Guatemala’s star player, Mario “malbsMd” Samayoa, has begun to write a new chapter in his career by being a member of M80’s first foray into Counter-Strike. It also marks something of a new beginning for malbsMd after two disappointing outings with 00NATION and LOS + oNe. With LOS + oNe especially, it was a frustrating period for the organization and the player as the team bombed out of the Americas RMR and failed to come close to qualifying for CS:GO’s final Major.
This would lead to much criticism and the eventual disbanding of LOS + oNe, with malbsMd telling BLIX:
“It wasn’t a good period as everyone knows, I think our expectations were high also, but nothing went well for us. It was a hard time, in the end after the RMR everyone was very sad. The word that would define this second experience in the team would be sadness.”
Turning the page
After the disaster at the RMR, there was no way for the team to stay together in LOS + oNe. Matheus “pesadelo” Panisset, Victor “iDk” Torraca and the veteran Pedro “Maluk3” Campos all left the team and joined Age, a new Brazilian organization, leaving malbsMd in the lurch:
“For me, since those three left the team I was already in talks with other teams. Since March I was in conversations with a tier one team, but it fell through.”
This transfer window was overall an uncertain time, explains the player:
“I wasn’t planning to stay in Team oNe since a long time ago. I spoke with kakaveL and he knew my interest in leaving the team but I said to him that if there were no offers, I would stay in the team with no problem at all. For a long time, I thought I would be staying in Team oNe but in the end, the M80 offer came up and I thought it was a very cool project.”
Building a North American project in LOS + oNe was a possibility, according to malbsMd, but then M80 joined the conversation:
“First of all, we were talking with Team oNe to build a project in the organization that would be reck, swisher, me, MisteM and WolfY. We didn’t come to an agreement with kakaveL but then SyykoNT, M80’s vice president, sent me a message telling me that he wanted to meet me. I had multiple meetings with M80 and I really liked the project.”
Communicating in English
With his addition to M80 comes a major change for malbsMd, after years in the Portuguese scene, the Spanish-speaking player will be able to speaking English, which he says comes much more natural to him:
“Since the beginning of my career I wanted to play in a good NA or European team, but I wanted to communicate in English. It is a language that I feel more comfortable speaking, more than Portuguese because I started playing Counter-Strike communicating in English. It was hard for me to communicate in Portuguese, I think now I’m freer in the game. This opportunity makes me excited because I can show my best game now.”
M80’s goals
To close BLIX’s interview, malbsMd talked about M80’s game plan, saying that the organization will likely transition to Europe as they look to become a tier-one team:
“For the majority of the time we will be staying in Europe but when there are any qualifiers in NA or tournaments we will then travel to NA and play. It’s impossible to practice in NA, there aren’t any good teams and there’s no way to evolve by staying in NA. We have a project for many years but in the short-term, we want to focus on getting better and building a strong team. I think we have the capability to become a tier-one team.”
