Jason Lake: "We've been trying to be devoted to the NA scene as much as humanly possible"

While Complexity itself did not qualify to IEM Dallas 2025, Complexity owner and NA CS legend Jason Lake graced the event with presence on Saturday, providing Dust2.us' Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore an amazing opportunity to speak to one of North America's most important ambassadors.

In the casual but informative interview, Mnmzzz had the chance to talk to Lake about his outing to IEM Dallas, the upcoming BLAST.tv Austin Major, the state of Complexity post-GameSquare, and the shock announcement of the $1m Global Invasion: Domination event, among other topics.

The full interview can be found below on YouTube or in text form below. All questions and answers below have been slightly edited for length and clarity.

What brings you out to Dallas this weekend?

I was telling my son we thought about going up to the lake this weekend but I've been to the IEMs in Rio and just got back from Melbourne but I have to go to a Dallas IEM. Whenever people bring esports to this region, Texas especially, I am going to do my best to show up.

Really happy to be here, it's a great event and there's so many awesome fans and I'm having a great time.

Have you been spotted at all despite being "incognito" without the suit and tie?

[laughs] Yeah there's always nice fans that see me and come up to say hello, that means the world to me. Yeah I'm a little incognito just chilling and enjoying this nice day, nice event, and the great production that they always put on here.

I like DreamHack very much because it harkens back to the community culture and the old BYOCs of yesteryear and IEM is always fantastic to attend. The crowd is always great and I'm having a good time.

We'll be seeing Complexity head to Austin after this with a young American-majority roster. What does that mean for you to send a young, hungry squad like that to an American Major?

It's pretty special. Obviously we would prefer to play with hallzerk, he's an important part of the team, but being able to snag junior and have all of these Americans running around is a unique opportunity too.

We've been trying to be devoted to the North American scene as much as humanly possible. I think everyone knows that about us from our Revival Series and from our player recruiting. So far we're really happy with how the team has been performing.

I'm a little concerned because we've had such a long break without officials. We haven't played since we were in Australia and I would've loved to play here but they ran the qualifier when we were in Europe which is a bit frustrating.

Either way I'm really happy the team is there, the OG stickers are back in the game which is fantastic, and we are very excited for Austin.

This is the first year of COL being an independent company again after leaving GameSquare. What have been the challenges and triumphs of being independent again?

It's a great question. We've really enjoyed being back to the old school way of doing things. The honest to god truth is the economy is incredibly difficult in esports right now. We're out here battling to keep our heads above water and I've been pretty honest and transparent about it.

We've done some behind-the-scenes community videos where I've been really open with our community about some of the challenges we have had. In Counter-Strike specifically, a lot of the ecosystem is funded by betting partners and betting partners are reticent to work with American teams which has made it challenging.

If you've got a European team doing three, four million dollars a year from a betting partner and you've an American Counter-Strike team that's not, you're bidding for the same players and want to be competitive with salaries, travel budgets if not more, it's definitely been challenging.

It's also been really nice to get back to our roots and really re-engage with our community. We hang out on Discord and shoot the shit with our fans every single day. I feel very blessed to have been able to do this for as long as I have.

I was literally praying yesterday morning... a long time ago I prayed to God that I just want to do this full-time because it was my side hustle and I wanted to be able to take care of my family and build something special.

I believe in Complexity. We have built something special over the past 22 years now. I feel very blessed and I'm very fortunate and grateful to have worked with so many amazing people over the years at Complexity.

God willing we will keep it going.

Complexity has existed in every type of ecosystem, from the complete openness of 1.6, the franchises of the CGS, and the semi-franchises of the Louvre Agreement. How does this new VRS compare and has it been a good arrangement for COL?

We've lived through pretty much every iteration of esports and each iteration has its positives and its negative and its challenges. Post-Louvre Agreement we're in the VRS system.

I could do an entire interview about VRS and we have our own internal expert with messioso, our CS GM. There's definitely been some frustrations like how they locked in the Major and where you were so early where in North America things changed drastically during that time.

We went on a nice run, but any system like this is going to have ups and downs. I appreciate that Valve continues to tweak it and improve the system. Being an American team comes with a lot of challenges. A lot of times we're playing in Europe and they're holding NA qualifiers like for this event. We can't be in two continents at the same time which is a bit frustrating.

But we're going to do our best and keep focusing on our community and competitive excellence. I'm just hoping this VRS continues to improve and creates a nice global ecosystem for all the organizations.

Your GM messioso is pretty unique due to the lengths he goes to to engage with the community and to be a lightning rod for discussion about the team. What's your relationship like with messioso and having such a unique guy running your CS division?

I think our relationship is fantastic. We feel incredibly fortunate to have him as our manager. All of the things you've said are true and I think he has that Complexity DNA that harkens back a couple decades.

He's passionate about what he does and it's not just about showing up, clocking in, and clocking out. Like you said, when does he sleep? He'll be chatting with fans at all hours of the day and night, in different discords, engaging across social media because he loves what he does.

That really gets down to the root and the heart and why Complexity has been around for 22 years. It's a pleasure working with him, and we feel fortunate to have him. I think he feels the same, he's part of the family.

And great hair too, right?

[laughs] Better hair than me for sure.

Last week, we saw that shock announcement about Global Domination: Invasion that I think took both of us by surprise. What have you heard about that event since then and what is your take on that event? Does it scare you at all?

We're pretty clear that we're passionate supporters of Counter-Strike in North America so we don't want to aggressively come against any group that is trying to add competitive structure to the NA scene.

But, we definitely are a bit cynical because we keep seeing events that make big promises, do a couple interviews, and then they disappear. It's like 'piss off man don't come, at all because you make our scene look like a clown fiesta and you act like you can come in and do this big grandiose program and then you don't deliver shit.'

When there's big announcements about million dollar events and they haven't talked to some of the people across the NA ecosystem my first reaction is always going to be optimistic cynicism. I hope you're legit and I hope you're going to deliver a great product for Counter-Strike fans, players, and orgs in North America but until you prove it, I'm going to be a bit cynical.

I haven't heard anything additional about that event other than your great reporting over at Dust2.us, so let's hope they can put it together. The fact they hadn't considered visas and some of these other things is definitely concerning but attribute good intentions and hope they're learning and going to learn quickly because they didn't give much runway.

I wish them the very best for a super successful event, but they need to show up and prove it before they've earned the trust of our community.

Complexity will be heading into their first NA Major in many years. How are you feeling about the team's chances at this Major?

It's always difficult when you have to sub in a player, especially an AWPer or an IGL it makes it arguably more challenging. But, junior has been working super hard to fill in and hallzerk has been in practice helping him and guiding him in how he approaches our system.

We're going to go out to Austin and have fun. I do think we'll get past Stage One but if we get upset with a sub it's just unfortunate. We've been working on hallzerk's P1 visa for over a year.

The US immigration system can be extremely frustrating at times. It's not like we were incompetent or not on top of it because we have been and we still remain stymied. We'll probably get that visa in around August or September.

Not being able to have him at the Major is unfortunate and we're really thankful to junior for stepping in and I hope our fans and our guys really enjoy the moment. Having a Major back in the United States... I'm a little biased because when we were driving out here I showed my son the [Hyatt Regency] hotel where Redemption was filmed and that's where we used to come twice a year.

I lived in Atlanta and we'd fly into Dallas and go to that hotel and down to the ballroom and we'd battle all of the best European teams. Texas is always going to have a special place in American Counter-Strike history and lore so I'm really excited about the event.

I hope to get over there and meet some of the fans. I hope our players really soak it in. It's a special moment.

Jason Lake's Complexity will begin their campaign at the BLAST.tv Austin Major in Stage One when the Major kicks off on June 3rd.