Ahead of the start of the BLAST Open Porto 2026 tournament, 21-year-old M80 player Mason "Lake" Sanderson shared details about the team's performances this year, the reasons for frustrating losses at the top level, and the difficulties of the practice process in North America.
According to Lake, despite the noticeable progress of their IGL s1n, the team faces difficulties in closing out close matches against top opponents. The main reason is individual micro-mistakes in key moments of the game.
"As an example — the game against G2... We just lost track of an opponent and planted the bomb in a bad spot. If the communication in that round had been better or the plant spot was different, we would have won. It's exactly these kinds of small mistakes we need to minimize," Sanderson noted.
The team's newcomer, JBa, who replaced HexT at the start of the year, is currently adapting to playing against stronger opponents. Lake believes that he, like the rest of the M80 players, needs to add more diversity to his actions and show more initiative during matches.
An important step for the team was the appointment of Munstur as the assistant coach. He has positively impacted two key aspects:
- Streamlining communication: he helped solve the problem of chaotic and overly loud comms during rounds, which significantly eased the IGL's job.
- Relieving the head coach: he took some stress off dephh during match prep by providing an alternative perspective on the practice process.
After the EWC tournament, the team returned to North America, where they faced the problem of organizing quality scrims. Because the region is currently in a "rough spot," M80 is forced to focus on the internal analysis of their own weaknesses instead of full-fledged practice with other teams.
Despite the lack of big wins at the Tier-1 level, Lake does not feel pressured about qualifying for the Major. M80 currently sits 8th in the Americas VRS rankings. The player is confident that the team will easily gather the necessary points at upcoming LAN tournaments, such as GPlay Connect, FML, and DraculaN.
M80 will kick off their run at BLAST Open Porto with a match against NAVI. Lake emphasized that their opponent is currently going through a tough time:
"They are obviously going through a rough patch, maybe it's an identity issue. We will try to capitalize on this opportunity. It will be a nice win and a lot of points for us if we can get it."
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