FLY Jensen: “I feel like if I don't make Worlds this year, my career is just kind of over.”

FLY Jensen: “I feel like if I don’t make Worlds this year, my career is just kind of over.”

Time Stamp: January 26, 2024 3:48 PM

Santa Monica, CA – Nicolaj “Jensen” Jensen strode into the interview room of the Riot Games Arena with a spring in his step, and for good reason. The mid laner had just finished week 1 of the 2024 League Championship Series Spring Split 2-0 with his new team FlyQuest, one of two teams to do so alongside Cloud9 to kick off the season.

[Related: LCS 2024 Spring Split Power Rankings (Week 2)]

FLY Jensen

FLY came into 2024 with one of the stronger on-paper rosters in the LCS, but it was not without its question marks. Jungler Kacper “Inspired” Słoma Inspired had not competed since the 2023 LCS Spring Playoffs, and top laner Gabriël “Bwipo” Rau did not play competitively at all last year. But everything clicked for the gamers in green against Shopify Rebellion and Immortals Progressive – the young bot lane of rookie AD carry Fahad “Massu” Abdulmalek and sophomore support Alan “Busio” Cwalina held their own while the top side of the map took care of business. 

Jensen was surprised how quickly he had built synergy with Inspired and Bwipo to start the year, but that their level of play individually was not at all surprising.  “I wasn’t worried about them having a split or a season off,” Jensen told The Game Haus after FlyQuest’s win over IMT. “To be honest, I don’t think that matters too much. As long as you can align with your teammates on how you want to play the game, it’s just a matter of whether you click in the beginning, leading up to playoffs, or not at all. I think we’ve already figured it out, so things are going great.”

It took Jensen two days to get his first two wins of the season with FlyQuest. On Dignitas last year, he didn’t put a second scratch in the win column until week 7 of the 2023 LCS Spring Split.

DIG’s 0-9 start to last year was hardly Jensen’s fault, and the mid laner expressed confidence in his own play amidst the team’s struggles. That being said, even when factoring in DIG’s marginal improvements in the Summer Split, 2023 was undeniably the worst season of Jensen’s career as a professional League of Legends player. 

“I think I did play well individually, but I lacked direction for myself in how I wanted to play and how I wanted the team to play around me,” Jensen said when asked about his time on Dignitas as a whole.  “I think that was pretty big because I felt like we lacked a bit of an identity, and I should have been more present to create that. Maybe things could have gone differently, but at the same time, I don’t think I slacked off or anything like that. I really think I did everything I could, but the biggest thing was that I lacked a bit of direction.”

DIG’s finish outside of the top 3 in the LCS also marked the end of a rare streak that highlights Jensen’s career as an elite Western LoL esports pro. Every year since his debut with Cloud9 in the 2015 NA LCS Summer Split under the moniker Incarnati0n, the Danish mid laner has qualified for the World Championship – until last season with DIG.

“It was obviously frustrating to not be able to make it, but I mean, sometimes bad things happen. It was kind of something I saw coming — I saw it happening early on in the split,” Jensen admitted. “I thought that for us to make Worlds, we were going to have to get a bit lucky, because the reality is that we weren’t that good of a team.”

“It sucked, but sometimes, you have to go through some lows to get back to the highs.”

No amount of expectation could take away the sting of missing his first World Championship, though. “It was tough to sit home and watch from the sidelines…It was a bit weird to not be a part of it, but since I expected it early on, it sank in a bit quicker,” Jensen said. “It sucked, but sometimes, you have to go through some lows to get back to the highs.”

While Jensen no longer feels the pressure of keeping his Worlds appearances streak alive, the pressure he feels to perform now comes from a far more sobering place – an inevitability, one that he has avoided many years longer than most: “At this point in my career, if I don’t make it again, it’s a massive failure. 

I feel like if I don’t make Worlds this year, my career is just kind of over.”

In the tenth year of his LCS career, Jensen will look to return to top form and, if things continue to go well, start a new World Championship qualification streak. And after a down year on Dignitas, Jensen is aware that this season on FlyQuest may not just be his last chance at elite competition, but at competition. Period.

“I’m going to be 30 next year; who knows what’s going to happen? There’s not a big difference in that sense outside a lot of regret from not making Worlds [last year], but sometimes things are a bit out of your control and you just have to move forward.”

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