With Skadoodle leaving Hiko's roster, Hiko took to Twitch to discuss his previous roster, what went wrong, and his future plans.
"My plan was to have a team that could compete instantly and wouldn't have to take time to develop players," Spencer "Hiko" Martin, former star player of Cloud9, said on a Twitch stream. "I still have a few years left. Maybe it was naive to think I had to join a team that could compete instantly."
Hiko building a roster with NA's top talent has been CSGO's worst kept secret in 2015, but until now we didn't have confirmation of who would be joining him. Hiko's roster contained former iBuyPower AWPer Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham along with Team Liquid's Fugly, Adren, and Nitr0. However, things went south when Hiko insisted on Liquid's players joining him at a new team instead of Skadoodle and Hiko joining Team Liquid (replacing daps and EliGE).
There are no details on who the planned organization were but he confirmed it wasn't EG as some suspected.
"At the end of the day, Ska got a huge offer and took it. Can't blame him for that," Hiko said, repeatedly stating there is no bad blood between the two.
Hiko wouldn't disclose the amount Skadoodle accepted but Hiko stated he was offered a similiar deal but turned it down. However, Hiko is still open to potentially joining Cloud9 in the future if specfic terms are made.
"Me not wanting to join Cloud9 is not against the players," Hiko said. "It's a possability in the future that me and Jordan can work again. Things would have to change. The environment would have to change a lot."
Though Hiko is disappointed his planned roster fell apart, he said his actions behind the scenes helped boost the salary of NA players across the board since organizations were afraid of Hiko poaching their top talent.
"Before all this stuff went down, most players on teams were getting an average of $1,000 per month, now its 2 - 2.5k a month. That's great!" Hiko said.
Though he makes it clear that he has no immediate plans to move to Europe or join Cloud9, he said he is open to both if the terms are right and he feels comfortable with the deal.
"Right now, I can't really be picky anymore. If the players are up to par or not doesn't matter to me. I want a team with a hunger to win, Hiko said. "That's what I'm looking for right now."
Photo source: ESL
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