CS:GO’s Cursed Superstar Resurrected: The Story of Hiko

[Music] but it is too late Karen is gonna be waiting he coaches in dust check wads [Music] reactions I don't think so I think this was just kind of a long leg of just a kind of just bad luck and bad playing from us you know though you said liquid bringing he code we're hoping he's kind of a sort of the lineup out obviously I think he brings so much to that team that could obviously turn them around and make them a little stronger unit we do have a few players quite typed up here from luminosity so he co definitely not going down without a fight oh well there's the first power strike you go get us a double they still do players that we got know how Oh Mike in his holiday [Applause] once again the first base is the trainees gonna hit the ground there's cold just like data cheap though versus for I think it's liquid out the door because their run I'm good luck and good fate in majors is it over if I get on a team together that's great and we can deal with this later but you know it's something now that I have to think about more than ever now is what what do I want to do after I'm done playing keep it safe right now to do this closer it's got less than 10 HP silliman MA [Music] spencer hiko martin has pretty much been playing counter-strike since it came out regarded as one of North America's longest standing OG top tier talents he's known to be one of the smartest players his region has ever seen the problem is that he's also Bar None the unluckiest you see for as long as he's been alive he goes had the makings of a cutthroat competitor but rarely the results born and raised in Detroit Michigan he Co spent his childhood hopping from sports to sport until a hockey injury turned his attention towards a different sort of game and when he was around 12 he encountered the game that would change his life middle school I was playing a game playing Starcraft in Diablo 2 and I wasn't like a group of friends and then one of the guys brothers introduced him to Counter Strike and he started playing Congress like every day and we kind of missed him so he all started to play Counter Strike and that's where I started eventually he goes obsession with Counter Strike gave him an opportunity I was on like random teams in the Counter Strike I was playing a little bit more and more and then one of my friends told me to watch a match between two sponsored professional teams there's like 30,000 people watching this I was talking to my friend about and he's like yeah these guys are paid to play they have sponsors they travel over the world just from that one match I was like all right that's what I want to do but as with most aspiring gamers the path that led hiko to eSports wasn't direct hiko's life took a turn when his father's famed clothing store began to suffer amid Detroit's economic struggles in the mid 2000s so when this industrious Midwestern boy with 30 grand and student loans and a part-time job at a concrete factory told his parents midway through a computer science degree that he'd be dropping everything to pursue counter-strike full-time well it didn't go over very well he came to me and he said I'm going to quit I'm going to become a professional video game player and I looked at him like he had lost his mind but he Co was determined to live out his dream to succeed on his own terms having made a name for himself in 1.6 he Co entered global Offensive with a bang at a time when no one was taking North American counter-strike seriously he Co yearned to embody the kind of skill and smarts that would set him apart from his region his talons earned him a spot on complexity gaming were alongside such stars as nothing Shan gaara's and swag he upset the indomitable French roster very games to secure an astonishing top four at sea esko's first ever major Oh complexity I take my hats off to you says absolutely brilliant play from complexity a round of applause the Americans have played so unamerican they have outsmarted to worry they see him the bomb will blow an NBK will go down with the ship it's 1642 complexity [Applause] [Applause] the issue is that great as they were complexity began to stagnate they made top 8 at the next major in Katowice before signing with cloud 9 ahead of ESL one cologne and at that tournament despite narrowly losing the quarterfinals Kiko made the most iconic shot of his career but it is too late Garen is gonna be waiting he co charges in Dustin's Kiko but C nines problems persistent they were bursting with talent had great chemistry and were solidifying themselves as the best roster in North America they just couldn't close come the next major they didn't even make it out of groups now leaving Kiko inside his palm sign and he wants to take the fight he doesn't want to get sandwiched in he wants to fight up a lot but now he's gonna have to be forced back the smoke is just making it impossible to dance I had shot a lot of my stuff and that's still pretty good now it's down to a two on 3jw waiting in the middle has the a K in hand he's waiting they line up JW triple kill he ends up at 21 kills all of my foot 32 and fnatic they knock cloud nine out of dreamhack winter 2014 oh thanks I think this is just kind of a long leg I'm just a kind of just bad luck and bad playing from us yeah in desperate need of a change Kiko made the courageous decision to leave cloud 9 in the hope that he'd be able to find a group of like-minded players whose sole goal was to win hiko was widely regarded as having been c9 s best player and he caught the attention of the only other roster in north america to perform internationally one that boasted a skilled support player exceptional igl adored oper and one of the greatest prodigies the game has ever seen i jumped at the opportunity it was supposed to be the most talent on one roster at any time I had the context of the journey they were interested in doing it I put all this together we had a good deal we had just qualified to go to the X Games event and then all of a sudden everything just failed we have some interesting information info it looks as though some pro players have been banned by volvo oh okay could be born kc foster dazed swag azk steal r.i.p ladies and gentlemen oh what a lot of people don't realize about the infamous ibuypower match-fixing scandal is how it affected hiko in addition to costing him the chance to join a super team and reignite one of counterstrikes oldest greatest orgs evil geniuses it left him lost and without a sense of direction determined to give his career another shot he co used his newfound downtime as an opportunity to throw himself into something he'd always been extremely passionate about streaming yes no now tragic as it was the iBUYPOWER affair had a funny way of helping hiko forced to find a new team he hopped from one fledgling roster to another before finding his way onto the CIS inflected flipside tactics there he met an unruly indescribably talented up-and-comer one who became a very unlikely friend as the bob timer takes no problem Adrenaline's the one b2 and yeah angel Wow angel just go beast mode like still regarded as a talk to your talent he goes nomadic season came to a close when he got the opportunity to join Team Liquid in the fall of 2015 the goal was to create what never came to fruition with iBUYPOWER North America's first dominant the super team unfortunately it didn't happen right away in spite of hiko's veteran presence liquid floundered for almost a year after his arrival suffering elimination after elimination it's gonna be Forrest waiting in a great block his profit after that is it takes 1 : n IP will play the best-of-three decider matches the survived the first test and for liquid well Koopa death was always going to be extremely tough for them packed off they did be think considering good numbers against two very top teams but I guess this is how we would have predicted it when we look at it on paper it didn't help that liquid had developed a reputation for choking while on the cusp of victory as Edward is your last man standing supreme play on the first map this bomb is gonna go down it's a one before it's good always play for now m.49 has got a Molotov as well smoke goes down he's on the other side of it could make something of this you know they're all three players are waiting for me to the post room how is this gonna go down this is insane [Applause] against Edward bomb planted spoke in Edward that wall he goes out [Applause] keeping me alive now no one enjoys throwing one rounds but this was especially frustrating for he go you see in addition to boasting above-average mechanics and a deep understanding of the game he developed a reputation over the years for being exceptionally calm in the clutch Bomber fans already been happening for quite a while here so he Co and Sean that's a good kill for nikah but they realize to pre still in there somewhere they're gonna try and go for here they want to go all in Eco comes in with another killing back to it you want to that bomb so far take they gotta move quick right now and going for it that if yours is already happening are you kidding me he's gonna fix up a trip like cloud nine when it wants it even got to the point where the community started to memeing on him because of it no I'm not kidding you that's all it is Anders was like Kiko are you kidding me and so that's just that's a stuck everyone has to hiki oh are you kidding me inhuman reaction this it goes back it just goes and come 2016 a change was in order and he Co enabled it to happen his connection with the goat to be resulted in liquid making one of the most compelling and chaotic signings in csgo needless to say it paid off smokes septuple smokes in the same place this is this is a paid job with simple boasting the blue and whites and hiko acting as a sort of mint or liquid weren't just a force to be reckoned with they were the greatest roster their region had ever seen they went all the way to the semi-finals of counterstrikes first million-dollar major where it became resoundingly clear that he co had finally found a place where he could shine now again as we see so many times before astound to Higa but again spore is it really possible we do have a few players quite typed up here from luminosity so he could definitely not going down without a fight oh well there's the first part right he go gets a double there's still two players that they got no help on them 13 and 3 he code creeping around the site now there's still time it's all my goodness how did he do this but the second tragedy of hiko's career struck in those semi-finals at what should have been the end of the first map the impossible happened and he Co found himself on the receiving end of the most infamous miraculous play in the history of csgo following this in this spot before the same spot with but with much more utility to work with here it comes once again the first base is that trainees gonna hit the ground there's cold they need a huge play but that was something I'm never gonna see ever again broken and bewildered liquid began to unravel finally after losing nine rounds in a row the North American super squad collapsed and that leaves everything to hiko again he is the man you want in this position but one versus three this is for everything this is for the map right now Eko making its way around the smoke his family he rules for Taku but that's it luminosity with a comeback from 1510 an amazing play from coal with the AWP all the way back into overtime into a victory you want to hear the really crazy part against every expectation liquid came out guns blazing in the second map and after bullying the Brazilians into a 15-6 scoreline managed to throw even harder than the first time versus for retake with an AWP and there it is cold is going to take his head off and luminosity will find themselves in the Finals against Navi from there on out liquid were scarred the community agreed that Columbus had been their major to win and that they might never recover from such a catastrophic choke it didn't help that they were suffering from a slew of internal issues thanks in large part to the very prodigy hiko himself had worked so hard to welcome into the team he's just he always wants to win if he plays well and we lose and somebody was bad like he blames that person and he'll do it even when we live in a match so it's something that we have to work on something that liquid has been helping us with some that I'm trying to help him with and Minoo when we started playing with the giant again before the major we had more problems again obviously to be expected he him and agenda definitely don't they're not best friends I don't think there's there's any point of sugar go to him they're deaf we I don't see their enemies but you know they don't get along perfectly but it seemed that liquid were still one of the greatest rosters in the world and worthy of a major title and at ESL cologne 2016 they became the first North American squad ever to reach a major final but their opponent happened to be the same team that traumatized them in Columbus liquid never even stood a chance and now it's just all in the details easy for SK to pick it up here trying to walk through the smoke but it's just not gonna happen SK gaming major championship in a row they are your winners after that tournament naa 'test team to date went out with a whimper instead of a bang simple returned to Ukraine to join Navi leaving hiko in a tough spot obviously things didn't work out there he went home decided he missed his family too much and he wanted to stay so before would some frictions with him the team as well yeah of course yeah ok good I mean even though he went home and didn't come back like even if he did come back I could see a future where some of my players would have refused to play with him much longer than he actually stayed he Co was exhausted from serving as an intermediary for so long his performance took a bit of a dive and liquid began to fall off and just like that it's hiko vs. 4 and I think it's liquid out the door because there run good luck and good fate in majors is a whole front and their legendary spot it's been stolen away a straw 'less they'll get theirs back they'll complete our top eight teams for the Fox Theater liquid it's a sad finish that I run here had some good games but suddenly being up and down but a little bit disappointing way to finish it off there we've got some fence after game lots of it in an effort to right the ship liquid dropped hiko at the start of 2017 and it felt as if he'd once again been robbed of his place at the top I was so like angry about being cut from the team because you know we had this roster that had the talent and had the skill and it almost wholly like there was nothing I could do in my power there's nothing I could have done to made it go any differently and I just I was really upset that we didn't really have that chance again to to go that far still hiko stock was high and his devoted fanbase was hopeful that in spite of his age he could still find the means to compete and succeed he refused to call it quits and served a brief stint on optic before Roga gave him the chance to build his very own roster not looking good for them akkadian trying to find some kind of violence somehow get sidelined by that did he go out in the open finds two kills he still has two more in front of them goes find a third and a fourth hiko what the hell is that he cope unfortunately that's to ended in disaster thanks to innumerable roster issues nearly all of which were outside of his control he co spent almost two years trying to get his roster off the ground unfortunately it was all to no avail and he walked away partway through 2019 fearful about his future in counter-strike two years ago I didn't really have to start thinking about okay what do I want to do after I'm done being a pro what do I want to do once I you know I can't play for a team anymore but now I kind of have this this impending thing kind of in the back of my mind eating away at me like well what if I don't you know I get it what if all right if I get on a TV again then that's great and we can deal with this later but you know it's something now that I have to think about more than ever now is what what do I want to do after I'm done playing no Kiko spent the next year or so splitting his time between his stream and attempting a competitive comeback trying to crack it on a bunch of two-bit rosters that in addition to being a step down from what he was used to never really amounted to anything in spite of his reliability it felt as if no one in cs:go was willing to gamble on a 30-year old who never found the success everyone felt he deserved and while he co stream did continue to see the same amount of moderate success it always had it felt as if his expertise was going to waste as if after always managing to be in the wrong place at the wrong time he goes chances had simply run out and then out of nowhere as if the gods of gaming had ordained it something crazy happened counter-strike saw its first real challenger like ever I've got this yella Sultana hiko found a new home in valor n't and he began to catch the attention of non CS players who'd migrated over from a variety of games and needed to become fluent in the mechanics and mindset of Counter Strike it's a he's an overwatch player zero chance could just swing alone you got him within no time he'd become the entertaining educational and wildly successful streamer he'd always had the potential to be but as soon as he'd gotten his hands on valor ins it became clear that he co had always had what it took to be a streaming juggernaut he was personable professional and one of those few one-in-a-million talents who is capable of catering to casuals and competitors alike oh my god I don't know why I love that I don't know you should have heard what I just yelled in my stream dude that was sick but make no mistake he was still the same cold calculating clutch master he had always been goodbye young men catch y'all next game catch you in the next life for the first time in his life it felt as if the Stars had aligned for ego as if his time as both a content creator and competitor had finally come the big news is I am going professional in valiant I have signed to a team that team is Cola clap no stock cloud nine I've been joining I signed with whit no it's not liquid either I signed with 100 thieves I think it's I think some people probably had an idea but yes I have officially signed with team 100 thieves whatever the future holds for hiko one thing is certain in spite of everything his age accolades and the awful circumstances he's insured he's one of these holdouts just had to be rewarded he refused to acquiesce and somehow someway his best is yet to come headshot dude dude [Music] thanks for watching 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Channel: theScore esports

Views: 1,049,575

Keywords: esports, gaming, theScoreesports, thescore, hiko valorant, valorant ranked, valorant gameplay, valorant pro, valorant pro gameplay, hiko valorant gameplay, hiko plays valorant, csgo, hiko, hiko inhuman reactions, hiko csgo, hiko are you kidding me, hiko cypher, team liquid, 100 thieves, 100 thieves compound, 100 thieves valorant, s1mple awp, jumping awp, csgo major, documentary, team liquid choke, valorant, the story of hiko, thescore esports story of, csgo hiko, hiko liquid

Id: 2cELDqL58MM

Length: 23min 47sec (1427 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 04 2020