A Tribute To Cyx
In lieu of the regular column here instead is a few words about the tragic loss of a fantastic esports talent and person
There was a cloud over this weeks column, something I couldn’t shift from my mind as I sat down to write. The news that Antonio 'cyx' Daniloski had tragically died hit me the morning I was due to travel to Belgium and cover the Antwerp E-sports Festival, a range of texts, e-mails and phone calls from people as equally shocked as I was when they heard. It was a wretched way to start the day and it was hard to comprehend, especially given the circumstances behind it all.
It was a subject I almost completely side-stepped for fear of looking like a ghoul, yet ignoring it seems a far more disrespectful option. It’s tough though… When you sit down to write something of this nature you already know what people are going to say about it. That you didn’t know him, that you’re cynically exploiting someone’s misfortune for your own ends… I know that is something that has already been levelled at Cadred.org when we printed our first tribute to the player. Yet, such petty bickering should never overshadow the desire to do what feels the right thing and I wanted to say something about it, hopefully in the right tone.
Sometimes it takes a tragedy to unify people and make them behave better to one another. People often think of me as a CS:S writer and I was out at a CoD4 LAN the weekend after it happened. The games we were associated with primarily didn’t matter. Everyone felt Antonio’s passing like we had lost one of our own. It is always a tragedy when a young person dies under any circumstances, yet the effect this had over everyone who had to go out there and compete was profound. Regardless of the subject of most conversations, it wasn’t long before our thoughts turned to him and the fact he was no longer with us.
Out in Antwerp we paid our own tributes as best we could. The German teams in attendance, the likes of Team SPEEDLINK, were especially solemn and Michael “Trigger” Sowa, another German e-sports legend, was particularly moved by it all. I didn’t speak to one player who wasn’t thinking about him as they settled in to play. I myself didn’t know how best to process it all. I elected for the work hard, play hard approach. After all, we never know exactly when our time is going to come and I guess the only way to describe how I felt by it all was humbled and fortunate. Here we all were doing what we enjoy and Toni wasn’t… It made me especially appreciative to be there.
I never had the pleasure to meet him but it is fair to say I was a fan. Having followed e-sports for many years, especially Counter-Strike, his role within the mousesports side that were such a force in 2008/2009 can’t be understated. He was the beating heart of the team and he propelled them to wins in the finals of the Intel Extreme Masters in March 2008, as well as the likes of GameGune Bilbao in 2009. Personally he had done things that no other player could boast, such as his appearance in six straight EPS finals, with five consecutive victories. He was a huge talent and his achievements underline that.
However, such achievements are not the true measure of anyone. The huge outpouring of grief and the many, many fan tributes that flooded the internet in the wake of the news show how highly he was regarded not only as a player but as a person. Not everyone at the top of their respective scenes could expect to be so fondly remembered, so that’s the real testament to his impact on the whole of e-sports. He was a talent, a potential role model, an example to anyone wanting to compete in any game and someone who remained accessible despite his considerable reputation.
And that’s the thing I wanted to focus on the most in this brief piece. All the tactless debates that some have tried to bring up about how a lesser player could not expect such treatment are completely pointless and idiotic. It’s rare that the e-sports community ever presents itself as unified across the board, steeped as it is in the behavioural cultures of the internet, yet when tragedy strikes we all feel the loss acutely and there is nothing false or synthesised about that. I remember when Frank 'vivid' Leenaars passed away about the same time in 2006, also from a car accident, a talented player cut down in his prime before he had a chance to achieve all the things he surely would have done. There was a similar show of respect from everyone in e-sports and it is something that stays with many of us, some more than others.
In the absence of being able to do anything when such things occur all we can do is count our blessings and send our prayers out to the people far more affected than ourselves. Yet it should never be said that it doesn’t affect us too. When we lose one of our own, regardless of their placing within the e-sports community, it is something that touches every one of us. Those like Antonio that will be rightfully remembered as part of the pioneering of the ever-growing e-sports community will always have their place as long as we remember.
I’m sure, like myself, every player, manager and writer in the Counter-Strike community, will feel that something is missing at every event from now on.
My thoughts, for what they are worth, are with his family, his friends and his team-mates.