MMS on taking a break: “One thing it made me realise is that I took playing for granted.”

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Prior to joining Glitchtech, Marco “MMS” Salomone had taken some time away from competition to pursue content creation. During this time MMS was given an opportunity to reflect on the UK Scene and his place within it. Now MMS has returned to the top of British Counter-Strike playing with the strong Glitchtech roster.

A set of bad experiences with teams and organisations aided MMS‘ decision-making process in choosing to take a step away, that being said it’s not all doom and gloom for the UK scene. MMS remarks how lucky British CS is to have EPIC.LAN as a tournament, its professionalism and how the stage quality is not far off top-tier international tournaments.

Sitting down with UKCSGO MMS tells all about his experience at this current EPIC.LAN, his time out of competing and the loss to Viperio Academy.

A while back you announced your retirement from CS to pursue streaming, what was your thought process around that, why did you end up leaving competitive play?

Mainly it was because the orgs that we were on the last couple of runs weren’t really honest. It felt like in the last three teams, maybe not in the Raptors team but in the teams before that, I got messed around a bit too much. It was more like a break I’d say, it was more, I just wanna chill for a little bit. I was also getting really frustrated when playing with the people I was playing with, I didn’t overly enjoy it”. We had good results but I didn’t overly enjoy it.

I was streaming for fun for a bit, content is fun, and I still do content now, it’s really fun I really enjoy it. I just think it was one of those things I wanted to pursue. I’ve slowed down a little bit but I’m still posting stuff, It’s still going well. It’s more when you’re doing something and you have a passion and drive and it’s paying off it’s more rewarding than doing something else for a long time. I’ve played CS for a long time, low salaries, empty promises teammates that you can’t rely on and aren’t being professional and it drains.

But now I’m ready to come back, you have time to reflect as well. I think one thing it made me realise is that I took playing for granted. Before VRS you’re lucky you get to play in these tournaments, you get money, and prize pools are good. I’ve won tournaments and you’re just really privileged to play. I played full time for a good year and a half and you’re very privileged to do those things.

So you mention it was more of a break than a retirement, was there ever a thought to do content full time? or was it always in the back of your mind you were gonna come back to competing?

I definitely wanted to do content and I still want to do content. It’s not that I don’t wanna do CS full-time, what’s the point? If you’re not on ALASKA in the UK, there’s literally no point. I have friends on teams who are low in the VRS, it’s not worth it; those teams will fizzle out. Unless they [Valve] change anything, which they should, but it’ll fizzle out.

But I prefer to do content, it’s way more fun. I watch streamers, I watch actual personalities, if it’s TV, if it’s streams, Twitch or whatever. It looks fun, it looks enjoyable, and it’s something I want to be a part of and that’s why I choose to do content.

Pivoting towards EPIC.LAN and the here and now, how have you found the event?

I always think people take these events for granted. The fact that you can come here to a grassroots tournament, can be an absolute nobody in the sense of the scene. You can watch from home and you sit there and be like ‘Maybe I want to be a part of this.’ It’s amazing, you get the chance to play for money, and you get the chance to play on a stage so early. A lot of people are very early in their careers, ALASKA ifan and I, were the only ones who really played on stage and won anything. Everyone knows ALASKA is going to make the stage, but teams like 8Sins, the rest of Glitchtech, and Viperio Academy are very lucky to be able to come here and even have a chance to do that.

It’s very cool, very cool. What EPIC puts on, I think gets overlooked way too much. We see events come and go and we even almost lost this event, the Kettering Conference Centre side we almost lost, people are very privileged. You have custom monitors on stage and custom PCs, I think they’re trying to get the headsets. It’s a very real experience.

So if anyone’s watching at home or reading the interview thinking ‘Maybe I want to go to a LAN’. Do it. At the end of the day, you get an opportunity to do something like that, it’s fun, you get a crowd, it’s not a big crowd but it’s a crowd. People need to appreciate it more, singing the praises of EPIC.LAN, I think they don’t do that enough.

I’ve played on stages, and I’ve played at S-tier tournaments, it’s so close. the opportunity is really good. So if anyone’s watching at home or reading the interview thinking ‘Maybe I want to go to a LAN’. Do it. At the end of the day, you get an opportunity to do something like that, it’s fun, you get a crowd, it’s not a big crowd but it’s a crowd. People need to appreciate it more, singing the praises of EPIC.LAN, I think they don’t do that enough.

There was a lot of controversy when the seeding came out that some teams were getting harder matches than others, do you have any thoughts about that? Do you think it changed anything for any of the top teams?

I don’t like the format. But I think, for what it’s worth, the mentality I’ve always said is: ‘If you think you’re going to win you should win.’ If you should win you should right? If anyone’s going to complain about any of the stuff like that it just makes me feel like they’re never supposed to do good anyway. If you want to beat every single team here. and win, that’s kind of how you’ve got to do it.

If you’re not good enough to be in the top four, you’re not going to get into the top four, if you’re not good enough to get top eight et cetera. We weren’t good enough today and that shows. I don’t have any complaints, I don’t like the format personally but I don’t care. In my head, if you want to do something here, you have to win every game anyway.

Speaking about your game this morning, what do you think you could have done differently? why do you think you fell this morning?

I think Viperio Academy are a team that is up and coming, they have some decent players. I couldn’t really tell you why we lost. I feel like this event personally, I’ve been farming, and I’ve been playing really good the whole event. I really wasn’t expecting to do anything else apart from playing on the stage to be honest, that’s just how my mind is. I’m confident in all of my teammates, their abilities are greater than those players.

I know maybe in a couple of months or a years time Viperio Academy might overtake us or maybe another team might take over people like us. I’m confident in all my team’s abilities, It just didn’t click today. I wouldn’t even necessarily say they played better than us, I just think we didn’t capitalise on their mistakes.

At the end of the day, I think at these events, whoever makes the least amount of mistakes wins. It’s not about who’s good at the time necessarily, we played these guys the week before, we smashed them, no competition no chance. It’s just about who’s better on the day and they were better on the day, so fair play to them.

You mentioned that your whole goal was to play on the stage, was that your aspiration, to win the whole thing?

Yeah, that’s what I expect of myself. Every event I come to I expect to at least make the stage 100%. I played this event more because I wanted to help people like Rhyss, people like Ziimzey, and people like Isaac. I want to help them get the experience and help them win, I want my friends to win, and that’s why I came to the event. And fair play to Viperio, they were the better team on the day.

Anything else to add?

Yeah a shout-out to Glitchtech for sending us here, we didn’t pay a dime. Big shout-out to them, they’re good, sensible people good, real people, they sent us here. Maybe sorry to them we’ll do better in the next events.