Long-time Counter-Strike: Global Offensive competitor Spencer “Hiko” Martin announced his retirement from professional CSGO today while at the same time revealing that he will captain 100 Thieves’ entry into Valorant.
Hiko started his Counter-Strike career at the end of the game’s 1.6 era before transitioning to Global Offensive upon its release in 2012. Over a career spanning eight years, Hiko was a member of some of CSGO’s most famous North American teams. He spent time as part of some of the region’s most successful early rosters, including at Complexity, Cloud9, and Team Liquid.
While his play waned in the later years of his CSGO career, Hiko helped Team Liquid reach North America’s first CSGO Major grand final at ESL One Cologne 2016 and is the original source some of Anders “Anders” Blume’s most famous catchphrases, resulting from one of the craziest flicks in Counter-Strike history on Ninjas in Pyjamas legend Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund.
Hiko’s retirement also marks another milestone, just in a different esport. The CSGO veteran announced that he would join 100 Thieves’ new entry into Valorant esports as he retired from CSGO. Riot’s FPS has attracted a number of CSGO players both new and old with an opportunity to play a new competitive shooter, and Hiko’s retirement came with the announcement that he will lead the 100 Thieves Valorant team as its captain.
100 Thieves founder Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag made the announcement that the team would field a Valorant roster on June 4 on a video on the team’s official social media accounts.
The organization’s founder made it clear that Hiko was just the first addition to the new squad, and that the team would announce the remaining members of its roster shortly.
While some have questioned Valorant’s ability to compete with CSGO as an esport early on in the game’s beta, the entrance of a normally selective 100 Thieves organization into the space could be another sign that Valorant esports is to be taken seriously.
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