Coming off a strong showing at the 2023 World Championship, Ian Victor "FBI" Huang is now ready to carry-on his past successes in the 2024 League Championship Series (LCS). Re-signing with NRG, the Australian bot laner is now set to re-unite with his previous duo lane partner Choi "huhi" Jae-hyun. Current champions of the LCS, FBI and his team are now faced with a difficult challenge: try and score another championship for themselves. Today, the 24-year-old AD Carry reveals all of his thoughts about the coming season in an exclusive interview with Sheep Esports.

| How has your time with NRG been so far?

FBI: “It has been really great honestly. When I first joined the team in the summer of 2023, I would definitely say that we went through a couple of rough patches, but I'm really proud of my teammates and coaching staff for pushing through. One thing special about this team is how easy it is to talk to each other and figure out problems while staying honest with each other.”

| Even though you joined in the later half of 2023, have you felt any repercussions of the CLG acquisition?

FBI: “Not for me personally, most of CLG's staff was kept so it stayed rather similar from what I was told. Obviously CLG was a pretty legendary organization and it was really sad to see them go though.”

| Last year was a really successful year for you. Do you feel any pressure to perform to the same level again?

FBI: “I wouldn't really say I feel pressured. Maybe at the start of my career I would feel the weight of expectations and community perception more, but overtime during my career I realized that what you've accomplished or done in the past doesn't mean too much in the present day. You're only as good as your last game, realistically speaking. I don't hold too much weight on what we achieved last year but, at least for me personally, I wanna go further, because that's always the goal for any competitor. I want to exceed what I've accomplished in the past and achieve it again.”

| You'll be re-uniting with huhi this year. Do you think that he will help you exceed your past achievements?

FBI: “It's always nice to re-unite with an old friend honestly. I think that he had a really great year in 2023 [with Golden Guardians]. Huhi really proved that he was the best support in the league throughout the year, in my opinion. He's always been a very smart player, huhi has a lot of knowledge and views on the game that he brings to his teams. He gives different perspectives”

| What would you say are your strengths as a duo?

FBI: “When we played together in the past, I feel like we've always had really great knowledge of bot lane match-ups. Now that we're both more experienced and maybe even veterans of the game, we can play multiple different styles of bot lanes to fit what our team requires of us. We've always really had great laning in my opinion, and he has always known where to be on the map due to his knowledge.”

| Several people are looking at Cloud9 as the “on-paper” best roster in the league. Do you feel like NRG is being underrated once more?

FBI: “I honestly don't really care too much about this kind of things. I do think that C9 is looking very strong though.”

| Are they your main rivals in that case?

FBI: “I'm not too sure yet at this point. Super-teams have often came in the past and failed dramatically. It's hard to say that a team on-paper can be a rival before having played them officially. I'm not too sure what to expect from them just yet. A lot of teams who start strong like FlyQuest in 2023 can sometimes fall quite hard. It'll come down to who works the hardest.”

| You've been to international tournaments quite a few times in your career. With the aim of improving on past results, do you feel a special hunger this year to prove yourself internationally?

FBI: “Yeah. I think it's always the goal to win Worlds, make a deep run at international tournaments, and make your region proud. Ultimately, though, it's a really different game compared to last year. I'm not going to look past the regional league and say that I'm going to accomplish something at Worlds right now. Every team still needs a lot of time to grow. That being said, my goal is always to make it to Worlds, to make it to MSI, and make our region proud. Last year we were generating a lot of buzz with the things we managed to do, but we finished with a pretty disappointing loss, and it stings pretty badly. I want to get back onto that stage and prove that we can compete with the best teams in the world.”

| For now, the goal is to focus on local play and dominate the LCS then, right?

FBI: “Yeah, 100%. You can never look too far into the future and, for me, it's just winning one game at a time and, eventually we'll get to the place we want to be in.”

| A lot of players have been discussing the impact of changes to bot lane, notably to red side. Do you think that there could be any follow-up changes to this? How do you feel about these changes?

FBI: “I don't think there will be any follow-up changes for now. For the first couple of games, it's been very different: the ganking paths, diving, objective control... There's just a lot of very different strategies and opportunities now. We're still trying to figure out a lot of things with this new patch, but I've been enjoying the changes, it's very refreshing.”

| Can we expect any spicy picks?

FBI: “Huhi has always had a few spicy picks, maybe he'll even pull out the Aurelion Sol support [laughs]. I'll try to match any craziness he comes-up with.”

What's next?

Despite rising expectations for NRG, the team seems poised to take on the LCS 2024 Spring Split with a cool and collected attitude. With FBI at the helm, the squad is now ready to compete starting January 20th. Facing Cloud9 in their very first match, the league is set to start in an explosive manner which viewers will not want to miss.

Week 1 NRG LCS Schedule: