Hiko Joins 100Thieves' VALORANT Roster
It was announced today with some fanfare that Spencer “Hiko” Martin has been recruited to the 100T VALORANT team. Hiko is one of the most accomplished players in North American Counter-Strike, having been to several Majors, and their respective finals, and frequently being lauded as the best player on many of the star-studded rosters he has been on. At 30 years of age, some have expressed concerns about Hiko competing with young guns, but he addressed these concerns on his twitch stream shortly after the announcement was made, stating, “I know it’s going to be hard, competing with people half my age [...] but throughout my whole career, every decision I’ve ever made was in order to win, and be the best”. He mentions as well that several organisations had approached him since the beta of the game was launched and he expressed interest in competing in the new title, mentioning only Faze by name, since a twitch chatter asked him about them first. This is only to be expected for a player of his calibre, as the few players who have been such big names in CS but aren’t still competing in that game are hot commodities for new VALORANT rosters.
Hiko has also mentioned on stream that he intends to keep up a consistent stream schedule and be one of the few people competing at the highest level who do maintain a strong streaming presence. In the announcement video, he talked about how his goals align very closely with 100Thieves’, and it is likely that this is part of those goals. 100T has always been an organisation that has put content creation at the forefront of its philosophy, making regular YouTube and Twitch content surrounding all of their players and personalities, and it is likely that one of the reasons Hiko chose them as the org to sign with is due to an alignment with this content-forward philosophy.
Being the first and only player on the team so far, as well as the team’s captain, it is understood that Hiko will be crucial to assembling the rest of the roster as well. 100T has been competing in some VALORANT tournaments so far with variations on their Counter-Strike roster, the entirety of whom they acquired from the Renegades organisation. With the acquisition of Hiko, they are making a strong statement about how seriously they are taking the brand new esport, laying down a solid foundation for them to build upon. 100Thieves CEO and founder Matthew “Nadeshot” Haag is nothing if not passionate and selective about the games he chooses to field rosters in, having even pulled their Call of Duty roster from competition, the game that Nadeshot himself comes from, due to Activision Blizzard choosing to create a franchised league for that scene. Such a big-name signing is in line with every other aggressive approach 100Thieves has made towards their esports teams, and proves that they intend to hit the ground running with VALORANT.
Images courtesy via 100Thieves
