Swisher: "I didn't know if I was going to be on the team coming into this season"

Dust2.us' Jeffrey "Mnmzzz" Moore spoke with Michael "Swisher" Schmid after M80 defeated Chicken Coop in the first round of the Fragadelphia 19 Playoffs.

Swisher commented on their run at FRAG 19, the addition of Jadan "HexT" Postma, and M80's return to competition in North America.

Find the full interview in video format below with select sections underneath in text form.

You've made it to the semifinals now, where you're awaiting the winner of Fluxo and Marsborne. Some might say M80 hasn't been tested in this event, you've beaten Kooking and Game Hunters. How prepared are you to play against an elite team like Fluxo or Marsborne?

We're definitely ready. We already played Marsborne the other day in the qualifier for Pro League and that game was pretty one-sided. Against better teams, we generally play better. We take a bigger mental step going into the game, we're more prepared for things, and we take it more seriously. It kicks us into overdrive and makes us play better, so we're prepared.

First LAN with HexT instead of reck, he's someone you've been playing with since 2019. How do you feel about the HexT addition?

It feels good. I miss reck, we were on a team for over two years straight. It sucks to see him leave, he was always to my right every time we set up. Something that we lacked with reck was a voice. He's a very quiet player but I think nowadays in Counter-Strike, you need everyone to be super vocal.

Comms is the biggest thing we get out of it. We've done a few role changes, I swapped into some of reck's roles, and HexT has picked up some of mine. I think that has refreshed us a little bit.

This last season wasn't good for us; we qualified for the Major, but that's basically it. I didn't know if I was going to be on this team coming into this season. We really didn't know what the change was going to be until the last week or so.

After FRAG 19, M80 is coming back into the NA scene. You've accepted an invitation into the Eagle Masters Series, where you'll be playing in some of the ECL Cups, and a Thunderpick qualifier is coming up. In the first half of the year, you didn't play a lot of NA events, how do you feel about being back in NA?

It sucks to be in NA compared to the EU because you get better practice in Europe. We realized when we were watching NRG and these other teams play Fragadelphias and random cups online how many [VRS] points you get from these tournaments. It's laughable to not play because at the end of the day, the Major is all that matters.

We're going to qualify for everything we can qualify for, we hope to make BLAST and Thunderpick. That should throw us into the top 20. First place at Thunderpick is $20k and first place here is $18k so that will throw our prize money up and kick us into the top 20 for invitations.

M80 eventually was defeated by the Polish team KOLESIE in the final at Fragadelphia 19.