$600,000 for m0NESY is an underpay, NOT an overpay

Sometimes in pro sports or esports, you have to take a gamble on a youngster and hope it works out. Sometimes you get Thierry Henry for under £15m, other times you get Anthony Martial for £60m. Sh*t happens.

Other times, though, you get the perfect deal. Mbappe for any price, Erling Haaland for £20m – both were clearly destined for the top of the game, and getting them at any price is a great deal.

See where I’m going with this?

Would you pay $600k for a teenage ZywOo?

There’s… almost no risk

One thing that has changed in pro sports has been that age is negatively correlated with price; youth means it’s more expensive, for one will have the player for longer. For example, $1m on device is a bit much, because in a few years he’ll start declining. Buying ZywOo, though, and you’ll get like 10 years out of him (or indeed, sell him for a similar price – device would be cheaper).

m0NESY is about as obvious a star as it’s possible to find, at the youngest possible age you can sign him. The guy is absolutely blitzing academy teams, and we’ve already seen what sort of level a bunch of those players are at. B1T, phzy and ztr have all stepped in and done alright (B1T, obviously, far better than that), so it’s not like it’s a bad level at all.

There’s an almost zero chance that m0NESY is *bad*, but there’s still a chance that he’s not a bona fide superstar. But, like, he’s *sixteen*. He’s a talented kid and within a year of pro play, he will almost certainly be a tier one level AWPer – and then you’ve paid $600k for a 17 year old who can play at this level. You have a malleable AWPer for the next 10 years, who you can always sell for a similar price (assuming prices continue to rise).

And that’s… on the lower end of what we can expect.

Do you know who the only other player to be better than B1T while on the same team as him is?

m0NESY was the stand-out player from a team that had B1T on it, for crying out loud. His rating is 0.06 away from what a teenage ZywOo was doing to the tier 2 teams, and better than what s1mple was doing at that age.

He is as obvious a wunderkind as it is actually possible to find; and you’re getting him for about half of what NiP paid for a guy who is 10 years older. Even if he’s worse right now, in four years he will almost certainly not be. 

And don’t buy that BS about how ‘in esports, age doesn’t mean anything’; outliers do not disprove a trend, merely break it. Yeah, some 29 year olds are great, but the majority are not. electronic has a kid and a wife, too, so it’s not all about changing priorities.

m0NESY is absolutely destined for stardom, and you’re actually paying under the price of a superstar. There’s some disconnect where people think that younger players should be worth LESS than experienced ones, which is mostly nonsensical; to buy a player who projects anything like what m0NESY looks like in 4 years would cost you an arm, a leg and over $1m.

The risk is small, really. Even if he’s a bust, someone will take a gamble on the 16 year old who was the best thing since sliced ZywOo just a year ago and you’ll recoup some of that money. And if he’s not… you just got the steal of the century.

Anyone could look bad playing with NiKo IGLing, anyway.