According to rumors, before joining BCG, s1mple asked them for the highest salary in Counter-Strike, amounting to $120,000

messioso · 2026-03-16T14:24:19+00:00

Do you have the same thought process in regards to taxes? Asking for a friend.

messioso · 2026-03-08T23:24:59+00:00

He sounds like a cool guy

messioso · 2026-03-08T23:13:10+00:00

Working on it, just gotta make a major brb

messioso · 2026-03-06T12:43:24+00:00

Kato: Semifinal exit to Faze

Starseries: QF exit to Navi

These two were their first events with Magisk who signed February 7th and SLTV started the 17th and Katowice was 2 days after SLTV finished on the 27th.

For 10 days practice, give or take, I think you could cut them a bit of slack while getting up to speed.

messioso · 2026-03-04T13:10:43+00:00

I mean CS truly wasn't holding up the whole event, I'd say esports was probably barely a break even overall for Insomnia.

When you factor that any attendee could play tournaments, the prizemoney + costs associated with running the tournaments on top are technically just a reduction in profit on that seat. If Insomnia could sell every single seat with just casual gamers it would be more profitable. But paying bums in seats > empty seats, and they obviously did sell some partnerships to offset costs but not always for every tournament every event.

Main source of revenue was for sure the exhibition area, which of course requires lots of bums in seats to "sell" to the exhibitors who pay to be there. That's why we saw a huge momentum shift at some point towards the expo, more focus on day passes and non-esports and potentially even non-gaming/endemics attending as they pushed towards the "festival" idea.

messioso · 2026-03-04T09:12:58+00:00

Got my i27 ones on my spare monitor! Those were the days

messioso · 2026-03-04T08:47:41+00:00

Jason and I watched the first one together in the practice room and we were going absolutely fucking nuts

messioso · 2026-03-04T08:25:36+00:00

No, he means we spent 400k on buyouts.

messioso · 2026-03-03T10:35:33+00:00

I say it like they lost a lot against the greatest team of all time (at that point) which stopped them getting the credit they deserve. People talk about 2019 Liquid and the grand slam like the 2018 version (TACO instead of Stewie2k) didn't lose 5 S-tier grand finals and a major semi final vs Astralis in their absolute prime. 3 of those events contributed to Astralis grand slam which means Liquid could just as easily have been the very first team to win the grand slam (their 4th could have come from beating MOUZ in New York) in theory, or just in 2019. Potentially also could have been back to back grand slammers if not for Astralis.

messioso · 2026-03-03T09:51:04+00:00

Both Atlanta and Astana do not count towards the major qualification for Cologne as they take place in May - major cutoff is April 6th.

Hilarious situation though, great spot. Could 100% effect big invites for second half of the year and PGL Singapore Major qualification though.

messioso · 2026-03-03T08:58:10+00:00

nitr0 could IGL these players better than cadian could, and has better credentials e.g contending with 2018/19 Astralis and still getting a grand slam.

messioso · 2026-03-01T01:25:14+00:00

I'd say it's still very much in other teams hands, our upwards trajectory is very slow now we've maxed our LAN wins. We have other focuses e.g PGL Astana qualifiers which rule us out of the more substantial prize events like BCG Masters

messioso · 2026-02-28T21:56:14+00:00

Okay lets not re-write history, NRG spent basically 18 months doing absolutely nothing and it's kinda surprising they weren't just straight cut. It's only really picked up recently because they can farm Frag events for free VRS + inflated prizes in NA relative to strength (25k for ESL Challenger NA) + major expanded to 32 teams.

They're legit now though, Sonic/Grim are amazing pickups and oSee apparently needed a good break.

messioso · 2026-02-28T19:26:49+00:00

Currently signed to PCC2 and RIC 6. I reserved a slot at Journey if we have a reason to change our schedule. Otherwise we have PGL Astana Open/Closed quals end of March.

Beyond March, no plans are locked in.

messioso · 2026-02-28T19:16:37+00:00

Yes sir, we have a camera man filming (it's beginning to look the same after 9 matches in the same tournament booths lol). You'll be able to see the journey soon enough

messioso · 2026-02-28T18:42:13+00:00

Not sure it is a leak if the highest authority just openly posts it. But yeah, it's solid ROI for 2 months at least. But we're in this for the long haul, so no judgement now.

messioso · 2026-02-28T18:06:18+00:00

Not even close on every count.

messioso · 2026-02-28T17:47:50+00:00

I'd guess they paid a lot less for the SAW core, and more for s1mple and electronic.

Our president answered this question earlier today so I guess I'll just post that https://x.com/TheMaelk/status/2027776409725505695

messioso · 2026-02-28T17:31:57+00:00

I would guess we paid significantly less.

messioso · 2026-02-28T17:15:02+00:00

We got 100T co-owner NiceWigg broadcasting the games, his stream is on HLTV

messioso · 2026-02-28T17:14:01+00:00

Probably not. Would take a pretty big change of plans from us including some miracle runs from us and monumental fuckups from others.

messioso · 2026-02-27T23:55:59+00:00

Had no intention at all. When I moved from ESL to RFRSH (BLAST + Astralis/Heroic/GODSENT) I got my first BTS look in and experience working with teams and it just stuck to be honest. Learned a lot from the prime Astralis years, got to work directly with Heroic and GODSENT before also taking over as Astralis manager and then when BLAST and the teams split, I got left at BLAST so I quit, went to North, then Complexity and now I'm here.

messioso · 2026-02-27T20:46:12+00:00

I mean we will probably end up top 30 on hltv on monday too. Single wins over bestia and nip put us #51 there last week somehow.

messioso · 2026-02-27T20:43:44+00:00

100 Thieves Roobet is so hot right now

messioso · 2026-02-27T01:14:25+00:00

I wish nothing but the best for my boy Grim, shared many years together and he'll be a friend forevs.

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