Username: jonnylaris
Team: dyNamico
About Me
Hi! I'm Jonny, 35 years old from Belfast, Northern Ireland. I've been a web designer for the past 20~ years and I'm currently working as Head of UX for a design agency in Belfast. I'm not married and don't have any kids yet (that I know of) but me and my girlfriend have just bought a house together and are in the process of decorating it at the moment. I'm easy to get along with and enjoy getting to know new people.
It's because of this that I've applied to Mafia, as I feel that I'd get on well with its members including ones that I already talk to on discord. I'm also competitive, motivated and enjoy a challenge. There's a running joke in my family "He'll only stick at it until he's won everything", which reflects my will to win and desire to succeed in everything I try. I do however try and keep things fun and lighthearted as it's far too easy to become frustrated if you take everything too seriously, especially in CSM!
Interests
I'm a pretty big tech geek who always wants that latest gadget. I love my pc and console games where I play everything from CSGO on PC to MarioKart on the Switch. I'm a big fan of VR too and love my sim racing games like Assetto Corsa and Project Cars. I've just got myself a Quest 2 and I'm currently playing a few hours of VR Table Tennis each day, it's insanely good! I'm also a big fan of music and have been a drummer since a very young age. I play a bit of 5 a side football every week and try to play as many other sports as possible to keep fit (to keep the beer belly at bay).
Introduction to CSM
I started playing CSM back in the days of v1, before 2d live was even available. I remember having to watch all my games in bot view, which was as tense as it was primitive! It was only when V2 was released and the 2d live matches became available that I really took to the game, so much so in fact that I offered up my design services for free to help improve it. The sponsor banners I designed all those years ago are still being used today!
Previous Team
I last played for approx. 35 seasons from around s25 to s59. This was back in the glory days when CSM had a healthy 30k+ users and each country had at least 4-5 divisions. Because of this it took much longer to reach 1337 and competition was fierce. The UK had many top managers during that period including the likes of osi, raz, crackman and dvstn who all had serious teams and deep pockets! I was able to make my way to 1337 pretty quickly and got my first silver trophy in season 35. After a few seasons I decided to rebuild in order to build a better, stronger team to fight for the top spot. I came back to 1337 in season 45 and over the next 12 seasons won 10x 1337 gold trophies, 2x CL silver trophies and 1 godlike WWT trophy. I was also voted in as National Coach for UK in 2012 where I reached the lower bracket finals and was narrowly knocked out in 2 very close 13-11 battles.
During this period I spent a lot of time in the forums, particularly in the development section where I proposed new ideas and helped to move CSM forward. I also spent a lot of my time with my community (MASSIVE) sharing ideas on tactics and giving feedback and advice where I could. I was also a host on the CSM Radio podcast with syN and Tricky which was a great bit of fun where we talked about game updates, recent on goings and tournament coverage to live listeners. I also took part in the mentor program and enjoyed spending time helping new users.
Retirement
After the Nation's Cup, I decided it was time to hang up the boots and concentrate on my real-life career instead. Although I'm grateful for doing this now, I do wish I'd at least kept my old account alive until I decided to return again.
My Return
It was 8 years before I made my return in 2019 and at the time I was happily surprised to find CSM still in existence. During that time I've managed to work my way up through the ranks as a designer and have landed a great job that I love. Now that I have some more free time, I've taken up CSM once again and I'm working my way back to glory.
Current Team
I think I've done pretty well with my team considering it's only been 478 days since I created this new account and the fact I've had zero tryout luck so far. I've managed to maintain assets (team + bank) of around 700k for the past 3-4 seasons. My current goal is to maintain as good a team as I can whilst keeping my seasonal costs low enough to make sure I don't end up losing money in the long term. This is something I see happen regularly with quite a few teams, and it is because of this that I keep an eye on things by using detailed spreadsheets of my team, finances, players and so on (I know Raid On loves this type of stuff, I kinda do too). My team is shared to all and I currently have just over 100k in the bank.
Plans and goals going forward
I've been pretty inactive tactically over the past few months due to my house move, but now that we are in and settled I've got more time to work on things. My current main rival in the league is Icbus and with his crazy team it's difficult to beat him consistently, but I feel that with some work I can overthrow him. I know that he's not that active with tactics right now so with a bit of work I should be able to regain some gold trophies. I feel that my team is at the stage now where I can start to do some damage in Godlike WWT and CL also.
Why Mafia?
To be honest, initially I had thought about applying to NH as my good friend arcane went there. However he is going inactive for a while and I don't really know many of the other members that well. Mafia has always been high on my list of communities to apply for as I've always seen them as strong contenders with skilled and well respected managers. I've had quite a few in depth discussions with Raid On in the past and I think I would get on well with the rest of the members. Also, I've been in previous communities with zitox, vizz and setitoh, all of whom I got on well with.
What can I bring to Mafia?
Even though I've only been back for just over a year I can still bring experience, motivation, knowledge and good old Irish banter to the table. I would also take great satisfaction from helping to move things forward and improve areas within the community and lend a hand when needed.
Thanks to all for reading through this long-winded application. I hope I haven't bored you all too much!
jonnylaris