Michael “Impact” Harrison is no stranger to UK LANs attending under various notorious banners such as CeX and Bulldog. The storied player has shared the server with many UK CS icons and now returns to EPIC.LAN 38 to compete in one of the most anticipated EPIC.LAN events since COVID19.
The veteran rifler was called back into action by his former teammate Harry “Nukeddog” Jenkins who assembled a team under the name Jezzies R US Red. Despite the players having retired from competitive CS, they started the first day with an upset victory over K10.
After heading into the lunch break with a 3-0 record, Impact took some time to sit down with UKCSGO’s Dafydd Gwynn to discuss returning to LAN, beating K10, and how the scene has evolved since his time in it. He had some interesting points to make about the issues the UK scene has not yet overcome.
It’s been a long time since you were on LAN and in the limelight, how does it feel to be back?
It’s always great to be at LAN, it’s very fun, the atmosphere is just different from playing online. It’s really good to be back playing with everyone I know, but there are so many new faces. That’s the only difference.
What was it that brought you back? You were just telling me that Murky asked you to come out of retirement for one last LAN, what was it that made you say yes?
The random message was nice to see with EPIC.LAN coming up. EPIC.LAN is always a great LAN to show up to, it’s always been in the back of my mind really, wanting to play again. I haven’t played a lot at all and then after I got asked, I hopped on a few pugs, but it’s always been there. Wanting to be in a LAN hall, wanting to play CS. Obviously I’ve put so much time into it the love of the game is still there. It’s just I don’t really want to put that much into it anymore.
Speaking of those time commitments, what are you up to outside of the game? How’s life going?
Oh life’s great. I do miss the game, but it’s just working, being with the girlfriend, just doing life really.
You come out of retirement, you come back with these guys you’ve played with before and you got matched up against K10, a side that a lot of people see as one of the up-and-coming teams at the moment. Walk me through the upset.
Personally, I know a couple of the names like Wolfie. He’s an advanced player right? I knew him before-hand, but I’ve told he’s a very good player, an up-and-coming player. AdamJC. A few of the others are new faces I didn’t see, but I was warned before-hand that they are a good team.
There’s always a chance of an upset with our mix. If you look at our players we can upset anyone in our group.
So obviously you take that onboard but you are a mix, you all know what you can do you just go in and play the game. That was it. There’s always a chance of an upset with our mix. If you look at our players we can upset anyone in our group, that’s what we did.
How did you think K10 performed against you?
You could see that they are very drilled and they have the potential. It’s just – I don’t know. First game and maybe they are tired, anything could affect it they just didn’t fully turn up I guess. They were crisp though. It just wasn’t enough to win obviously.
stop_it and Impact had two impressive performances to take down K10
Moving away from that game, you have played for a bunch of different teams back in the day. When you look back what’s the biggest difference from being at LAN today as opposed to when you play for CeX for example?
After each LAN they get smoother and smoother, they take on the complaints or the little things that do get brought up and they have improved it a lot. The servers and everything were running so smooth, it’s really good, and the amount of teams and the amount of competition. Before it was a massive divide whereas now every single group has a hard challenging set of teams. That’s the best thing it’s not that you know who is going to be in that upper-bracket, anything could happen.
When you used to play a lot of people saw the scene as this “treehouse” where there were certain teams at the top and they switched players making it quite hard to break into the scene as a young player.
Yeah a hundred percent.
How do you think that’s changed now?
I haven’t kept up with the social side of it so I don’t know how that goes, but seeing a lot of the faces that I know in different teams it’s good to see. Whether they’ve branched out or they’ve realised it’s not working if we stick with the same players, we need to find what works together. So I reckon they’ve gone their own ways and found the up-and-coming talent and then moulded them.
What would you say was the biggest issue back then in terms of that?
I think it could have been just knowing who was good and not willing to see what people can become. Not looking at the potential and just knowing whose good even though it just comes to end and then they want to disband and try again with someone who is at the top. They are just more open to the up-and-coming talent [now], which is a lot better to see.
Just to bring it back, you were saying that you’ve come back with this team and you’ve always had this drive inside you to play the game. Does winning an upset and performing well on LAN make you want to come back at all?
It is always there, but knowing me I’ve always been quite a “in my head” sort of player. So when I was grinding it was the burnout and playing that much, it all gets in your head. For me that was my bad side mentally and I wish I could have pushed it to that level. It would be nice to come back, but I doubt it. It is a lot. To come in and just shoot people is different to moulding a team and everything around it. So it takes a lot so I doubt it, but it would be nice.
It would be nice to come back, but I doubt it.
When you look back on your career is there one moment you see as your peak or defining moment?
Back with the CeX lot it was the MDL Climber Cup, I think we won something to get in that, obviously it was nice getting to that point. I don’t know, but playing the game was always a good highlight for me. With my team wanting to win, that was it. No specific moment.
You have been around for a long time, you’ve seen all these teams come and go, you were around for the “treehouse” situation we were speaking about earlier. What one piece of advice would you give to the younger players who are trying to break into being a CS pro now?
I guess it’s quite cliché, but being UK, I don’t know how it is looked upon now, but just don’t keep an ego. Obviously you always want to do your best, focus on yourself and just keep grinding the game on the server and outside the server. Keep watching your demos, it’s not just about shooting, it’s everything. Just don’t let your ego get above you.
