Lake on JBa: “His individual skill is simply incredible.”
M80 rifler Mason “Lake” Sanderson, in an interview at BLAST Open Porto 2026, praised his teammate Jaden “JBa” Baxter, spoke after the match against Natus Vincere, and described the team’s preparation process.
On JBa
His individual skill is simply incredible. We’re just trying to help him loosen up a bit, and, as you may have noticed, it’s working. We focused on helping him adapt, especially leading up to this tournament.
On analytics
Munstur has helped us a lot. I have nothing but good things to say about him. He works with us on an individual basis as well, trying to ensure we provide information correctly, since we sometimes rush it—that’s North American Counter-Strike for you. He tries to give us a solid foundation so we can feel at ease.
On the match against Natus Vincere
It felt like we were playing practice matches, and that’s a good thing. We had excellent strategies that Rory and Luca put together for us. So we felt comfortable. <...> We tried to prepare as best as we could, but we’d only practiced Inferno five days ago. It was good that we played that specific map as the third one. We had a minimal game plan, but we knew how Natus Vincere plays. We just tried to focus more on ourselves.
About Natus Vincere
They’re a very good and well-organized team; it’s hard to catch their players off guard in any situation. We play much better against teams like this than against, say, Asian or South American teams.
On FURIA and paiN Gaming
In my opinion, FURIA is in a difficult situation right now, since FalleN plans to retire at the end of this year, after which YEKINDAR will likely have to take on the role of IGL. As for paiN Gaming, we beat them last time, although that was quite a while ago. So I’d be happy to play against either of these teams.
Earlier, M80 defeated Natus Vincere in their opening match at BLAST Open Porto 2026. “Born to Win” took the first map, Anubis, with a score of 13–4, but failed to capitalize on their lead, losing Mirage and Inferno by the same score—6–13. M80 advanced to the upper bracket semifinals, while Alexi “Aleksib” Virolainen’s team dropped to the lower bracket.
Photo by Stephanie Lindgren, BLAST.
