Christian "vilden" Lidström is a Swedish Counter-Strike legend, and the only player in history to compete in four consecutive American CPL finals and win three of them. He rose to fame as a member of the EYE team which stood out as the only team to consistently challenge the seemingly unbeatable SK.swe of 2003. In 2004 EYE crushed SK en route to a dominant CPL Summer 2004 victory, all with a stand-in in tow. After an unsuccessful period in NiP in 2005 vilden was a member of the back-to-back CPL winning SK.swe.

In this interview vilden discusses his career from 2002 to 2007, his successes and failures and some of the famous names he played alongside ( Hyper, archie, sNajdan and more). The man known for his in-game leading and AWPing breaks down a unique and legendary career.

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The beginning, the formation of the 2003 lineup and success against the unbeatable SK

You joined EYE in December of 2002, but at the time the team wasn't really known outside of Sweden. It wasn't until your first upset wins in SEL in 2003 that your profile was raised. How did you come to join EYE and what happened to put in place the famed lineup of 2003? How much of an impact did Hyper's recruitment have?

This is really a long time ago, but I’ll try my best! First of all, it all started with a practice game we played versus EYE when I played in a team called Rhythm. EYE was in a recruiting stage at that point with GudeN, pain and KoLoL being the known players on the team at that point. archie and I played really well and totally crushed them on the two maps we were playing. pain and I were from the same city so he contacted me a couple of days after that practice game and asked if archie and I wanted to team up with them. As they already had a name in EYE and their recent success at CPL Oslo 2002 in quake3, we saw the opportunity and took it.

In the beginning we were struggling a little, we were not performing as expected, but I still saw a future in the team, mostly because archie was playing really well those days and almost had his prime, fragging 15+ every side. However, quite quickly after we had our first bootcamp we started winning practice games versus pretty good teams and, even though we didn’t win anything, all the top teams knew who we were in the beginning of 2003.

We went to the ESWC qualifier and beat teams such as Archangels, ending up in fourth place. The top three were given a spot to the main tournament, however we got a spot anyway because one of the teams couldn’t go (I don’t remember which team it was). So, ESWC 2003 was my first big tournament and I think we lost already in the group stage. It was here that I got to know Hyper when he played for mTw.HLO, we were hanging out the whole tournament and really had fun together, which ultimately lead to him joining us a month or so after. Before he joined we went to a CPL qualifier in Spain where we came third and almost won a spot to CPL Summer in Dallas.

You are asking what an impact Hyper had upon joining our team? I’d say he was the difference in us going from being one of the top teams in Sweden to being the team competing with SK. We placed second in many qualifiers and tournaments where we lost against SK in the finals, such as CPL Copenhagen 2003, SEL finals, the WCG-qualifier, the CXG-qualifer etc. We lost a couple of finals against SK, but we were definitely the second best team in Sweden at this point with Hyper in our team.



What catapulted your team into the international spotlight in 2003 was your ability to play SK.swe close, something no other team could do at the time and the reason many considered them unbeatable. From September to November of that year you had at least one map per month where you played them close, from September's 12:16 loss on inferno in the SEL 4 final to the 11:13 dust2 loss in the final of the Swedish CXG qualifier and finally to the 10:13 nuke loss in the CPL Copenhagen final. What did you think of that SK team, which match stands out as being the closest you were to beating them and what was it about your team that allowed you to matchup so well, when so many others couldn't?

SK was undoubtedly the best team in Sweden during this time, they were better than us. But at the same time I remember how annoying it was having a feeling of giving away so many rounds due to the respect we had for them. You thought you couldn’t win. It’s just not happening. That was the feeling during matches. So when you were ahead, you got the feeling that you almost started giving away rounds. The counter-argument would logically be that they just started playing better when they had to, that was their strength. That is also a factor of course, stating totally otherwise would simply be stupid. But at the same time I beg to differ in some regard, when I’m saying that we would have won at least one of the games during the Fall in 2003.

To answer your question about a specific game, I remember we actually won a map during the CXG qualifier, but we came from loser bracket and had to win two maps, which we didn’t. I also remember that we played dust2 two times in a row where we, as stated above, won the first map. I really thought we would win that game, but then again we started losing round after round.

Why we were playing SK close depended mostly on the face we played against them a lot when we practiced. You always got a feeling that they were not very serious, even during official matches. But there was a reason behind this, they never had to care so much about team-work, they all possessed a ridiculous amount of raw skill so they never had to. We played against them a lot and we couldn’t really compare ourselves to them in that regard, so we had to focus on team-work and sat many hours on listen servers practicing tons of different type of rounds, flashes, grenades and all that, which eventually led to our win at the CXG shootout match and in the CPL Summer 2004 final.

In light of all those close games against SK.swe your second place at the European CPL many expected you to be a lock for a top three finish at CPL Winter 2003 and one of the favourites for the title, in light of your ability to challenge SK. Instead your team ended up getting upset by NoA early and then being eliminated by mouz on train, the same team you'd beaten on the same map at CPL Copenhagen, and put into sixth place with a loss to MiBR on fire.

We know now how far NoA ended up going, mouz were at their second international event with their "super" team of the best German players (plus gore) and MiBR had been practicing with Adrenaline prior to that event. Putting all of that aside though what were your own expectations going into the event and how did you CPL campaign unravel so early?

We definitely went to CPL Winter 2003 with the expectations of making it into the top three. That CPL was very similar to CPL Winter 2005 though, where all the best teams attended, which should not be forgetten. Even though our goal was always to win, we knew we could beat any team on a good day, top three was more realistic in a tournament like that.

There are mainly two reasons as to why we didn’t manage to get there. The first reason was that there was only Hyper who played at his capacity individually, the other four of us failed to do so when it mattered. Consequently, the second reason for our failure logically follows, and it was simply because that was our first trip to a Dallas CPL. The tournament that we heard so much about, that we had seen so many times from watching HLTV the years before etc. It was simply too much to take in and at the same time play our game as we should have (or even above that level) to reach a top three placing.

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2004: back-to-back CPL finals and victory over SK

Despite the step up over the last quarter of 2003 your team's future in 2004 was quite uncertain as you personally couldn't attend a Rendezvous LAN, which the team won with Calippo as a stand-in, and then it was announced in July, only two weeks before, that Crw would not attend CPL Summer with you. What made you choose Iskall as the player chosen to fill that fifth spot?

I personally skipped rendezvous because of school; it was one month before graduation and a lot of parties were going on everywhere that I didn’t want to miss. So I knew I wouldn’t be able to prepare as much as I wanted before the tournament. That Crw couldn’t come with us to CPL Summer came as a surprise for everybody and from what I remember we didn’t have much time replace him. GudeN knew Iskall since his time in a team called epic and we had all been playing mix games with him, so we were all aware that he had the skill. Although his strengths lie more in his personality than skills in-game, he was a good at communicating with the team and always had a smile on his face. A nice, calm person that was awesome to hang out with, I just think we prioritized that instead of raw skill.



It's rare that teams using a stand-in outperform their long-term lineups, and with SK and NoA having flopped at ESWC that CPL (Summer 2004) seemed pretty wide open, making it difficult for people to figure out who the favourite was. Your EYE team displayed one of the most dominant CPL runs in history, going undefeated and with all but one map ending with the opponents getting six rounds or less. The closest anyone came was SK.swe's 9:16 loss to you in the upper bracket final on dust2, and you swiftly stomped them in the final on inferno.

What accounts for your team pulling off such an incredible run in such unusual circumstances? SK.swe no longer had elemeNt in their lineup so what did you think of their team and the effect the loss of that player had had on them?

Before this tournament we had a couple of bootcamps where I believe we spent our time doing something no other team had done to the same extent before, at least from what I believe myself. We sat down making so many advanced tactics (in comparison to what we'd experienced before with other teams and teams we had played in ourselves) with flashes and grenades thrown at specific pixels on the monitor together with a time, and a fake – you name it. Hours were spent on this instead of just playing lots of practice games. Furthermore, it had the exact effect we wanted: it didn’t really matter how we played individually, we would win the matches anyway, simply due to fantastic team work.

Also, there is a little fairy tale behind this tournament. One week before the tournament our sponsor withheld and wouldn’t pay our tickets to the CPL. When we started searching for tickets ourselves, we pretty quickly learned that the prices were ridiculously high. Eventually though, we found tickets for 90,000 SEK (~$13,446 in today's money) for the six of us. Not all of us had that kind of money to put into this, so I paid most of that amount out of my own pocket, although knowing that I would get it back as long as we got it back in terms of prize money. Presumably I would get it back from everybody when they eventually had it, but still it was a little risky for me. Plus, like you said, we never lost more than six rounds to a team that tournament, and until now the day we won that tournament against SK in the finals is undoubtedly the best day in my life.

As for SK’s team and their play, they were still a fantastic team individually, but you could feel that something was wrong. Some of them had lost their motivation to stay on top, which is very logical when you have played for so long without losing a tournament. I’m pretty sure elemeNt’s departure from the team didn’t have anything to do with their performance. According to my own observation it was simply due to lack of motivation, at least the motivation that is needed to be the best team in the world.



Usually a team who wins a major championship will at the very least play the next major tournament with the same lineup, to try and repeat as champions. Your team was ripped apart only a month after your CPL win though, when Hyper, who many considered the star player, left for SK.swe in September of 2004. In light of the financial issues you mentioned before it's understandable why he'd want to switch to SK but did you ever wonder what might have been if he hadn't? Do you feel as though, due to the way his career faded out a year later, Hyper is overlooked at all by fans?

Hyper is definitely overlooked when people are debating the best player ever and all those kinds of discussions. To me Hyper was what f0rest became later in 2008, 2009. If Hyper continued playing CS, he would definitely be mentioned in the same context as f0rest, SpawN etc. He had a calm playing style, smooth movements but at the same time quite aggressive. Similar to how I experienced f0rest's way of playing CS. He also had sick timing on when to get his kills, the kind of ability zet possessed that ultimately made him one of the best players during 2006. He was also very smart strategically and was always giving me feedback on tactics and calls I made in-game. He could also handle the AWP pretty well; he rarely used it due to his insane skills with the rifles.

It wasn’t that I didn’t understand that he went to SK when they could offer him a monthly salary, more like the stupid kid he was when he refused to practice individually in the beginning of 2005. He started playing WoW instead and got hooked. From that point on he was lost and never came back as the player he once was, which was very tragic if you ask me. May you burn in hell, Morgath! (his stupid dwarf that he was playing).

To replace Hyper you initially brought in bevah (an ex-member) for Nollelva, but that didn't go well at all. Then you put together a lineup featuring Bullen and walle, who were considered the two biggest talents outside of SK and EYE. Going into CPL winter 2004 the case could be made that your team was the favourite, I've heard from other players who were around back then that you were crushing everyone in online practice in Europe. Plus NoA had only just fully acquired XeqtR and SK.swe ended up being unable to attend. How good was your EYE team back then, what can you say about the loss to NoA in the final and what do you think SK's chances would have been if they could have attended?

I don’t remember exactly how the process behind taking in Bullen and walle went down. I think I contacted walle and explained that we were going to get a small salary, new computers and other things that SpiXel and other organizations couldn’t match. It’s fun to hear that that specific rumor [regarding EYE's practice dominance] has reached all the way to you. The fact is that I have never been so confident going into a tournament as when we went to CPL Winter in 2004. It was also the first tournament I went to feeling that everybody in the team had what it took skill-wise. If SK went, they would definitely have been competing for a first place, but it didn’t really matter. Going to CPL winter 2004 felt like a win beforehand, since we'd played so well during practice games and maybe that exact feeling was the reason we lost the final to NoA, I don’t know.

Well, when you are playing a tournament live, the biggest difference compared to playing CS from home is that one important factor is added to the games, and that is momentum. Momentum doesn’t really play out the same way on the internet since you can’t hear each other screaming and such. Screaming and being loud before rounds, during and after is actually very important, it gives you a psychological advantage. It's much more important than in comparisation to how often it has been discussed during the years. This is exactly the factor as to why NoA came out on top in the final; they went crazy when they won rounds, which gave that psychological advantage that I just talked about.

With identical starting conditions and playing 10 times, I’m very confident that we would win though. I mean some of those games walle would win by himself, that’s how good he was. We had advantages in walle’s sick skill, Bullen's stability and my AWP, when I actually hit some shots.

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2005: The stacked NiP team, the return to SK and the back-to-back CPL titles

In January of 2005 your CPL lineup went to Optihack and lost to the first Skolpojkarna mix ( dsn, Zad, Nebb, zaffe and snajdan) and Embrace ( f0rest, Tentpole, robban + 2 others), which was quite a surprise to many. Was that results what killed that edition of EYE? Would you have gone to NiP a month later regardless? Had you been speaking with Hyper prior to your official recruitment in February?

I was contacted by Hyper pretty much when I got back from Dallas, saying that I was most likely going to be their first choice for the fifth spot in NiP. When we came back from Dallas we didn't practice at all before Optihack from what I remember. I guess we thought we would win anyway since there were no “good” teams participating. So the combination of no practice and that my thoughts were elsewhere make it pretty clear to me why we lost to Embrace and Skolpojkarna. Those teams had very good players individually, so if we weren't playing as the team we were, then it doesn’t really matter if you are a team on the paper or not, the team who’s having the best day will win.



The NiP team of early 2005 is one of the most confusing periods in the history of CS, not least because the players involved have always declined to give much info about what went wrong behind the scenes. Upon your arrival in the team the lineup looked absolutely insane on paper (vilden, Hyper, HeatoN, ahl and Spawn) to the extent that even though Potti had gone inactive I still heard from players in teams like NoA and others that they expected your team was going to be the best in the world. Many even expected that team to have a legitimate shot at becoming the best team of all time.

Instead that NiP began by finishing third at CPL Barcelona, losing to coL and mouz teams who only turned out to be elite a few months later. Then you lost Rixhack to the second Skolpojkarna mix, the ACON5 qualifier to SSV Lehnitz and finally even lost a game in the group stage of the Swedish ESWC pre-qualifier to a mix called "teh loserz", which featured SK file admin gosey.

What were your expectations upon joining that team and what kind of internal problems went along with those results? HeatoN told me in an interview that your addition to the team was part of the reason behind why the team didn't do well, what is your response to that?

The expectations when I joined NiP were definitely in line with what you just stated, and when you say it is confusing, imagine how confusing it was for me/us! We just spoke about how well the practice went before CPL winter 2004 with EYE, it was even better when we played with NiP. There were not many practice games that we lost with that team either. So, it was actually working, but we didn’t bring that play to the tournaments we played in. Then again, the hype itself about the team beforehand actually was the reason to why the team broke up, according to how I look at it at least. It goes a little hand-in-hand with how you just expressed your question, in totally negative terms, which is logical since everybody thought we would win anything.

You can look at it this way too; NiP placed 3rd at CPL Barcelona and 2nd at Rixhack at their first two tournaments. Instead of putting all focus into which teams we lost against. On all the websites and forums in the community it was spoken about in terms of what teams we lost against. Don’t get me wrong though, I understand it is logical that people do that. But if we'd ignored what everybody thought and just looked at the results alone and didn’t let the hype that was around our team bring us down, I’m confident that we eventually would've started winning some tournaments. But the hype around us destroyed our patience and ultimately led to us going to SK instead.

As for Emil [HeatoN] not wanting me to recruited into NiP, that's something you'd have to discuss with him to get the story straight. From what I have heard I was ahl and Hyper’s first choice for whom they wanted to recruit. SpawN and HeatoN were in the beginning more into bringing in walle to the team, but as Hyper didn’t want to be in-game leader SpawN agreed to give me a shot instead of walle. That’s how I got the story at least.

The break-up came after Rixhack when Emil told people in other teams that it was pretty much my fault that we lost the tournament to Skolpojkarna. The combination of not discussing it with the team first and the fact that ahl, SpawN, Hyper and Idid not agree eventually made us leave NiP for SK. We wanted to stay in NiP, but since HeatoN’s name is very much correlated with the organization as such, the owners decided that we had to leave if we still wanted to play together, which we eventually did when we teamed up with SK and Snajdan. There are no hard feelings between me and Emil though; CS has to be looked at professionally and be separated from one's personal life!



When the five of you (vilden, Hyper, SpawN, ahl and fisker) left NiP Hyper essentially retired and the remaining four of you rejoined SK.swe a little later, with sNajdan taking up the fifth spot. How would you describe sNajdan as a player? I've heard from a number of people that he had a talent for reading opponents during games. What is your perspective?

Snajdan was really one of a kind; you can’t compare him with any other player really. He didn’t aim very well, but still managed to always contribute with many kills to the team. A really clutch player in his unique way of doing it. In SK he and I shared the role as in-game leaders. One tournament it was him, the other it was me. When I look back on that time though, there is something I wish we would have done differently. He was better than me at reading opponents during matches and should have been the one calling in-game, meanwhile I should have been the one making the tactics beforehand.

At CPL Summer 2005 there were no teams really expected to be a challenge for you, and yet Evil Geniuses, with shaGuar standing in, ended up beating you in overtime in the upper bracket final on dust2. Then you beat them twice on inferno in the final, to become the second team to win a CPL from the lower bracket. What is your assessment of what happened?

I think we underestimated them since it was as you said, not many good teams taking place because of ESWC being held at the same time, so we definitely thought we could just fly to Dallas and win, but it is never that easy. Especially when you face players like shaGuar, who was a player with a lot of individual skill, so if you leave players like him without showing 100% respect, you could be in big trouble. I’m glad we could turn things around and show that we could deliver when it really mattered.



Due to how weak the CPL Summer field had been, and your team's disappointing performance at CPL UK, nobody knew what to make of your chances going into CPL Winter 2005. It was billed on paper to be the ultimate CPL, stacked with all the top teams of the era. You ended up going undefeated and proving yourselves to be a great team. Where did you think your level was at prior to that event? Also please give us some insight into the standout games against NiP, 3D and lunatic-hai.

When we went to CPL winter 2005 we knew that anything could happen, we felt quite strong but as you said, it was one of the best CS tournaments in terms of competition. Of course we knew we could beat anybody but I couldn’t really dream of getting through that tournament undefeated. That was unreal. For me, the game versus NiP was really what stood out the most, since that was the first match we'd played against each other since we'd parted ways from NiP. To get out on top of that game was totally amazing and I remember the feeling even today.

The game versus 3D has evolved to be one of the most remembered CS matches in history, and I won’t forget it in the first place either. We were down 0-10 in the first half so it felt totally fantastic to turn that game around. We won five straight rounds making it 5-10 at half time. Later, in the overtime, I remember it felt like time stood still when SpawN was 1v1 against Ksharp in order to get a second overtime (if he lost, 3D would have won) which he eventually won and we gained that momentum we needed in order to secure the win. Everybody really stepped up and brought something to the team, which really was the reason to why we won that game in the end after being down 0-10.

When it comes to the final and lunatic-hai we were all quite surprised that they had made it all the way to the final and we didn’t really know what to expect from them. It turned out that they were very good aimers that we needed to counter with some good team work and tactics, which we succeeded with and won both the winner bracket final and the grand final against them. Another amazing day in my life!

Who were you expecting to reach the final instead of lunatic-hai?

I probably would have thought NiP would make it all the way to the final if we met them at a later stage, but as we met them in the third round of the upper bracket I didn’t think they would make it all the way, simply because they would have had to have won a lot of games to get there. 3D had a quite bad year in 2004 and weren’t really giving any hints of getting back to the shape they had in the good old days of 2002 and 2003. But they proved at that CPL that they were not a team to count out and really impressed me in our game against them, and was definitely a team I thought would go far.

I remember Begrip was playing well prior to the tournament and f0rest was on his way to become that star he later became. Playing against somebody like f0rest, who is always bringing his A game to each and every match, is hard, and I guess we expected Begrip to be one of those competing for a spot in the final too.

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2006-2007: the end of an era, retirement



The CPL Winter win meant your team went into 2006 as the world's #1 team, so you were one of the favourites for WEG Masters. Obviously things went poorly for you there, with the infamous 0:16 loss to Catch-Gamer and failure to progress from the group stage. fisker and SpawN, in separate interviews, suggested that tournament was what broke apart that 2005 lineup. What is your perspective on that tournament's impact? What did you think of the wNv team you faced, who went on to win the tournament?

WEG Masters was already a failure even before we started playing. When we came to Hangzhou to play that tournament we were told that there was not going to be any tournament, due to some legislation about shooting games in that province of China. The next day they said that there was going to be a tournament after all, and that story continued for two weeks before we even got to play the first game. The reason as to why fisker and SpawN said that tournament broke up the team is due to a lot of reasons.

Some of us wanted to go home instead, since we could have been there for so long with no purpose, if they decided not to allow the tournament to take place. Everybody had different opinions about this, at the same time we actually had a hard time even getting any decent food, because no restaurant had English menus (until we found ONE restaurant after like 10 days). The hotel we stayed at was not very good either, and all of these factors eventually tore the team apart when we lost on top of that.

I don’t remember much about the wNv team to be honest, I just remember how big that opening map against them was, which we fortunately won. A thousand people or more watching it live and you could really feel that the crowd appreciated us for what we were doing. An awesome feeling!

Why did you choose Goodfella as the player to replace sNajdan after that?

GoodFella was one of the best players on the market during that time, so to speak, also a very humble and nice guy to hang with, so that choice came very naturally to us.

2006 was a disappointing year for SK, with the only bright spots being the Swedish Extreme Masters qualifier wins over NiP and fnatic and a third place at WSVG UK. What were the problems that team faced? Did it ever bother you that when SpawN left to be a stand-in for NiP that he had success, while you toiled in SK?

We didn't get back to get a lineup where we complemented each other as well as we had done before I guess. Even though we took in allen, who was one of the rising stars and was very similar to f0rest in terms of rarely playing bad. We had some bright moments when we won against NiP and fnatic at that qualifier, as you said, so we knew that we had the skills to make it happen, we just didn't. The reasons why things like that happens are usually correlated with motivation, I have seen it happen in so many teams in this scene during the years.

In our case it was also one of the reasons. Many of us stopped playing individually when we didn't practice, which you really have to do to stay on top. So, all of us except allen fell down a step in terms of skills in relation to the other top players at that time. SpawN has always been a very good friend of mine and still is, so I didn't envy him succeeding with NiP at all. Not for his sake alone at least. I was more looking at it from our point of view, that it was sad we couldn't get it going again.



At the beginning of 2007 it was announced that you were leaving SK, but you came back a week later and even ended up playing at shgOpen. Then in April you were announced as departing the lineup and your career as a pro came to an end. What was going in behind the scenes in the team at this time and how much of your departure was your own decision? Were you ever tempted to make a comeback?

I actually don’t remember what exactly happened during that time. I think walle, SpawN and Robban were given an offer to play for SK, since something had to happen. GoodFella decided to quit playing during that time as well. I’m not sure why I was given the chance to play again, when we went to SHG Open, at that time I wasn’t deciding things really. What eventually made me quit though was that Snajdan and I weren’t getting along very well in the end, so it was a mutual agreement between the two of us that allen and SpawN had to choose either him or me. RobbaN had not played with us more than one tournament so it was up to allen and SpawN to choose either Snajdan or me, where they eventually chose Snajdan.

When it happened I had mixed feelings, I was pretty satisfied with my CS career as it was, my motivation was not on top and Snajdan was a better player than me at that time, and also had more motivation than me. I understood that they had to pick Snajdan in that case, even though SpawN is a very good friend of mine. As I've said before, CS has to be looked at professionally and there were no hard feelings there either, I would have done the same thing myself.

As for coming back to CS, once I left the scene I was pretty happy with that decision and never really had any intention of playing professionally again. It is hard to play when you know how good you once were and I didn’t feel like putting the amount of effort that is needed into it again.

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Legacy and famous team-mates



In EYE you were quite famous for your AWPing. fisker told me he thought he was good with the AWP until he played with you in SK. How would you describe your strengths and style with the AWP? How would you rank yourself against the great snipers of your era?

Those questions are hard, I want to stay humble and let other people decide how good I was, but anyway, I will try. I always considered myself as an AWPer with good positioning, I tried to be unpredictable in where I stood and what I did, I always tried to do something unique, stand in angles nobody else used and stuff like that. I also want to believe I was good at getting the first frag, I liked to challenge early and get the 5v4 advantage to the team.

I never had the reflexes and made those really sick shots like players like walle did. I thought I had decent accuracy until I saw cogu on fire, he was really before his time when it came to that. I have heard that markeloff is famous for being the same kind of player these days, but unfortunately I have never seen him play. Cogu though, by far the best awper when he was having a good day. It is hard for most people to understand since people don’t really remember, but I’m telling you. I mean, walle had better reflexes, cogu had better accuracy, SpawN and many others were better at moving around smoothly with it. I just hope that people remember me as an all-around AWPer.



archie is one of your team-mates who inevitably got overlooked, in light of playing with the likes of you and Hyper early on and Iskall, walle and Bullen later. How would you describe him as a player?

archie was actually a little similar to Snajdan (I know I said Snajdan wasn’t comparable to any player, but it could be archie) he was not very good at aiming, but still got his kills and even more than that sometimes. archie and I became "famous" around the same time when we played in EYE, and the only thing we did when we werent practicing was play 2on2. We played so many 2on2 together that I can't even remember! Those 2on2s made me think about CS the way I did, made me aware how important tactics were, since we won a lot against the best aimers out there just because we played together. So, I have that to thank archie for.

He was in general a very smart player as well, won many 1on1, 1on2. He played a little defensively though, he wasn’t playing CS with the confidence he should have done, like f0rest, SpawN, Hyper, or walle, which most likely is the reason to why he never got to shine and draw people’s attention in that way.



Bullen's initial career trajectory looked like he was in line to become the next great Swedish player. He'd caused upsets early on in caYa, in SpiXel he'd been a runnerup at ESWC 2004 and then in your EYE team he finishined second at CPL Winter 2004. After you departed for NiP though his career began to fade and after his brief spell in NiP in 2007 it was basically over. Being as you were around the scene for his whole career, and he is no longer with us, what can you tell us about Bullen the player?

First of all, Bullen is one of the most amazing people I have met in my entire CS career. Such a nice and humble person that nobody disliked! I didn’t talk to him very much in the end, but he was such a wonderful person and it’s so sad that he’s not with us anymore. Love and respect to Bullen, may he rest in peace!

As a player he was totally dominant in one aspect, reading the game and his opponents. It was almost scary to see sometimes, he knew what people were going to do even before they did themselves. We played a lot against each other on the Clanbase ladder in mix games during 2003 and I remember I was surprised that SK didn’t pick him up during that time. Bullen didn’t take the game very seriously in that sense, and played it because he loved to play it and that is the reason I think he just faded out in 2007, he simply thought WoW was more fun to play and he didn’t put the effort that was needed into CS.

How would you like to be remembered by CS fans?

I know that there are a lot of players out there nowadays with better records than me, but I think I'm the only one who played in four CPL Dallas finals in a row (with three different lineups and won three), both in 2004 and both in 2005. So, that together with being a good AWPer who competed with the best in that regard would be two nice things to be associated with!

The final words belong to you.

A big shoutout to the people of the lineups I won CPL Summer 2004 with and CPL Winter 2005, those were the best days of my life! Also, I haven’t mentioned fisker along the way in this interview. If you ask me for THE player I would pick first to my all-star team it would be him. All teams need a player like him. He was always bringing laughter and energy to the team, always in a good mood and making the game even more fun with his bad jokes. If it wasn’t for him I would have given up the game earlier in 2006! Finally, thanks to you for the interview, I thought I was the one who knew the most about my career, but obviously not!