One of the “founding” members of the team that competed in North America with a Brazilian core even when it was XSET (later becoming M80), Leonardo “Kyno” Figueiredo was recently removed from the team, which came after the squad aarguably failed to live up to its “superteam” potential.
Following this shock benching, BLIX sat down the 21-year-old Brazilian-American to discuss creating the “superteam”, M80’s failure to find success at the Atlanta Major, and his benching, among other topics.
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Creating a super team
The 2023 post-Six Invitational transfer window was looking encouraging for M80. David “iconic” Ifidon came from Astralis while William “Spoit” Löfstedt, Rookie of Year 7 of R6 Esports according to SiegeGG, arrived at M80 from KOI. Kyno explained to us the process and idea behind these changes:
“We replaced a fragger with Spoit and another player with Iconic because we thought we needed more leadership in the team inside the game. We played great in the first stage of NAL and badly in the Major, but then we had a lot of time to fix our problems. Then we had Gamers8, and we played great, the players fit into the system and in the changes we implemented, a system similar to the Astralis one, more fluid and Brazilian.”
Credit: Kirill Bashkirov/UbisoftA Major problem
A campaign well below expectations for M80 at Major Atlanta led to the player’s departure from the team. M80 was eliminated in the second stage of the Major with zero wins and three losses. In asking Kyno about the result, he recounts being shocked about how poorly things went in Atlanta:
“In the Major Atlanta, I don’t know what happened, we had 2-3 months of very good practices, everything was great and in the tournament, nothing was going well.”
As for why the team failed, Kyno said the following:
“I think our problem was the vibe, if we had worked more maybe the team could be better. I wouldn’t say that our system was inconsistent, but we were very inconsistent in our system. We were not able to find that consistency to be a champion team and then that cost us during the Majors.”
In light of these losses, M80, a team with aspirations of winning the Atlanta Major outright, Kyno told BLIX how hard the loss was on him emotionally:
“I can’t talk for the team, but personally it was the hardest loss in my career, the one against Wolves. Even though we were 0-2, we had hope, and we knew our potential to still qualify for the playoffs. It was really hard. I played badly the whole year, excluding just Gamers8, but in the Majors I played badly, so I knew there was a chance for the team to continue without me. Even if we woldn’t change, I knew a lot of things needed to be fixed and changed.”
Credit: Kirill Bashkirov/UbisoftWere changes really needed?
After a disappointing Major, but an encouraging Gamers8 tournament, to say the least, M80 decided to continue without Kyno. According to the player, the team had problems, but Kyno believed they could be resolved without roster changes:
“In my opinion, we could face Six Invitational with that roster with no changes. The team is good and, on paper, is one of the best in the world, we showed at Gamers8 that we are able to play well but we needed to change and fix things. We would have 2-3 months to fix those things and to prepare for SI. However, they decided to follow other directions without me and I totally respect that. I still talk with them, for me this is just work.”
For the Six Invitational, as BLIX reported, M80 have grabbed a known former face of the project on loan, although it is not official yet.
End of an Era
Outside of his time on Oxygen, Kyno’s time in NA has been defined by his partnership with Lucas “DiasLucas” Dias and Arthur “GMZ” Oliveira. As such, being benched from M80 ends his partnership, which Kyno described as very difficult:
“It’s tough for me, I played with them since even before the Challenger League, in the USA playing every day but the cycle came to an end.”
Credit: João Ferreira/UbisoftAdditionally, for Kyno it’s also tough to miss out on the Six Invitational in his home country which he hoped to make with the Brazilian core:
“It’s a really bad feeling to not play the Six Invitational in Brazil because it’s something that I worked a lot to be able to play. It will be the biggest R6 Esports tournament of all time, I literally live within 10 minutes of the arena, it would be the first time my family would watch in case we reached the playoffs.”
New team
In this period between the end of the Major and the start of the Six Invitational, we saw some teams opting to make changes to their teams, even temporarily. The aforementioned M80 will be one of them, but DarkZero, Falcons, Geekay and Soniqs are some of the teams that chose to change. Kyno rushed to be at the Six Invitational, but time was not his friend, he explains:
“Yeah, it was my desire. I tried other teams on loan or from another region. In the end, things didn’t work out because I had five days to search for another team, and the organizations didn’t have much time to fit me into another team. There were three/four teams that said to me that if they had more time we would try something, a tryout or something.”
“One of the teams was from APAC, two from North America and then the Brazilian teams, but they’re not changing their rosters.”
Having confirmed that he will not be at the 2024 Six Invitational, Kyno will only have to wait for an invitation in the window after that competition. Kyno only has one requirement, that the team has potential:
“For me, the region of the team doesn’t matter, if I think the team has a lot of potential, the region doesn’t make any difference. I have a European visa so I can go to almost all of the regions, including Asia. Logically I prefer to stay in NA because that’s where my parents live and I have lived there almost all of my lifetime, so it’s easier.”
To finish, we asked Kyno about the regions or players he would like to play with or experience:
“I would like to play one day with Panbazou [Roberto Feliciano] from DarkZero, he’s a friend of mine. Not necessarily in DZ or now, but in the future I want to play with him. There are a lot of Brazilian players that I would like to play with, I can’t even count. Also Alem4o [Karl Zarth] in Europe, the list is big.”
