Perhaps more than any other player, Max ‘MiGHTYMAX’ Heath is synonymous with Endpoint, present in some version of the roster for the majority of a nine-year period with only a small interruption. A 10-time ESL Premiership winner, the Brit was propelled with Endpoint’s organisation to a peak of #22 in the HLTV rankings.
Despite the highs, a difficult 2024 and the introduction of the VRS system led to Endpoint entering a Counter-Strike hiatus in February of 2025.
With Endpoint in hiatus, the British IGL is looking for new opportunities while trying to enjoy the game and get immersed in the UK scene once again. Esports News UK sat down with MiGHTYMAX at his first EPIC.LAN since 2019 when he won EPIC.28.
MiGHTYMAX talks to Esports News UK about Endpoint’s 2024, the changing UK scene after the loss of ESL Premiership, and his future.
Interview with MiGHTYMAX at EPIC.LAN 45:
Endpoint are currently in hiatus, what are your reflections are of the last year of that project?
Yeah, I think we had a lot of high hopes for the project. Our goal was to climb back to where we were previously with other rosters, but it was just difficult in the VRS system.
You know, we would lose a couple games and lose quite significant ranking. To try and claw it back was quite difficult.
We did try very hard to try and play everything we could, but we just didn’t succeed, so it was a bit of a shame.
The roster went through a couple of changes in 2024. How big a loss were people like Sl3nd, HeavyGod early in the year, and Frøg as a coach?
Yeah, when you lose players, I mean… if you look at the history, look at where the players we’ve lost are now, they’re on very top teams. Obviously, you will suffer for the short term, and it’s very hard to find players that are not so known that are as skilled or as capable as those players. So, it impacts us a lot.
Especially with Frog, for example, he was a very good coach. It was just very difficult. Like, we wanted to go in a different direction with a guy that we picked up Holmes after him, who had more of a CS background, who had played as an IGL, and could potentially help us more in terms of nurturing players.
I mean, losing top talent is very difficult to bounce back from.
Endpoint has a history of developing talent. Did you sense a change in the organisation where that kind of stopped happening?
No, nothing from the organisation’s side. I just think it’s very difficult to keep trying to find new talent.
I mean, obviously, there are a lot of academy teams now, whereas when you look at when we picked up flameZ, for example, there weren’t so many, if any, academy teams.
But now you have a lot of academy teams where a lot of the players are already picked up, so it’s difficult to buy them out from an academy team or to even find them in the first place.
So, yeah, I think it’s a bit of a different landscape, but there probably is still talent out there, which is very difficult to find.
With the roster you had, did you feel comfortable as an IGL with the roles, or did you feel like there was kind of square pegs and round holes and that kind of stuff?
Yeah, I think there were promising signs, but at the same time it was difficult to adapt roles, and that was something we were trying to address towards the end of the team, but ultimately, it wasn’t soon enough because it’s where we are now.
What are your thoughts on Endpoint’s hiatus with Counter-Strike generally as someone in UK CS and being someone who has won so much with Endpoint?
Yeah, obviously I’ll be a bit biased because I’ve been in Endpoint for so long, but obviously it will be a big blow to the scene because they contributed a lot to winning UK tournaments, sort of making a name for the UK CS. We qualified for a lot of top tournaments.
Their absence will make an impact, I believe. There’s not many salaried UK teams, I don’t think, right now. They were the forefront of that. It’ll be a big space to fill for any aspiring teams and organisations.
Do you have any kind of feelings on Endpoint now that there is no active Counter-Strike roster? Just before that [Dec 2024] they had ceased involvement with Rocket League as well. Now they’re supporting UKIC. Do you think that background stuff is where their head is at as an organisation, rather than being involved with teams in esports?
It’s tough to say, because I know the owners very well, and their heart is in CS. They do want to support a team. It’s just about the landscape in VRS that makes it difficult for them, I think.
The UKIC project is very helpful for UK teams. I think it’s a good step for them to try and help support kind of what ESL Prem used to be. Obviously that’s now gone, but now with the VRS system, I don’t know.
It’s very difficult to say, but I think the only tournaments in the UK that are VRS right now is EPIC.LAN and UKIC. So I think that maybe for the short term it will be more of a focus, but I don’t know in the long term what’s going to happen.
You touched on ESL Prem. I think you won that event more than anyone. Can you talk about how valuable that was for you in Endpoint?
Yeah, for us it was quite important. Obviously it was a UK event, but it had a wider qualification towards MDL, and ultimately that’s what helped us secure Pro League because we qualified through MDL to Pro League.
So, it was a very good tournament to have just because every couple of months you would have to prove yourself to be the best in the UK, but also at the same time if you lacked anything then you could struggle, which we found out towards the end.
We didn’t win everything. We won most of the time, but at the end we lost the last one, and it always gave the winning team a spot in MDL, and I think at the start of Endpoint it gave us a spot in Anaheim, which was like a surprise. You wouldn’t expect that from an ESL fan.
So, yeah, it was a very cool tournament, but it’s a shame that it didn’t end up staying alive.
You touched on the pathways now, where you can’t go directly into bigger tournaments. You’re going to go through the different layers of Counter-Strike. How do you see the pathway to pro for UK CS? Do you think it’s still feasible?
The VRS system is tricky, but there are avenues that make it doable. It’s just not as easy as it used to be with just ESL ranking or HLTV ranking. The path now seems to be LAN tournaments, especially EPIC.LAN or other European LANs that are going on throughout the year. That seems to be the best way to kind of make a name for yourself.
Obviously, there are online tournaments, but to get to those you need ranking points, which you would get from these BYOC LANs.
You can attend EPIC.LAN, you can play UKIC, but at the same time I think European events are now back open. There’s probably not many of them, but they are probably a requirement for UK teams to start attending, to start getting good VRS points.
You’re here at EPIC.LAN, does it feel good to be back in the UK scene?
Yeah, it’s a bit of a different setting this time. I haven’t been in many, many years, and obviously I used to compete to mixed teams and whatnot to win the event, but here we’re just playing for a bit of fun. We’re catching up with a couple of guys we haven’t seen for a few years. So, it’s a bit of a different setting for me, so I’ll be getting used to it.
Is there anything you want to share about the future?
Nothing planned right now, still looking for a new project. Again, I think I’ve got a lot to offer any new teams or new projects, just waiting to see what comes my way.
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
