After the BLAST Paris Major 2023, the world was Cai “CYPHER” Watson’s oyster. Having turned heads with his breakout performances, particularly on Vertigo, a tier 1 move beckoned. At the end of 2024, though, it’s been a somewhat chastening experience for the 21-year-old. His first move to TSM was fraught with controversy and suffered after the exit of coach Remy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam to Vitality. Then, he joined BLEED under Aleksandar “kassad” Trufunovich, but left with a Thunderpick Online Series trophy – and a series of unfulfilled invoices for salary and prize money.
I sat down with the 21-year-old star recently at EPICLAN, a grassroots BYOC event in Kettering, UK. It’s the second EPICLAN CYPHER has attended this year, having also mixed for EPIC41 in February – also a time of upheaval for the BLEED squad. It’s not surprising that in his words he saw this event as a chance “to go with a few friends and let off a little steam”. Playing alongside friend and Monte Gen in-game leader Jack “Gizmy” von Spreckleson, CYPHER ultimately reached the grand final with his team Verdant fe, losing to Verdant EC.
CYPHER commented on the situation of his mixed team, which had only decided to attend about a week before the event, making the grand final. “When we have a last-minute mix get to the grand final of a LAN, that shouldn’t be possible in my opinion.” It’s a sign that the UK scene is perhaps not where it could be. “I’ve always said that some people [within the UK scene] are really good individually, I think it might be work ethic that holds people back.”
CYPHER competed at the BLAST Paris Major with a majority-UK team, alongside Thomas “Thomas” Utting and Sebastian “volt” Malos (who now plays under his native Romanian flag). Reflecting on that time, he says he had to leave Into the Breach for his own development: “After the Major, it was time for me to grow as a player. I’ve been told by a lot of people that I can get to the place where I want to get, tier 1.” Team SoloMid, his first destination, seemed perfect: “I thought TSM, the people around me, it’s a good opportunity to do so.”
TSM had issues before the roster was even signed. The squad had been built by French coach XTQZZZ, but contractual issues meant that the entire team almost fell through, with the Frenchman exiting before then later rejoining the project and finally leaving once more to rejoin Vitality following Zonic’s exit. “There were a lot of issues going on with [XTQZZZ],” CYPHER says, “and when he joined we only had him for a month. Then he went to Vitality, and we didn’t get much going because we were without our coach for a very long time.”
The arrival of Allan “Rejin” Petersen, despite CYPHER calling the Dane “a really good coach”, did not change things enough for the Brit. With an offer from BLEED coming in, he took the chance: “I just realised that it wasn’t clicking, we weren’t clicking as players.” The temptation to link up with some of the players on BLEED, and especially former Ninjas in Pyjamas in-game leader hampus, swung it: “I realised that the BLEED roster, with hampus IGL, is something that I can really learn from, and I have learned.”
BLEED has made a lot of roster changes this year, but CYPHER says all of them were made with good intentions: “Fair play to kassad, he’s made changes when quotation mark “better” players have come along.” In particular, the signing of jkaem and nawwk from Apeks at a knock-down price went down well: “At the time, nawwk was a top 5 CS2 AWPer, he was insane, and jkaem as well. So I can see why the changes were made, 100%.” BLEED came second at the MESA Nomadic Spring Masters 2024 shortly after this, their strongest result on LAN, but struggled to achieve other deep tournament runs, and crashed out of the Perfect World Shanghai RMR Closed Qualifier with a 2-3 record. “Not qualifying for the RMR, I think that was the worst experience I’ve had in a while” CYPHER admits.
Nonetheless, he is happy with his time on BLEED and optimistic about the future. “I would say no regrets, I’ve enjoyed my time. It’s a shame we didn’t get as many results.” He already has offers, “I just need to see if I shoot the gun now or wait til the RMR.” hampus and kassad have given him the confidence to seek out star roles in his new project: “I’ve been told by good players, by hampus, by kassad, that I can do it, I just need it all based around me, in a sense.”
And for UK fans hoping for another Into the Breach miracle run? CYPHER admits the door isn’t closed to the UK scene. “Possibly. With the right lineup.”
