Spencer "Hiko" Martin has been around the Counter Strike scene for a long time now, but his relevancy in the scene has been kept on the down low since his departure from Liquid earlier this year. He has been known for having insane reaction times and high sensitivity.
They continued to play together at EMS Katowice 2014 placing 5th-8th. Later in the year, the team transitioned to a new organization. They signed under the Cloud 9 organization and made a roster change. swag left to go join iBuyPower and shroud came in to fill in the spot. This "new" roster came into the ESL One: Cologne 2014 major with lots of fire and excitement. This was the major where Hiko really did shine individually. You can go on YouTube and search up his "Inhuman Shot" on Get_Right or the insane comeback made against Dignitas on Mirage. Near the very end of the year, Hiko leaves Cloud 9 because he felt as though the team wouldn't go any farther without change.
iBuyPower/GX Period
Thus, the "NA Super Team" was formed. This line-up consisted of DaZeD, AZK, Skadoodle, swag, and Hiko. This was the lineup that would have brought NA to the top of the scene and bring down European dominance. Sadly, three out of the five GX players were banned from all Valve sponsored events for a match-fixing scandal. This setup only lasted a couple weeks, and Hiko and Skadoodle had to move forward.
2015
The two remaining players had originally planned to stay as a package , but Skadoodle was picked by Cloud 9 because they were dismissing Shahzam and Semphis from the roster. Spencer found a home at Nihilum Gaming with Semphis, sancz, autimatic, and Valens. Meanwhile, Cloud 9 are having their summer run with their new line-up beating almost everyone in their path. They established themselves as a tier one team and gained a lot more respect during and after their run.
A New Start
Everyone in the community started talking about how Hiko had missed out and could be regretting his decision to leave the original Cloud 9 roster, but he kept on moving forward and joined Team Liquid. The actual roster of Team Liquid was a little underwhelming at the time. EliGE had a history in Starcraft II having some competitive experience as well as actually playing CSGO professionally under eLevate. nitr0 was an upcoming player starting that had played under Area 51 Gaming and Denial eSports. adren had come from the previous iteration of iBuyPower and played the role of an in-game-leader. Fugly was another up and coming player with lots of potential. He previously played for Denial eSports and Lunatik eSports.
Their first couple results with this line-up were very impressive and stable. They came in rocking into the iBuyPower Invitational 2015 managing to come out first against Luminosity (Three out of the five players who are on SK present day). Team Liquid were consistently winning their region's qualification matches for ESL ESEA and CEVO to qualify for the LAN finals of these events. These online performances weren't transferring into their LAN performances leaving them with 3rd-8th place at most of these offline events.
(2016) Line-up Change: -Fugly +S1mple
S1mple was picked up by Team Liquid because Hiko had previously played with s1mple while he was standing for FlipSid3 Tactics during the ESWC 2015 event where he befriended the young talent. This was the change that people thought would totally boost the performance of the team due the sheer firepower s1mple was bringing to the field. For the most part, people were correct. Now, Liquid were consistently grabbing 3rd-4th placings at LAN events. In the weeks leading up to the MLG Colombus Major 2016, Koosta was acquired as a dedicated AWP in place of adren. There was some arguing within the team and they had to pull adren back as in a stand-in last minute for the major. With very little preparation, they nearly beat Luminosity on Cache and Mirage, but they could not close out the matches while at match point on both maps. Their run through the major had stopped at the semi-final losing to the team that would eventually win the entire major event. They go on to place second at ESL One: Cologne 2016 Major once again, going against SK (Luminosity had signed under SK) and losing 2-0.
S1mple Leaves (08/03/2016)
S1mple decided that he missed being at home and would rather be back in Ukraine than stay in the US. This takes a toll on Team Liquid stats tournament wise. They go to tournaments like IEM Oakland, ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals, or Northern Arena 2016 - Montreal and get knocked out early at these events. After losing s1mple they start consistently placing 5th-8th at the next couple premier.
2017
After leaving Team Liquid, Hiko goes in search for a team to mesh with. He stands-in for Optic Gaming after Stanislaw leaves and joins Liquid to play as an in-game-leader. Optic bombs out in their next two events, but that's understandable losing the person that led them.
Hiko goes Rogue
It seems like forever since we have seen Hiko in the competitive scene. Some of us have been waiting a long time for him to show off his skill again on the competitive stage. All his reaction flick shots and clutch plays make it all too fun to spectate him. It was announced on July 23, 2017 that he will be playing under the Rogue organization alongside vice, wrath, and shinobi. The fifth player has either not been found or Rogue have not released information on their fifth player.
I personally am super excited to see Hiko back in the scene. Definitely going to be watching his future matches! Hope this post was interesting! Please post in the comments if I had made any mistakes.
For the information on players and events, I determined on whether to use HLTV or Liquipedia depending on how much useful information either page used.
edit:I had accidentally posted this before I was actually done making it.
