İbrahim "Gakgos" Samet Bulut, a 17-year-old toplaner playing in the LFL’s Division 2 league, has reached an agreement to join FlyQuest in the LTA North Conference, according to Sheep Esports sources. Gakgos won’t be replacing Gabriël "Bwipo" Rau as the team’s starting toplaner — much like Shen "Driver" Tsung-Hua and Hsu "Rest" Shih-Chieh of CTBC Flying Oyster, the rookie-and-veteran duo will share the starting spot on a six-man roster.

The young Turkish toplaner is already considered one of the most prodigious up-and-coming talents in the ERLs — at just 14 years old, he’d already reached Grandmaster in League Of Legends and Immortal 3 in VALORANT.

Gakgos made his ERL debut in the Belgian-Dutch Elite Series at 16, placing fourth with mCon Esports in Spring 2024. His impressive performance earned him a spot on NASR eSports in the TCL in Summer — a far stronger ERL than the Elite Series where he eventually finished second in the playoffs. In the LFL Division 2 Finals this split, Gakgos and Project Conquerors fell 2-3 to Esprit Shōnen, narrowly missing out on the trophy.

In recent years, several ERL talents have made the jump to North America — from Jérémy "Eika" Valdenair to Loïc "Toucouille" Dubois — with mixed success. Gakgos, however, will be the least experienced of these imports by far. At 17 years and 3 months old, he will be the youngest European import to North America ever — dethroning Lucas “Santorin” Tao Kilmer Larsen (17 years, 6 months).

“When we made roster decisions for the year, Fearless Draft was contained to Split 1 as part of a ‘year kickoff’ and not the default competitive format. Without the ability to [draft comfort champions], having lots of ‘weapons’ in draft has become way more important almost overnight.

Active rosters being bigger than just the base five is suddenly a way different conversation than it was in the past 15 years of League of Legends competition.”

— Christopher "PapaSmithy" Smith, President and Chief Gaming Officer, FlyQuest

A complex transfer

Though Gakgos won’t be the sole starting toplaner, FLY has signed him to a three-year deal — the move is a long-term bet on the future of a young prodigy. For the next 3 months, as he secures a Visa and moves to LA, Gakgos will watch FLY’s scrims and join team discussions. Even if FLY makes it to MSI, he’ll only begin splitting scrims with Bwipo and playing stage games in Split 3.

Despite planning his LTA debut for Summer, FlyQuest was forced to sign Gakgos ahead of the Spring Split — any later, and the lengthy visa process could’ve become an issue. Though they reached a buyout agreement with PCS, Gakgos will play two more LFL2 matches with the French organization before officially moving to FLY. PCS will have to sign a new toplaner after his departure.

Since Project Conquerors already passed the LFL2 roster deadline, March 26th, the team is obligated to start Gakgos as their toplaner for their first two matches of the Spring Split, which begins on April 12th. Though they tried to secure a competitive loan from FLY to continue competing with Gakgos throughout the split — with him as their toplaner, they earned the organization’s first podium finish in its history — rules prevent loaning players across regions. Riot did not grant an exception.

The CFO six-man formula

With Riot extending the Fearless Draft format to the end of 2025, as first reported by Sheep Esports, maximizing flexibility in draft is a major competitive advantage. At First Stand, CTBC Flying Oyster demonstrated the value of a six-man roster to build flexibility in Fearless: Mid-series, CFO would swap between toplaners with complementary playstyles and champion pools, limiting their opponent’s ability to build pressure in later drafts. Like Rest and Driver, Bwipo and Gakgos complement each other in draft — their styles just fit together.

Most toplaners — especially in North America, with players like Jeong "Impact" Eon-young and Rayan "Sniper" Shoura — specialize in playing tanks & bruisers or high-agency carry champions. However, arguably more than any other role, a toplaner’s flexibility opens up a team’s options in draft — Bwipo, though not strictly bound to tanks, rarely plays champions that demand resources from his team. Recently, he’s found success on off-meta bruisers like Garen, Swain, Urgot, Sett, and Darius, but there’s still a massive hole in his champion pool. That’s where, in FLY’s view, Gakgos fits in.

Though Gakgos shares some core champions with Bwipo, like K’Sante and Ambessa, his other most-played champions are Irelia, Jax, and Jayce; at scale, it’s clear that the two have completely different champion preferences. Across hundreds of professional games, Bwipo has played only ten games of Jayce top and eight games of Jax top — the same number of games he has on Graves and Swain top, respectively. He hasn’t played Irelia once.

Looking at Gakgos's solo queue accounts help paint a fuller picture of his champion pool and player profile, considering his relative inexperience: In solo queue, he practices toplane carry staples like Yone, Akali, Aurora, and Akshan. Across these four champions, Bwipo has a combined total of two games played professionally.

Bwipo, then, is meant to be a guiding force for Gakgos — the young Turkish talent isn’t coming to NA to replace him, but to complement him.

“We’re in a unique position having Bwipo on the team — it’s well documented that his preference for 2025 was a six-man roster with Srtty as our toplaner, which with the information we had at the time (standard draft format for MSI/Worlds, Srtty wanting a starting [spot], etc) didn’t ultimately fit.

Bringing in a 17-year-old kid with unbelievable raw talent, and having a bought-in Bwipo to support him alongside our full coaching staff, is an extremely rare luxury we’re able to take advantage of”

— Christopher "PapaSmithy" Smith, President and Chief Gaming Officer, FlyQuest

On CFO, Rest, a 26-year-old veteran toplaner, serves as the more experienced, guiding counterpart to Driver. Bwipo — who has expressed interest in coaching and could’ve been coaching Jojopyun as FLY’s toplaner this year, had the offseason worked out differently — has been lauded for his work with several toplaners, including former FLY Challengers top laner Jett Michael “Srtty” Joye. As Gakgos adjusts to the massive leap in level of play from LFL2 to the LTA, Bwipo’s experience and guidance will be invaluable.

FLY signed Gakgos to complement Bwipo’s experience and playstyle. In Fearless draft, those options will become invaluable — a team that can use that advantage well is a dangerous prospect.

FlyQuest will play the opening match of the LTA North’s Split 2 against Team Liquid on Saturday, April 5th. Though the team isn’t planning for Gakgos to play on stage until Split 3, he’s already integrating with the rest of the roster — in just a few short months, all eyes will be on FLY’s bold experiment.