Alexander 'ave' Holdt is one of the very best tacticians in the history of Counter-Strike, most famous for the manner in which his mastery of anti-stratting revolutionised competitive Counter-Strike at the elite level. Under his leadership mTw romped through 2008, and the beginning of 2009, to win five international titles and establish themselves as the dominant force in the CS world. The rest of his career saw almost no more titles won but ave managed to keep his team amongst the best in the world and they remained impeccably consistent across the majority of 2010 and 2011.

In this interview ave speaks at length about some of the great players he has played alongside, the great 2008 which elevated his legacy to that of a Danish CS legend, the infamous trouble his teams had playing against Na`Vi and the mental impact of finishing runnerup so many times. The Danish tactical genius takes us from 2006, as he joined up with NoA, through to the finish of his career in late 2011.

How did Sunde's addition to NoA in 2007 take the team to the level of contenders? What was significant about the addition of whiMp in 2008? Did mTw make the right decision in playing Na`Vi on train so many times? How does Sunde compare with markeloff and trace? What does he think of Zeus as an in-game leader? Why did ave give up leadership of mTw to ArcadioN at the end of 2011? How do limit f0rest's success against your team?

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Joining NoA in 2006, Sunde's addition in 2007 and the first major finals

How did your move to NoA in 2006 come about? Were you recruited specifically to be the strat caller? Was there something about their lineup with FaagaN that wasn't working?

At that time there were really no proven strat callers in Denmark. The only one was KK, but he'd decided to play on a less serious level. Ever since NoA went all Danish they had been missing a true strat caller, so they figured it was best to recruit me. FaagaN was their newest addition, and even though he did pretty well he was the odd-man out. I think I caught their eye playing for evermore and SoA, and since I was the strat caller for SoA, probably the second or third best Danish team at that time, they felt like I deserved the chance.

That first NoA lineup you were a part of seemed to be stuck at a very specific level up until you recruited Sunde. You had the potential to make to the semi-finals of the big tournaments but then you couldn't get over the hurdle of finishing in the 3rd-4th range. Is that analysis accurate from your perspective? Why do you think was in that position and what needed to change?

I'm not really sure, but it is probably accurate. It is definitely a long way back, so I have a hard time remembering what was wrong. I remember I was really busy at school during that time, so I couldn't really play as much as the other players did. Also, I definitely needed to develop as a strat caller, since it was my first opportunity to play against good international teams.

We had really good chemistry in the team, and I feel like it was one of the most fun lineups I've been played in. At that time I believe some of the other teams had better sponsors that allowed them to play full-time, which we hadn't. Also, we probably missed some in-game communication and teamplay, which led to the recruitment of Sunde.

The 2007 NoA lineup with Sunde attracted a lot of attention to him, as an individual player, since your team got to two major finals (ESWC and WCG) and he played very well in the first, despite you losing in the end. Being as people will best remember Sunde for his AWPing now, how would you describe how he fit into the team during that early period?

Obviously, Sunde was a great talent. I believe he was the best player during 2008, and his play in the 2007 ESWC final was just him starting to hit his prime. When we first got him in the team, he was playing bombsites with me for the most part - as a rifler. In evermore I played a lot of the same bombsites with him, so we had some teamplay which we could build on. I think it might have helped him a bit to get to play with the team as a rifler before switching to the AWP, since he gained a great understanding of how the riflers (whimp and I) would play at his bombsite.

That 2007 lineup with Sunde had the chance to contend for major titles but wasn't able to win any of them in the finals. What did that lineup lack? When you think back on those two finals (ESWC vs. Pentagram and WCG vs. emuLate) how winnable do you think they were for your team at that time? Does knowing Pentagram went on to win more major titles over the years make you feel more comfortable about how that ESWC final played out?

As with the old team, I think we lacked some important communication and teamplay to get further. Also, we hadn't figured out to use our players to their strengths, such as in using mJe in the small bombsites, getting Sunde to use the AWP etc. I believe our final at ESWC vs. PGS was winnable. We had great chemistry and a strong belief that we could beat them, and a great crowd cheering for us. PGS did win, which was really disappointing at the time, but it's true that we got more adjusted to it since they went on to win more gold medals.

The WCG final on the other hand, we felt like we couldn't do anything. emuLate played great in that final, and we didn't really have a chance it felt like. I think it was around that time, we figured out we had to change the lineup again to develop further.

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Adding whiMp in 2008 and dominating the world

Just as some people put the step up your team took in 2007 down to Sunde's addition so some have painted the success of mTw as being just a result of swapping hpx for whiMp, whereas it seems, from your previous answer, as though it's more that adding whiMp moved other players into specific roles which they were better suited for. What was the reasoning behind each of those moves? Where did the idea to switch Sunde to being the primary AWPer come from? Did you know, given his history, that whiMp would provide something specific for the team?

I remember I felt really confident about the move. It is true that a lot of pieces fell together with that move. I knew back from the evermore days that Sunde was a really good AWP player and, even though hpx did really well with it, the majority of the team thought it would be an upgrade. The void left by Sunde as a rifler was filled with whimp. We all knew that whimp would be a really good person to have on the team, since he had a great reputation. I'd say he's a person who'd you just like to have on your side in almost everything. Also, he was one of the biggest talents in the Danish scene, so he'd be an upgrade over almost everyone.

The last piece was puttting mJe into the small bombsites and giving him some solo-actions as T. I'm not really sure why we hadn't thought about it before, we probably just didn't give it enough consideration, but it just made a lot of sense, since mJe had a way of always being able to make great moves on his own.

How would you describe whiMp as a player? Earlier in his career he was a fan favourite for his individual skills but it seems like his time playing with you was more about his strength for teamplay. Do you consider him the greatest Danish player of all time?

whiMp was just a really good all-around player. It's true he probably leaned more on his individual skills back in 2004-2005, which made him more of a spectator's choice. In our team though, he developed more into a teamplayer, playing a more supportive role and boosting our communication - and that was really important for us at that time. He always had the team as the highest priority, which made him really valuable and a huge addition.

I believe whiMp should be considered for that title, but in my mind zonic has an edge, since he's been playing more consistently at a high level - and for a longer time. So that one should go to zonic :)

I consider 2008 the most competitive year of CS ever since there were a lot of events, more elite teams ( mTw, mouz, SK, fnatic and MYM.pl) won events than in any other year I can think of and there was a solid pack of dangerous dark horse teams ( Roccat/GamePlay, MiBR and eSTRO) who always seemed to upset some of the elite teams. What is your perspective on that theory?

I'll agree that the tournaments were much bigger back then. There were more of them, and many of them were bigger than the ones these days. Also, they were located more globally. Nowadays the majority of tournaments are in Europe. As the tournaments regressed I believe it's natural that the quality of the teams did as well. I don't think it hit Europe that hard, but for the teams outside Europe it's probably hard to keep finding funds to travel to Europe to play. As a result the core top five teams is much more stable, which is a shame from a spectator's point of view.

My previous theory accounts for why I think mTw has a place in the discussion of who the greatest team of all time is, being as you dominated the hardest year of competition. What is your perspective?

If we set a 12 month span from May 2008 to March 2009 then your team not only won five international tournaments but during a span in which the other elite teams had to settle for only one or two. What do you think allowed your team to achieve that kind of success?

I think we belong in the discussion. It would be really difficult to pick a team for that title, since there's so many factors to take into consideration. I believe the main reason we did so well was that we had a really great makeup to our team. I felt like everyone played to their responsibilities and made their contributions without any personal agendas. We had a strong focus on improving and preparing. Also we had a lot of fun, so the motivation was really high in, almost, every practice.

As the player producing the most highlights on the team Sunde seemed to get a lot of the credit for mTw's success in 2008, with some even calling him the best player in the world. Looking at his performance over his whole career it seems to me that he wasn't one of the great snipers in terms of skillset, such as technical precision or tracking aim or ability to hit certain shots every single time, but that his success came more from how he was used in mTw, the specific situations and spots you placed him in. So when that style of switching him into different spots to get the first kill became less effective from 2009 onwards so Sunde's impact on the game also became less significant. What would you say in response to that perspective?

I believe he should be considered one of the all-time great AWP players. It is true he was a big part of our tactics, and we always tried to find him spots where he could get a first frag, but he still managed to make almost all of those back in his prime. Later on we just couldn't manage to do it as effectively as we used to, so we tried to change our style a little bit, but it didn't always work out. I'm not really sure about the reason for the decline, I guess it was a combination of a lot of things.

The way your team was setup in 2008 helped Sunde become the most effective AWPer in the world and in 2010 the way Na`Vi used markeloff granted him the same title. Do you see any similarities between the way they've been used?

I can agree that a good AWPer is really important for a team. It's not like it's necessary for a team to have one, but it definitely helps a lot. The Poles did pretty well without a dominating AWP player back in the day. It's hard for me to compare Sunde to markeloff since I've never played on the same team as the latter, and I don't what tactics they run for him etc. From the outside looking in, it looks a little like the old mTw, but they definitely also have a lot of different stuff, so it's hard to compare.

What makes those two unique from my perspective is that if we think back to the greatest AWPers before them, fRoD and cogu being good examples, then their styles are quite a contrast to the most famous style of using the AWP. The great AWPers were usually players who had a slower, more methodical, approach to firing, ensuring they had fully lined up the shot before taking it. That style seemed to ensure a higher hit rate and more consistency, which was important for players buying the weapon every round.

Usually the players who fired very quickly and used reflex shots were more streaky in their hitrate. With Sunde and markeloff though it seems like they managed to be the most effective AWPers in the world using the fast firing style, thanks in part to how their teams operated around them as the focal point. What is your perspective on this contrast I've drawn in AWPing styles?

I'm not so sure Sunde and markeloff are so different from the rest. From my point of view it seems like fRoD and cogu had worse opponents, so they looked better in those games. Also, I think they only ever won like one big event each. For me the faster AWPer than can hit beats everyone. I think the slower AWPers want to be fast but are just insecure or something.

The good part about being slow is that it makes your shot more secure, but it also gives the opponent more time to shoot you. I guess it's really simple: you shoot your opponent as fast as you can without missing. I guess the ones with the slower approach would be more consistent, since a bad day wouldn't ruin it as much, but it also makes it less likely to have a really dominating performance.

Sunde may have grabbed the most headlines thanks to his explosive impact on the game with his AWPing but from my perspective a key quality that made mTw so good, and unique in CS history, was that you had an amazing balance of players in the team, so that you weren't relying on one star player to have a big game every time. Instead it felt as though you won so many rounds and maps because opponents couldn't pick out a weak spot to focus in on and attack.

I also felt the teams which you had more trouble with were teams like mouz, roccat/GamePlay and SK.swe, who were also quite evenly balanced skillwise, as opposed to teams with dominant lone stars like fnatic (with f0rest) and MYM.pl (with NEO). What do you think?

I also feel like we had a very balanced team, and I agree that it was more likely that better tactics beat us than a great individual effort. It also makes sense when I think back to the games against fnatic and MYM.pl, which were teams more based on individuals, so I agree with your opinion.

In light of how competitive the scene was in 2008 some of your stats were very impressive and show how dominant mTw was. From winnning five titles to 108 out of 146 maps, a 74% winrate, from KODE5 2008 to IEM III Global in 2009. It's also rare that your team ever lost a map without at least getting 10 rounds, yet you also quite often beatt eh other top teams by comfortable scores. Did the scene feel easy for you when you were in the flow of that domination? Did you have any clear advantages over the other teams?

I never felt like the whole scene was easy. We kept on practising a lot and stuck to our approach, so it was something that took a lot of hard work. The entire team played full-time, and that was a really important factor in our success. I believe a lot of the other top teams, the top three or so at least, were playing full-time as well. So I'm not really sure we had any clear advantage, maybe just our consistency in our lineup.

I enjoyed every moment of 2008 and it was really sad when mJe and whiMp decided to leave for their studies. It definitly made the expectations lower, and with the regression of tournaments I feel like the games weren't as enjoyable as back in 2008.

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2009's difficulties, roster changes and mTw's consistency

When your 2008 lineup began to struggle in 2009 there were some interview comments and rumours suggesting that you would all retire together. Did you personally ever consider retirement in 2009?

It was something I was thought about when mJe and whiMp left, since they were really great players and people. So it definitely affected my overall motivation to play and my expectations for the team. At that time I had already decided to skip school for the year, so I only had Counter-Strike in my plans, which made me continue to play. Since the expectations weren't as high for the new team the drop off in results wasn't a big issue, as the team was really young and unexperienced. The new players also brought a fresh attitude and new motivation, so I also felt like there were positives, even though the situation was kind of sad.

When it came time to replace whiMp were you at all apprehensive about recruiting trace? He was much younger than some members of your team and had been one of those players, like many in the Danish team outside of mTw at the time, who had repeatedly moved from team to team over a short space of time. Being as your previous lineup was based so much on great communication, chemistry and teamplay wasn't recruiting him a risk? Is there any truth to the popular sentiment at the time that you were going to recruit ArcadioN instead?

We knew we took at risk when signing trace, but we felt like it was worth it. Also, in his previous teams he didn't play on a professional level, so we also thought that would influence his old habits. The social part worked out really well, so in hindsight he was a great replacement to pick up. We had trace targeted as one of the greatest talents in Denmark for a while. It was obvious just by spectating him that he had something rare, aim and reflex-wise. We also considered ArcadioN, but we felt like we needed a player more similar to whiMp.

Following the rough period for your team at the beginning of 2010 you went on a run, lasting until the breakup of the team, which saw you make it to at least the semi-finals of every tournament except Arbalet Cup Dallas 2010, where you were eliminated by the eventual champions. That kind of consistency is very impressive, and shouldn't be underestimated, but what kind of psychological toll does getting so close time and time again and still not winning have on you? Is it better to win 1-3 tournaments in a year and fail badly at the others than make the top 3 of every tournament but win almost none? How do you weigh up those scenarios?

Our consistency might have something to do with the theory we discussed earlier, about the scene changing since 2008, I also feel like the new lineup got pretty good after some time. The players in the team played at a really consistent level, so we didn't lose many matches to an underdog. With the way most tournaments seed teams we could qualify for the semis more often than not.

It was definitly really frustrating to only get one gold medal over such a long time. We were really close a couple of times - WCG was definitely really brutal to lose. The feeling I have with our results is frustration. I'm not that disappointed, since I'm somewhat proud of our consistency, but I'm really frustrated we couldn't pull out a few more victories, which we would have done with a little more luck. I think a gold medal is probably worth three silver medals, or something like that, but I don't really like to weigh that up, since it makes me more frustrated.

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The importance of winning and how best to construct a team

From studying the lives of professional sportsmen I've come across three differet scenarios I'd like to put to you. Firstly there are those who have come close to winning and think of winning as a destination and imagine that if they can just win once it will be enough to satisfy them. Secondly there are those in a similar position of coming close to winning big titles over and over, but to the extent that even when they finally do win that moment of joy doesn't remove the pain and regret of feeling like they squandered so many other chances to succeed. Finally there is the scenario in which someone wins and then finds that feeling fleeting, so that even days later he comes to conclusion that all that matters if feeling that winning feeling again, that it must be perpetual since it doesn't satisfy for long.

Being as you've been in the unique position of having experienced all three of these positions, from fighting to become a champion in 2007 to dominating in 2008 and now knowing so many chances have passed you by from 2010-2011, how do you think of your career in these terms? Does having had so much success in 2008 remove some of the sting of 2010-2011's disappointments?

It's true that I kind of been through all of those emotions. I'm really happy we got to win as much as we did in 2008, cause that definitely makes it more bearable that we came up short so often in 2010-2011. If I were to have only played the last years I think I'd have been more frustrated about our results. When I think of my career as a whole, I'm just really happy that I got to have the opportunity to travel and compete as much as we did. The results are also important, but still I try to consider them a secondary bonus.

Looking at CS history over the last half a decade or so it seems as if the teams which emphasised teamplay and chemistry, in-game and outside of it, as their focus got really consistent results but won major tournaments like the IEM WC, WCG and ESWC less often. So in this case I'm thinking of teams like fnatic 2007-2008, mouz 2008, mTw 2010 and mTw 2011.

On the other hand, the teams who've won the majors seem to be either those who got really hot for one event, peaking perfectly at that moment in the year, and didn't do much else for the rest of the year or teams with less of a consciously designed and focused teamplay approach. So the golden five lineup, fnatic 2009 and even Na`Vi, to some extent, would be good examples of teams which have good teamplay, and at times great teamplay, but it is more natural or intuitive than by design, meaning they can't necessarily turn it on and off. So when their teamplay happens to be flowing them they can win the tournament but when it isn't then they can't.

Is a teamplay-focused approach the best style/team composition to getting long-term consistent results but perhaps not for peaking and winning single big events?

I believe that you should try to aim for as much teamplay as possible. At the same time, you have to be able to switch it off in some situations where it can get too fancy. Teamplay will take a good team past worse opponents at a higher percentage than a team with less teamplay. The whole individual aspect of the game is a huge factor for a team's success, as I think it's most likely the hottest team individually that will probably win the tournament. I think it's obvious that if a team is totally out of synch, as in they have bad teamplay, then the team won't get as many opportunities to make individual efforts. So individual skill and teamwork go hand in hand to some extent.

If we look at the most dominant teams in history in chronological order then it seems to me that each team dominates for a period of time thanks to a specific approach or style they pioneer and while that style/approach remains the most effective they remain dominant. Then what tends to happen is another dominant team arises whose own style/approach directly counters that of the previous team who was on top, and thus the new team takes over and is dominant. The cycle continues to repeat itself, as the next top team will have a new style which counters the last.

Being as we have the convenient example of three dominant teams in the space of a three year span, mTw in 2008, fnatic in 2009 and Na`Vi in 2010, and you were the architect behind mTw's approach in 2008, what can you say about this observation?

It's obvious that teams trying to win will do what they can to beat the top team. They'll develop a style that works against the top team, so it makes sense that the next top team would be the one which figured out the formula to beating the previous one. I can remember the way started fnatic to beat us.

As T they started to move away from the usual flash-attacks. Instead they would sneak really close and just jump out and attack. It kind of messed up the way we played as CT as we were more prepared for flash-attacks. As CT they started to disrupt our tactics by making aggressive pushes at times when they felt like we were just about to execute our tactics, which totally messed up our plans.

On paper fnatic were the second best team of 2010 thanks to the number of titles they were able to win, including a couple over Na`Vi, but from observing the year's tournaments I think a case could be made for mTw having been the second best team of the year. Obviously your matchup vs. Na`Vi was an extremely bad one for you, being as you lost 100% of the matches, but against fnatic you had a pretty even matchup, and I've heard fnatic players tell me they hated facing your team. With all of that considered it's perhaps the case that your bracket draws, getting Na`Vi before the final so many times, may account for your final placings moreso than your own play necessarily.

One could imagine some scenarios where if you'd been on the opposite side of the bracket from Na`Vi then they might have drawn fnatic at some point and in the cases where they might have lost to fnatic then you could have faced the Swedes and potentially won some more titles that year. Do you have a similar line of thinking about how 2010 played out?

It's true that we've been unlucky on several occations (Arbalet Dallas and ESWC Paris for example) to draw Na`Vi earlier than we'd like to. I'm not saying that it necesarily would have changed our final standing and overall confidence, but you can't help but wonder what could've happened if we'd had some better matchups in some of those tournaments. Na'Vi proved they could lose in both of them, so if we could've been on the other side of the bracket it might have gone differently. Na'Vi definitely were our nemeses, and somehow they just felt unbeatable for the majority of the times we faced them.

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Facing Na`Vi

The public's perception of mTw's matchup vs. Na`Vi seems to be that it always yielded really close matches but that Na`Vi got the bestof them. Yet in an article last year I calculated the stats for every one of the maps you played against them and you lost every map except tuscan by more than six rounds, winning only three out of the 18 maps played, including only one of the four overtime games. How close do you think the matchup was? Why do you think it was so difficult for you to even take maps off Na`Vi?

I think most of the time they would either stomp us or it would be very close, so that's probably why the average is 6 rounds. I think in the beginning their style was the perfect counter for ours, but I feel like we made some progress and got closer to winning against them in the end. We tried so many different tactics and approaches against them, but I believe our conclusion was that they do pretty well against most approaches, so we should just try to stick with what we like the most. So in the end we would try some of our best tactics mixed up with a little improvisational stuff, and when we had a good tournament we would get really close to beatin themg (like at Arbalet Cup Dallas and WCG)

It seems like your problem against Na`Vi was the way the maps lined up for the two teams, since you and Na`Vi had the same maps you were strong on. When elite teams meet who have different map strengths then the selection process means the series tends to be played on maps people aren't at maximum strength on, and thus the series are more even or maps get split more often. Your problem seemed to be that train and tuscan were your best maps but also Na`Vi's strongest maps. Looking back now, knowing how things played out, should you have practiced dust2 more and tried to face them there instead on train, where you didn't win even once?

In hindsight it might have been a mistake to keep playing train against them. We felt like we did really well on train in practice, and usually against other opponents, so we thought train was one of our strongest maps. Also, since every other team seemed to have dust2 as one of their best maps, we just felt like we should skip it entirely, which gave more practice time to other maps.

What is your take on Zeus as a leader and a strat-caller? Is there anything he does better than the other in-game leaders? How does he compare to you, gob b and cArn?

It's hard to tell whether it is Zeus or the team as whole that makes them good. From my point of view they have always been really consistent and make very few mistakes - especially as T. He seems really emotional compared to cArn, gob b and me and that might boost his team a bit. Also, I believe he is better individually than most strat-callers and that definitely also helps his team!

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2011, stepping down as IGL and the end

In 2011 your team seemed to the catalyst for great/epic/exciting series. Anytime you played the other elite teams (FX, Na`Vi and SK) the matches were of that nature, whereas some of those teams matched up against each other could lead to more one-sided or less interesting games. Why do you think that is?

I think we managed to keep up our really disciplined playstyle. Especially after we got ArcadioN on board, he helped out a great deal in keeping people in the right positions. I helped out too, but he was really consistent with that part. I believe if you play in a organized way, you maximize your potiential to stay consistent in your performance. It might have led us to become somewhat predictable in some situations, but I still believe the philosophy was correct.

Since your team was so famed for being excellent in terms of preparation, anti-stratting and teamplay it always seemed as though you played at a very consistent level every time, so if an opponent got up by a big score on you and then tightened up, sensing the victory, then your unwavering level of play meant you've close the gap on them. As a result you mounted many large comebacks and got games to overtime that seemed out of reach. With this in mind what do you think to the suggestion that perhaps your strengths prevented mTw from improving at times, since you were losing in close matches or winning narrowly so often, rather than getting blown out by opponents and having to consider style or lineup changes?

I think we were really good at adapting to the opponent's game and never giving up before the last round was played. In some matches, it really gave us a chance to come back, which is really exciting to think back on. It's interresting to think about what would have happended if we'd made drastic changes if we had smashed by opponents. My opinion is that we would have made the changes if they had to be made. All the tournaments we played, I felt like we had a really good chance to win, even though we fell short many times. I can't really think of a change that would have given us a better chance.

When Sunde was on fire in 2008 it seemed as though every great game from him would put your team over the top and give you the win. In 2010 and 2011 trace could have a great game and you'd sometimes still lose, or win, in very close fashion. One could even say he had some of the best individual performances ever yet you didn't win those tournaments. Most would agree trace is a greater and more skilled player than Sunde overall, so why do you think he was less effective or had less of an impact on the team's winrate? Did you use him in a different manner to Sunde?

They are different, and the teams they played on were very different, so it's kind of hard to me to compare. We tried to use trace kind of the same way as we did with Sunde, and obviously he was really good at that. The main difference was that the teams they played on were really different. I believe the chemistry and overall teamplay was better in the old mTw, but the mass of talent was bigger in the newer mTw. I think that with a little more luck in the new team, which means more wins, we could have developed better chemistry. The new team was really competitive minded, so tournament losses would create a bad atmosphere which in the end led to the team disbanding.

Did you bring in ArcadioN at the end of 2010 purely due to lack of time to be the in-game leader on your behalf? I could get you 4-5 all-time great players right now who would tell me ave is the best tactician to ever play CS so it puzzles me that you'd give up your celebrated role. Looking back now couldn't you have just gone all out and remained the in-game leader for 2011?

The main reason I wanted ArcadioN to take over was that I had gotten really fed up with the main responsibility. I was, and still am, studying at university, and that took obviously took a lot of time and concentration, so I felt like I couldn't contribute as much as I could in the past. I had been admiring ArcadioN's passion for and approach to the game for quite a while. So when the team talked about getting a replacement for Sunde, he felt like the right person. It's hard to tell if it was the right move in hindsight, since we didn't really win anything, but for me personally it was that move or I probably would have quit.

Historically it's well known that f0rest had a lot of great games vs. SK, but it's less well known that he seemed to struggled, and have a lot less success, vs. your teams throughout the years. Take us through your mindset and approach to reducing the impact of a player like f0rest. What strategies do you have to prevent him going crazy vs. you?

You had a lot of success vs. Swedish teams in general over the years, so please provide some general thoughts on facing them too.

I think the mindset against a player like f0rest is that you have to be prepared for his aggresive style. A lot of the time, he will put himself in a kind of "all or nothing" situation where it's really important that you're organized as a team, so it's impossible for him to do what he wants to. As CT, it could be that you have to position the team so he can't pick off a player without someone being there to avenge that death. As terrorist, it's more about staying within reach of each other without the risk of getting flashed altogether. When attacking, the team is supposed to be as "all-in" as possible so he gets "swarmed".

Swedish teams in general, especially in the old days, tended to try to do stuff more individually than as a team, so the mindset is to have the right positions and agreements, as a team, to handle that. In more recent times, I'm not really sure that applied as much, as most of the swedish teams seemed like they started to play more team-orientated.

The final words belong to you.

Thanks to all the people I played with and for throughout my career! A big thanks to all the fans that followed and cheered for us :)! It was an awesome ride.