A Fresh Start: Re-Inspired Top-Level Talent

With the Splatoon 3 North American League returning, let’s talk about the players it brought back with it

The 2025 Splatoon 3 North American League, for all of the long days, unfulfilling victories, and weeks of stress that it piled onto competitive players, revitalized a community that was well into its doomsaying era. In the early weeks before the trailers gave any tangible information, the hype and speculation was the spark that ignited a dry scene.

The NA League was the biggest, most accessible Nintendo event in years (since Worlds isn’t exactly attainable for the average player), and it offered a reasonable chance for any team to end up on a Nintendo stream, watched by thousands. This was a revived dream for many, bringing players out of retirement in droves—even world champions.

And it’s back again for 2026!

But choosing to participate is just part of the battle. Due to Nintendo’s strict rules on teams having to play with the same group week after week, forming a team of like-minded players with aligning schedules, who are happy with their weapon pool, isn’t easy by a long-shot in a pickup-centric scene.

In this installment of BEEP’s series of articles covering players and retirement, the coin has been flipped, and now we’re talking about players who returned from hiatus—or the brink of it—due to the 2025 North American League. Three top-level players are featured in this finale: Shak and Hexen from FTWin, and Flingking from Hypernova.

Shak (FTWin)

Shak is FTWin’s former captain, most active during the Splatoon 2 era, having helped bring the team to podium placements in events such as the Splatoon 2 North America Inkling Open 2019, the Splatoon 2 World Championship 2019, The Squid House, Genesis 7, and in the Splatoon 3 era, a few 2025 North American League weekly events.

FTWin at the Splatoon 2 World Championship 2019 Finals, where they faced GGBoyz.

Before mid-2025 when Shak made his return to FTWin’s roster, the last major event he participated in was the Splatoon 2 Inkopolis Showdown #4 (as part of Mad Titans), at the end of July 2022. His tournament hiatus lasted just over three years, and he ended the break with a first place win at In The Zone 46 in October 2025.

But Shak didn’t spontaneously decide to pick up arms one day and manage to win ITZ 46 blind in a game he was unfamiliar with. He had been discussing with FTWin well in advance about returning. Two key events really solidified his return: the announcement of the North American League in 2025, and Burstie going on hiatus after Riptide.

“To put it simply, it was indeed the NA League that brought me back. There had been talks about me coming back and playing with FTWin well before the NA League took place but it never came to fruition.

The difference with the NA League was mainly Burstie taking a break from the game after Riptide, and so FTWin needed a fifth to fill in from time to time. There was discussion about me becoming a fifth beforehand as well, but it really came to a head with the announcement of the League.”

He practiced a great deal to prepare for the NA League. In his reflection, he said, “The game is vastly different from Splatoon 2 and I’m essentially making up for three years of lost time. Understanding the fundamentals of the game, win conditions, and whatnot and competing against top players [...] makes it really rough.”

He also had to add, “Winning feels great, especially after not playing any competitive Splatoon 3 till now.” Being able to come back to the highest level of play in a game system which he was largely unfamiliar with in only a few months is no small feat!

Shak mentioned feeling confident about getting back into the swing of things and performing at a top level once more, but thinking about the future was when uncertainty settled in. Since he was only returning as a fifth for FTWin, he wasn’t sure how much he would continue playing once the NA League ended.

Player portrait of Shak, posted on FTWin’s Bluesky account, created by @azaleaspl.bsky.social.

True to his words, we haven’t seen much of Shak in competition since mid-December 2025, when the North American League concluded. However, that doesn’t mean that was the last we saw of him entirely.

One week after the NA League Playoffs, Shak and FTWin teammate [K]yo co-commentated the Raise 4 RAICES Splatoon 3 charity tournament. Both kept the hype up during the four-hour tournament and helped encourage donations, which exceeded 9x the event’s initial goal of $500, for a total of $4,545.92!

Hexen/HXN (Deadbeat/STDx/FTWin)

Hexen played for teams Deadbeat (as the team’s creator) and SetToDestroyX (STDx) prior to FTWin, gaining achievements such as winning the 2017 Splatoon 2 World Inkling Invitational, Splatoon 2 U.S./Canada Inkling Open 2018, and Genesis 5.

Deadbeat at the 2017 Splatoon 2 World Inkling Invitational Grand Finals vs. Dynameu.

For a time, Hexen also coached FTWin, before joining them in battle in more recent years, for events like the 2025 Splatoon 3 North American League and SuperJump 6.

Hexen’s team at the time, STDx, disbanded after Platinum Cup 4 in August 2018. In a BEEP interview with Hexen on November 3rd, 2025, Hexen explained that his reason for his multi-year hiatus (ending in 2024, “competitively”) was jointly due to a lack of enjoyment with the game and meta, and disappointment in the way it was shifting.

As he continued in the video, he explained that as Splatoon 3 developed, he had a newfound enjoyment in playing and was lowkey practicing, until one day…

“FTWin kind of had a spot on their roster, and I’m friends with a bunch of those guys. So, you know, it just kind of worked out that way.”

FTWin’s titlecard from 5hak_’s video “Introducing: FTWin”, uploaded Aug 13, 2018 (video no longer available on YouTube).

For a bit of team history, FTWin was created by bringing together players from the best competitive Splatoon 2 teams at the time, STDx, TOMO, and Saikai. While Hexen was not one of the founding members of FTWin, his STDx teammates Ice and [K]yo were. This set up Hexen to be in a relationship where FTWin could count on him for coaching:

“I was just coaching ‘cause they’d be DMing me like maybe a week before a tournament [about wanting coaching] and then usually that would just end up making them turn around their scrims and then end up winning the tournaments. So they just kept having me back if there was a big tournament coming up.”

Squid Junction 88 in March 2025 was Hexen’s debut in Splatoon 3 tournaments after months of solo practice and SendouQ. When asked about his goals post-NA League, Hexen responded, “I’m kind of looking forward to afterwards a little bit because I actually want to be playing more Japanese tournaments.”

His investment in the JP scene isn’t limited to just the thought of playing against them. Hexen has been working on his YouTube channel, where he provides gameplay analysis videos of top-level JP players. At the time of writing, he has 18 videos available.

Flingking (Hypernova)

Flingking is a player who had been bouncing around various teams in the upper level competitive scene, with podium placements in High Level Draft Cup (January and June, 2025), In The Zone 47, NA League Event #8 (Regular Season Week 6), The Jauntlet 3, and 5th place in both SendouQ Season 9 and 10 Finales.

If you saw that clip of a quad on FTWin with the Rainmaker during the North American League, that was Flingking!

Best known for forging his way to top level with his namesake, the Flingza Roller (and Foil Flingza), and bringing it to new heights, Flingking has most recently found himself in the spotlight as a member of well-known team Hypernova.

Where’s the part where we talk about him coming out of retirement for the 2025 North American League? Well, we don’t. This isn’t that story—this is his story about taking a chance and avoiding retirement, due to the North American League.

Flingking has a record of consistently competing for the past handful of years, but as mentioned previously, those teams weren’t as consistent. What made it so difficult for him to find a mainstay was the way the Flingza Roller kits were seen as suboptimal for high level play.

“I wished for a team I could rely on and that we could all play what we wanted to, but that's not so easy when I'm known for playing Flingza. And when its second kit came out with a bomb (yay!) and then [Splattercolor Screen], man it hurt. [...]

All these complications with screen and with how it affects some people, having it be bannable, so even if I wanted to try Flingza after I felt I plateaued in 2024, I’d have to only play it when my opponents would allow me to, which wasn’t often at all.”

Despite the challenges, the ride-or-die pair of player and Roller continued driving. Maybe he didn’t know it at the time, but playing Flingza Roller in the 2025 High Level Draft Cups was going to pay off in just a few months.

In the meantime, the next hurdle was the North American League. The first major Nintendo tournament in years, and a lot of players were having a common problem: finding a team. Because the NA League had strict team guidelines, the pickup-centric Western scene struggled forming teams that could routinely scrim and synergize well.

Bluesky post from @flingking5.bsky.social on October 11, 2025, announcing a hiatus from competing.

Demoralized and unable to find a team, Flingking put the game down for a time, about a month.

As that was taking place, Hypernova was dealing with their own set of issues. Having recently replaced a few members of their team as schedules and motivations de-synced, the team still found itself unable to play in several NA League events.

The link connecting both of them? henlo.

“That's the thing with opportunities, you're not in control of what comes your way, only what you do and who you meet and that you're honest the whole way.”

Flingking had played with henlo previously in the June High Level Draft Cup, and henlo was currently playing with Hypernova in the NA League. With In The Zone 47 coming up, henlo reached out to Flingking to form a team with Synapse and Prosper.

“I considered pretending I didn't see [henlo’s] message, but I knew I'd regret it if I didn't at least take this chance. [...] I told them to have low expectations since I hadn’t done anything competitive in over a month, let alone play the game at all. However, we did place 3rd…

They mentioned the NA League coming up the next weekend, and they wanted to play in it with me and Prosper [...] and then we scrimmed every single night until the day of the Week 6 NA League. [...] All that effort ended with us reaching 3rd place that week and we had a hell of a lot of fun playing it together.”

When you’re dedicated to a weapon that never gets to see the light, getting to let it shine in an official Nintendo tournament live in front of thousands of viewers, then into the highlight reel is an unparalleled experience!

And things snowballed from there: two weeks after that run in the NA League, both Flingking and Prosper were brought on as members of Hypernova. Back from the brink of retirement, and on a team happy to make something work with weapons everyone enjoys!

Bluesky post from Hypernova on November 23, 2025, formally introducing Flingking and Prosper to the team.

As part of Hypernova, Flingking is continuing to push the Flingza Rollers as high as they can go, while also experimenting with newly-buffed Dynamo Rollers, and can be found streaming on Twitch. While testing out new comps, the team is still competing, having recently taken part in the 20XX Series 6 major on March 14th and 15th, 2026.

Some parting advice, provided by Flingking: “Look out for us, see what we can do, and have a good time along the way. No reason to compete if you’re not having fun in the process.”

Most of the conversation revolving around the Splatoon 3 North American League is about how stressful and long it can be, and what teams wish will be different for 2026. Less focus on the impact it provides to the scene, in not only bringing back players who had lost interest in the series, but also keeping unmotivated players in.

Sure, the NA League also encouraged plenty of top-level players to take a break from competing. An event of that caliber is bound to do that. It provided a good conclusion for players, and a gap in majors for the months following the League gave players time to rest and recharge.

Months after the 2025 NA League concluded, as we keep our eyes on the horizon, big things are approaching fast: LAN Championship Showdown, the return of Splat World Series, LUTI continuing for the next several weeks, and the newly-announced Splatoon 3 North American League 2026!

The year 2026 is a robust one for Competitive Splatoon; as the competition gets fiercer and stakes get higher, remember to slow down and take a break if you need it. The action will be sticking around!

Original Posting Date: April 1, 2026 at Broadcasting Esports, Every Play (BEEP).

Written and formatted for publication by YELLOW.