M80 SyykoNT: "I am confident in our ability to fight our way through open circuits"

Last week, in an interview with Dexerto, Donald "SyykoNT" Muir, the newly minted Vice President of Esports at M80 said he wanted to build a "world-class" CS2 roster. In a time when so many organizations are looking to exit esports entirely, the growth of M80 has been exciting, holding teams in multiple titles at high levels of competition despite being founded less than a year ago.

To understand more about his decision and to get a peek at what M80 were building, Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with SyykoNT. They discussed his experience for the role, his Counter-Strike history, and the future of what M80 is planning to create for its Counter-Strike division.

To start, for those in the CS space who aren't familiar with your background, can you break down your esports journey for us?

I was a gamer myself, I'm 31 years old now. I played COD4 Promod and Black Ops 1 competitively, and America's Army before moving into the music and information technology world. I worked a lot of engineering jobs in networking and systems in information tech; most recently as a cloud engineer at Microsoft before moving over into esports.

I saw the rise of the esports world and saw an opportunity to apply a lot of my skillset there both as a former player and as a manager and engineer. I entered esports as a coach at the beginning of VALORANT, but I did some coaching before that in Battalion 1944. I also had a brief stint in some lower levels of Counter-Strike to find my footing. I led a team in VALORANT called XSET. We went from #35 in North America to #5 in the world recently at Istanbul Champions last year.

I also did a brief stint with Sentinels, another top team in the Americas League. Now I'm moving over and taking those skills to being the VP of Esports at M80 and running their esports program. Things like scouting talent, developing players and team culture, being a proper leader figure, and understanding the ins and out of the corporate and the esports world has given me a unique experience point to come in and tackle this opportunity.

While doing research about you for this interview, I noticed CS:GO and CS 1.6 are two of your most-played games and you also played ESEA Advanced as recently as this season. What can you tell me about your experiences with CS?

Don't look too into that haha, that's just an Advanced roster with some friends of mine. They had a roster that I was coming in to coach for some friends and just stepped in to play for fun.

I'm Global Elite in CS:GO, but nothing like a pro player myself, but a lot of skills from VALORANT translate a bit so I'm able to hold my own there. I do have a good amount of hours in the game as a casual player and enjoyer of both the game and the esports. Counter-Strike is something I have been following for a very long time.

Back when I was working in the IT industry, I went to ELEAGUE Season 1 as a spectator in 2016 when it came through the Turner Studios in Atlanta. I've been keeping an eye on the scene for a very long time, and it's something I've always been very passionate about and have a huge place in my heart for.

When M80 told me they were interested in getting a program ready for CS2, it was something I was very excited about and felt I had a good amount of knowledge and experience to lean on going into.

Why do you think M80 has expressed interested now in CS2 compared to earlier in the organization's history?

M80 was formed within the last year but it's one of the fastest-growing North American esports organizations in the world. Our Twitter growth is 140%, since launching in December our total audience has risen to 12 million, and along with our recent $3 million seed-funding round has given us a unique opportunity to expand our esports footprint.

Prior to this, the original focus point for M80 for Marco, our CEO, has been the VALORANT team and really giving them our full support in making this Challengers run. They are currently going down to the Brazil Ascension tournament at the end of this month where they will compete against five other teams for a spot in the Americas partnership league.

We feel they're in a really good spot, they're one of the favorites to win the tournament and so while we're going to keep supporting them it's time to add an additional cornerstone to our esports portfolio.

We see Counter-Strike as being the next big esport, especially with CS2 coming out and renewed interest both from players and organizations around the world.

How much opportunity do you think there is for cross-pollination between VALORANT and CS, and how does that impact M80's decision to enter CS?

I absolutely think there is crossover. Obviously a lot of the players and the coach come from Counter-Strike. Happy is a prolific Counter-Strike IGL from the French scene with lots of wins under his belt. NiSMO, eeiu, and koalanoob all came in from tier three Counter-Strike. Actually, koalanoob is a player I coached in ESEA Advanced a couple years ago as I was getting prepared for my stint in VALORANT. He's someone that I have a prior relationship with and I've seen his grind and development since starting off as a tier three CS player making his way to becoming a tier-one VALORANT player.

There is a lot of crossover not just from the player perspective but also from the fanbase. There is almost a friendly, and sometimes unfriendly, competitiveness between VALORANT and CS fans because the games are so closely related in terms of mechanics and gameplay, as well as the player overlap.

Once fans realize there's a spot for both, the ability to cheer for both, understand both games, and play both games as a casual viewer, there's no ill intent for most of these guys and most people can enjoy both games to the fullest.

In your announcement post, you mentioned your goal is to build a "World-Class" CS2 team. What is your framework to determine what a "World-Class" team is in the hyper-competitive landscape of Counter-Strike?

Great question. To clarify on that further, our goal is to create a world-class Counter-Strike program. I'm a coach myself, I just took a team across two years from being in the obscurity of tier two to being one of the top tier-one teams in the world in another game.

I understand that creating championship-caliber teams and esports programs is something that takes time. I'm not foolish enough to come in and burn a bunch of money and have a title-contending team immediately. That's not something that I or anyone else should expect to do, especially in a game that's as hyper-competitive as Counter-Strike.

Our ambitions and goals here are to create a world-class team and program, but it's something that we're looking at as not being immediate and something that we'll put a lot of hard work and effort into. We want to lay a solid foundation that's going to be able to grow into a world-class contender in one to three years.

With M80's esports portfolio being largely based in North and South America, is that going to be a priority when looking for new players?

That's a great question. I think it's very early in the process with the upcoming release of Counter-Strike 2, there's a lot of opportunities for organizations to explore different areas of the Valve and Counter-Strike ecosystem. A lot of organizations right now are pivoting away from North America.

While that does seem to provide an indication of the scene moving away, it provides a unique opportunity to potentially explore North American options. There's a lot talented tac shooter players both in CS and VALORANT in North America. North American VALORANT teams are competing against the best of the best so the Americas region still has some talent to choose from and develop, especially at the younger level.

However, we haven't committed to any region at the moment and we're exploring opportunities in NA, EU, and Brazil, anything as well as different mixed roster opportunities that may present themselves with the different players that we are able to find.

Do you think the mindset of organizations like Liquid and Evil Geniuses, who are pulling away from NA, is more pessimistic or realistic about where the scene is right now?

The big thing to remember is that these orgs are at a different point in their programs' paths than we are. These are organizations who have already invested a ton of money in North America, who may have explored a number of North American options and are just feeling that with the shift in competition towards Europe, as well as some of the issues that they've experienced, they may be looking for more immediate success.

They feel that getting into the European space may offer that. While I commend them for that and I understand the reasoning, it's not the same situation that M80 is in. We're much more early in our Counter-Strike path. We're looking to lay a foundation, not progress something that was built years ago. That gives us a lot more opportunity to take things at our own pace and explore different options that these organizations may not be interested in.

While I do understand their reasoning, I think there's merit to both North America and Europe at the moment.

With that approach towards longevity, there has been a lot of discussion of us being in an "Esports Winter". What's your take on that term and do you think your observations match that label?

I'm a bit less pessimistic, I would call it more of a recalibration. I think both investors and organizations are really taking a closer look at their financials and how they're spending, where they're spending, and how they can streamline the process to make sure they're making correct decisions.

While I do think there is a bit of change on the wind, I don't think it's a doomsday type of scenario for esports. Industries go through these different phases, there's going to be ups and downs in any industry, and while I have seen a recent downswing it's something that other people are able to take advantage of.

While things are changing, it provides a unique opportunity to maximize efficiency and start a brand new program that learns from the mistakes of the past as well as take note of some of these changes other organizations are implementing.

Along with the "Esports Winter", sustainability has been a huge topic of conversation. What steps are M80 taking to ensure their operations are sustainable as a new organization?

I can touch on that a bit. There's a lot of things coming up that I'm not going to be able to speak on in detail but a big part of me coming in is as the VP of Esports is that Marco has felt we're in a good spot. M80 has cemented itself as a tier-one professional organization and I'm coming in to continue pushing that forward and expanding that while he is able to take more time building out other parts of the company that are going to be complementary to our esports programs while also providing some profitability and budget support to the esports side of the business.

While being a tier-one professional esports organization is a big priority for us, it's not the only thing we're interested in. We have some really exciting projects in a number of different spaces coming up at M80 that are going to ensure our business is not propped up on a weak VC foundation.

As an organization that has mainly operated in franchise or semi-franchised spaces, what do you think about potential challenges to build a winning team in CS in a more open circuit while also being outside the Louvre and BLAST partnerships?

While our Rainbow Six team is a franchise program and competing within the franchise environment, our VALORANT team is not. It has been competing in the Challengers space which it qualified into. Marco and M80 have had to build this team from the ground up with a core of players and coaches that they're added along the way that have proven themselves through this open qualifier circuit to get to this Challenger League to begin with. Then to go on and win the Challenger League and be the favorites to go into Ascension to push them up into the franchise league.

While they are poised to get into this franchise program, it's something they've earned through the merit and skill of their team and the hard work of coaches like Happy and GUNTER. I'm confident in our ability to build another program that will compete well in the open circuit and not just be handed a spot.

While I'm interested in having conversations with ESL and BLAST about potential partnership opportunities and seeing where Valve and those tournament organizers kind of develop their partnership programs going into Counter-Strike 2, I am also confident in our ability to fight our way through open circuits with a team and roster that are built to develop talent and be competitive in the space.

As someone who's deeply involved in the VALORANT scene, what's the general sentiment of people in the space about CS2's direction? Is there a groundswell of excitement or is the tempo more muted about the game?

There's a level of buzz for Counter-Strike 2 as with any game release or update that comes out. Counter-Strike is a game that doesn't update as frequently as a game like VALORANT. VALORANT today as opposed to two years ago is vastly different compared to Counter-Strike today versus five to ten years ago.

The rate at which things change is massive so a big change like Counter-Strike 2 that's going to change a bunch of systems like smoke grenades and engine updates are going to create a lot of excitement. A lot of the initial VALORANT talent was from the tier two and tier three of Counter-Strike, people looking for opportunities in a new game.

I think we will see a bit of resurgence of interest from these VALORANT players who have moved on to come back to CS2 and compete. That's something we're keeping an eye on and trying to be aware of the players that are expressing interest and from VALORANT orgs who are interested in getting into the space as well.

Despite it being early days, in M80's most bullish vision, can we see a world where M80 will try to qualify for the first CS2 Major in Copenhagen?

I would say our priority first and foremost is to lay the foundation for a program that is going to be successful in one to three years as a contender. If we're able to accelerate that and get some high-level players off the bat, I would be hopeful for an initial Major appearance in Copenhagen. It's a wonderful city, I was there for a VALORANT Masters event and fell in love with the Danish culture and how clean and beautiful the city is, and how friendly the people are.

That would be a huge upside for me if our team was able to qualify, I would love that but it's not an expectation we're going to place on the program immediately. We want to make sure we're laying a good foundation to develop talent long-term, and we're intending on not only being a contender for qualifying but placing well in Majors. But, it's not something we're going to expect off the bat.