”

At that point, Josedeodo’s hard work set him up for spot on Flyquest after it became clear that “the 2020 Worlds team didn’t stand a strong shot of staying together due to a number of circumstances,” Phan said.

Josedeodo was one of Flyquest’s centerpieces in the rebuild, and he has proven that value both in and out of game for his team.

“He, as a player, is very self-critical, which is very rare from a player in esports in general,” Phan said. “I think the conception that a lot of people have about North American players and North American culture is that it’s a little more lax and there’s a little more entitlement. While I can say that is and can be true, Josedeodo is just one of those dudes who studies the game almost 24/7. He’s always consuming League of Legends … he’s watching VODs, playing solo queue, and researching different builds while asking different questions to our coaches.”

Phan even had a funny anecdote to share when it came to Josedeodo’s dedication to the game.

“He was like, ‘In review from now on, I just want to hear the things that I need to get better at instead of what I’m doing well.’ You can tell by the way how he wants to improve that the pace and pressure which he puts himself under to do so is incredibly high.”

Phan stresses that there’s an important balance to be maintained when it comes to competing at the highest level since people generally need to know what they’re doing well in order to improve, but ultimately, Josedeodo is a special type of worker hungry to improve. Despite a rough early start where he couldn’t join the team for practice — he only had about three or four scrims of practice before his games in the Lock In tournament — he’s been able to make his presence known in the LCS.

Josedeodo has often been at the center of Flyquest wins, and it has been evident through carry performances on champions like Lillia and more supportive play on surprise champions like Dr. Mundo. He carries the aura of a star, but at the end of the day, he just wants to win and nothing else matters more.

“My goal in every league is to be the best player I can be. If this year, I’m not considered to be the best player, I’ll just try again next year,” Josedeodo said. “But also, I feel that your team is always the most important thing, so winning the split is the most important goal.”

Flyquest are currently 6-12 in the LCS and failed to qualify for the Mid-Season Showdown, but there’s still a lot of league to be played this summer, and Josedeodo is just getting started. He has always considered himself an “underdog during [his] career,” and it’s that type of mentality that will help him fly high.

Lead image credit: Riot Games / YouTube