Hi Christopher, as it’s been said in the introduction, you’ve made your mark on Counter Strike 1.6’s history with your performances both as a player and with your team. You were recognized as an international superstar. What are the best moments you had on the game and which victories did you enjoy most?

Hey Benjamin, thanks for having me to do such a interview for the french scene ! their is many memories and I would like to tell them all, but then I think everyone would probably give up reading this interview after the first question! but the biggest one, or the one that did make a huge part of my success in fnatic. that must be IEM Global Finals 2009 (Season III). With little less then 2,5 weeks of practise and finishing 4th on the tournament before (Continental Finals Europe) which many people didn't think we would get that far as we did, it was a such nice feeling when we won in the end against the polish guys (ESC) I think that must be the one that stands out the most !

The CS:GO beta was released by the end of 2011, did the game catch your attention straight away ?

Yeah, it did actually. I remember when i played it first in IEM : NY event months before the game got into beta stage. Where they had a showmatch with eu vs us (which we won !) I felt that i actually liked the game straigh away, even when it had even _more_ bugs/problems or whatever you call it.. I just felt that i liked the game straight away !

GeT_RiGhT for the win !

The first time we saw f0rest and you was with SK-Gaming at the Copenhagen Games 2012 where you participated in a small tournament gathering eight teams (four from CSS and four from 1.6). At that point in time, did you see your future on CS:GO ?

I think so, i'm not sure if I was that confident back then as i'm right now. But I did for sure feel something !

Then we saw you a few months later with Xizt, ptk, f0rest and friberg with whom you won ESL’s Opening Cup under the ROCKSTAR tag. Can you tell us how this roster was formed and why you
picked Fifflarren afterwards ?

Back then we didn't really think out a "lineup" as we were just mixing around and that was it back then ! Anyway, everything started as heat-gaming asked if i was intressed into playing cs:go fulltime instead of 1.6 anymore as I know them personal in real life and they knew how much I wanted to move over to the "new" game as I pretty much played the game more and more even tho we had 1.6 tournaments left in sk.
So after a while, I asked my friend, which i've soon played with almost for 4 years now, f0rest. If he wanted to play the game aswell, and I felt that he wouldn't say no to it.

So he thought about it and said yes! weve had played a bit with xizt and the organization asked if he was a good choice and I think both me and f0rest said it was a excellent choice (even tho we didnt know richard that much back then, as we do right !) and he wanted to play csgo aswell ! Then we had talks back and forth about players and we felt that a ingame leader from the CS:S  scene would make a good inpact on us and Fifflaren was pretty much the best choice for us ! As he's a really nice guy and I knew that he wanted to start playing the new title !

After a talk with Robin and so on, we asked Friberg in the end as it would be better if we had 2 CS:S players in the lineup and I dont regret that choice as adam is one of the nicest guys you can get to know! ... *puh*! haha, I think that pretty much sums up everything ?

At the end of July, you participated in the opening edition of the 4PL with teams like VG, mousesports and Alternate. You didn’t have any difficulty reaching the final but then couldn’t make it against VG and lost 16-06. Can you briefly comment on that match ?

Hmm.. I'm not sure what to say really, I remember that we didn't play with full lineup and we haven't even went through tactics and such so.. not to blame on anything, but I think we lost because we had no clue what to do and they were really good when we played against them.

A new start for Rockstar !
 

On the 10th of August, you joined NiP which brought back memories to many of us. What a pleasure to see such a roster join the notorious powerhouse. How did you work out that arrangement ? Moreover, we heard that HeatoN had resigned from Zowie to focus on NiP. What role does he have in the team ?

Well, we thought we would be playing in Heat-Gaming as Robin/Adam played in their team before (emil and niklas owns heat-gaming), but after a while when anton budak(owner of inferno online) came along they came to us and told us that we will be playing under nip tag as they've been trying to reach that dream again and make it big as it was for years ago ! So it was really nice to hear that, as I've played in nip for little time as the lineup broke up and things happened.. so I think this is another chapter to make a history in *haha* :d.. Emil is one of the owners and works everyday with making us guys happy in the team. He is also the guy that everyone will see screaming more then everyone in our team, he is sooooo loud ! haha ! But that pumps everyone of us up when we are on form.

Most teams started to realize that it will be tough to beat you given your current level on the game and your experience.You easily won the SteelSeries Cup which took place at the Inferno Online and made 3,500 Euros.
How did this LAN go in your view ?

I think we learned alot on just going there, if tho most of the people will question which players/teams we played there. But we learned that we need to work even more to get better back then as we didn't know what to work on, as we pretty much played pretty decent on the online practise.. but online is online, it's lan matches you see the problems more and understand what is needed to get even better! so that was a good lesson for everyone in the team, what we needed to learn and focus on when we came back home.. Of course there is always something you need to train and get a hold of what needs to be change. But, we are in the right way right now what I see !

Then you trained for the DreamHack Valencia. When the organizers announced they’d cancelled the 1.6 competition, did you say « go » straight away ?

Haha, yeah ! We sat on mumble and had just finished our practise for today. We knew it would be a long time till we play next tournament and we had just plan to have a bootcamp in stockholm around the same dates (flights etc... was already booked!) then we saw the tournament change to CS:GO and we said to the organization. "let's go!" haha.. even tho, we knew that we wanted to bootcamp to work on some things and that would a bootcamp fixed/help. But we felt that we wanted to go there so badly, so we cancel the plan(s) for bootcamp and went to Spain instead!

There, we could finally see you face Verygames in a match that every fan had long been waiting for. Before we go back to this match in more detail, how come there were so many technical issues throughout the competition ?

It was some problems with the computers, but one of the admins (manuel) helpt out alot and fixed those problems so the playoffs was much better then the groupstage ! I think they learned their lesson their and will fix it for next time they'll have a CS:GO tournament

At the end of an epic final, with countless clutches and nearly 15,000 viewers on Gamecast, you won 16-10/16-12. Were you confident before the competition started ?

We knew where we was standing and we were really glad to come to the final(s) and play against a team that everyone is speaking so highly of, as we have only played them once and we were even half ready then as we were now. So it was really nice to win over them and i think the practise we had puting into the game and evenings / weekends paid off for us ! But i felt that everyone in the team didn't think in the wrong ways you can do against a top team like they are, we played our game and we knew how good we are and it wasn't "impossible" to win over them. So our confident was really high before the game started !

NiP performed really well at DreamHack

We can say that your win at the DH sent a message to every team on the CS:GO scene: right now, you’re the best. What do you think made you win this LAN ?

I'm not sure about this thing with best and such as I don't like to talk about those things before the year is over (as everyone pretty much agrees on which team were the best then, at least in 1.6 you did !) but I think we won the tournament with just knowing how good we really are and didn't stop and think "what if" and so on. I'm really looking forward to more of the top teams to attend and see how that will end !

In the stats provided by HLTV, four out of five NiP players appear in the top 5 headshot percentages. How do you explain this crazy performance ?

Friberg teached us the way of the force ! Haha, no but. As I said before, we had puted in so much hours before and even tho we didn't know that the tournament would be changing to cs:go, we knew that if our practise went the way as we want it, it would show results ! Nothing more.

Let’s get into more technical questions. Firstly, how does CS:GO’s gameplay relate to 1.6? What do you like about the game and what amendments would you make ?

Please add silencer!! haha.. I think there is already so much things that people have wrote in forums and posts that I've already thought about it, so i think the people knows what's needed to be fixed in the game. even tho, I like the game as it's right now. It's something new, then instead of see things from 1.6/css game. But the game is new for me personal, so i'm not sure how to tell you about the gameplay as I think that's Fifflaren's say about it haha !

Three of you come from 1.6 and two from Source. Do you have different approaches to the game or would you rather say they complement each other ?

I think we have a good mix of players/personalities in the team, as we listen to each other about things and what we know in 1.6 and can take from that and what the CS:S guys thinks/can take from. Everyone have pretty much the same approaches to the game as we like the game really much !

Can you describe each of your teammates in one word ?

Fifflaren - Model ? (NDLR : http://www.eslgfx.net/gfx/logos/playerphotos/1998000/1998958_big.jpg )
f0rest - Calm
Xizt - King
Friberg - Sweet

Why did you pick Fifflaren as leader in game rather than, say, Xizt ?

It's pretty easy, as Robin comes from a cs:s career and the game is similar to the tactics part so it was a easy choice to have him a igl then Xizt. even tho Xizt, is a really good igl. but I think his fine with not being in charge as it wasn't that long time he was igl.

You won everything on CS 1.6 and your performances were recognized by everyone. Do you think you can reiterate that on CS:GO ?

That will a really difficult to do that, but it isn't impossible. But it would be nice to me personal to achieve that, as it was a really nice trip i did in 1.6 !

We’ll see you at the DreamHack Winter 2012 where, hopefully, all the best teams will show up. Are you concerned by any team in particular ?

I want to play the mTw team as they seems really good on practise, but it would also be nice to play the polish team and see how good they really are. As I remember from 1.6, that it was a complete different on that team when they are on lan then online. but i'm not sure about all the other teams as well. I want to just meet everyone and hope that we can win against everyone! but i'm not concerned really about any team.. as like what I think, if you are unsure about this team and so on. Then you are not really sure on how good you really are !

A lot of major events have been announced lately. Did you expect this kind of interest for the game that early ?

Yes, I did actually ! And I'm really happy about them to selecting the game that I'm playing and enjoy to play !

Can you quickly talk about the 1.6 scene and tell us what the general feel is for CS:GO ?

I'm not sure what to say here, sometimes there are good words from the 1.6 scene to CS:GO. Then it's not that, so if you ask me about it. I don't have any clue what to say..

What do you think of the French scene ?

It seems pretty hard to be the best in and it has many teams ! I tried to understand the french scene in 1.6, but it was so many teams I couldn't really get a hold of which ones were better then that one etc.. I think I'm waiting for the ESWC French Qualifier that is before ESWC (finals), maybe we will see some upsets ?! :D

Let’s talk about your life outside CS. Are you still a student ? How do you manage to combine CS and
your studies ?

I don't study, my gaming is my work and my passion. I'm lucky to have such thing that I enjoy what I do and get money from it !

How frequently do you pracc right now ?

We try to play as much as we can everyday, but when we play with the team it's sunday-thursday and then we have friday-saturday free for other things. But for the most time, I play on those days and some of the guys aswell ! even tho we don't really practise with the team then.

Have your family and mates supported you throughout your professional career ?

My family and friends have always been supporting me when I'm playing as they know how serious I'm about it and they know that someday i'm going to quit as I'm getting older and that. But for the moment, they just say "enjoy the ride, it's not every day you have a chance like this !"

Your best moment in the game ? And the worst ?

Best : Winning ESWC 2011 against NaVi when we were under 3-12 on inferno and made a huge comeback and took the overtime !
Worst : Losing against the polish guys on wcg 2009, painful memories..

Did you ever think you’d be named ‘best player in the world’ as you did in 2009 ?

No, I didn't and I'm glad that people picked me that year. As I did have better teammates that year, that made better impact then I did. But in a way I guess, I earned it ! and I'm really glad that i won the title as most of the players never will achieve a title like this !

A quick word in French for our readers ?