The Liquid rifler let it slip in a light-hearted ESL clip from Beijing, but he did not say who made the offer or when.
Mario “malbsMd” Samayoa says he once had an offer to play Valorant at the top level. The Team Liquid rifler made the remark in a short clip ESL Counter-Strike filmed at IEM Beijing 2026 and published late on Wednesday.
ESL asked several players whether they could become a tier-one Valorant pro within 12 months. The answers ranged from “two weeks” to “I don’t like that game”. malbsMd did not hesitate.
For sure, I actually had an offer for tier 1 Valorant before.
Asked whether that made him a Valorant pro already, he laughed: “No, I wasn’t even playing.” The clip ends there. He named no team and gave no year.
A long road in Counter-Strike
The offer would have come during a career spent almost entirely in Counter-Strike. The Guatemalan made his HLTV debut at 13 and spent years in Latin American and North American second-tier teams, among them FULL SEND, Team oNe and 00 Nation. He came close to retiring when Team oNe closed its team in 2023.
M80 gave him his breakout, and G2 signed him in June 2024. He won the BLAST Premier Fall Final and World Final in his first six months there and finished 12th in HLTV’s top 20 for 2024. Liquid brought him in this March in a straight swap for NertZ. Our player profile has the full story.
A mixed week in Beijing
His Beijing ended on Wednesday. malbsMd started strongly with a 28-14 line, 86.3 ADR and 90.9% KAST in the 2-0 win over Aurora. After a 0-2 loss to PARIVISION in the upper bracket, he turned a Deagle half-buy into four kills in the 2-0 against TYLOO. In the 2-1 defeat to BetBoom that ended Liquid’s run, he went 41-48 with 62.9 ADR.
Liquid finished seventh to eighth at IEM Beijing 2026, and their next stop is the PGL Major Singapore.
