The truth about SpawN - Part 3*

- Written by chaOz (translated by heki)

 

 

Not all fairytales end happily

 

After the team had returned from Nollelva, the players and the fans were incredibly relieved by finally having found a way to make things work. Excitement didn't get a chance to fade as the SEC finals was in store for them just three weeks after Nollelva - one week before CPL Winter. At this event the team once again displayed convincing game and crushed  smilE in the final with the score of 16 - 3. There was no doubt that the team was in good shape, and the critics who proclaimed the result at Nollelva to be a one-off performance were proven wrong. This was a time with a lot of successful experiences for SpawN, as he and the rest of the Swedish national team won the final of the European Nations Cup. SpawN had played amazingly and proved that he had really gotten back into shape. At this time the majority of people saw SK.swe as the upcoming champions of CPL Winter, since the team had a history of amazing results at this event over the past few years. At this point the team and the fans wouldn't have imagined that SK.swe wasn't never going to attend CPL Winter 2004.

 

The four players from the legendary SK.swe from 2003, plus Potti, who was inactive at the time, were about to go into contract negotiations with SK, as the contracts of everyone in the team, except for Hyper, were to expire December the 31st 2004. After several days of intense negotiations, SK published the shocking news - SK.swe would not be attending the upcoming CPL Winter 2004. Instead the they chose to send the average team of  SK.ger. The reason for this was apparently the failure of coming to an agreement regarding the contracts for 2005. Because of this, the organization "punished" SK.swe by keeping them home. The fans and the team were furious and bds sent out the following statement on SK's site:

citationstegn

Due to internal restructuring within SK.swe and planning 2005 the team will not attend CPL Winter. The Swedish Counter-strike team will most likely change for the next tournament, as we are in contract negotiations right now.

bds - December 2004

 

 

Later on, HeatoN explained his side of the story to GotFrag:

citationstegn

Well, we had felt for a long time that we weren't as big a part of the organization as we wanted to be and got in some problems about the contract for 2005.

HeatoN - January 2005

 

 

On January 1st 2005 the players parted with SK, and for SpawN this meant a goodbye to the organisation and the manager who had trusted him enough to give him the chance of a lifetime. Now, it ended with a bitter farewell, and no one knew if his connection with SK had been broken forever. 

 

 

The return of the ninjas

 

January 1st 2005 truly turned out to be a day of change in the world of Counter-Strike. Not only had the most successful team ever parted the organisation that made it all happen, but this meant the reopening of the most famous organisation ever,  Ninjas in Pyjamas. For SpawN, NiP had always been a name in the back of his mind ever since he first heard about Counter-Strike. Back then NiP dominated everyone and had been the only team that ever really could compare with the SK.swe-team, which SpawN himself was a part of in 2003. NiP was also behind the split between SpawN and his two friends  ScreaM and  Dracula, when NiP snatched up ScreaM and Dracula from SpawNs first real team, matrix. A bittersweet time for SpawN, but now he could add the NiP tag to his own name and carry the flag which three of his team-mates already had carried once with great success.

 

Ninjas in Pyjamas

• Tommy 'Potti' Ingemarsson
• Emil 'HeatoN' Christensen
• Michael 'ahl' Korduner
• Christer 'fisker' Eriksson
• Daniel 'Hyper' Kuusisto
• Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed

 

Subsequently, HeatoN explained that the change to NiP made the team a lot more independent. For example, this meant that gained prizemoney would now be shared between the players alone. They no longer had to share with bds as the terms had been in SK. However, further changes waited around the corner. Potti, who had been inactive throughout all of spring 2004, continued down that path as he kept on living his life without Counter-Strike. Same thing applied to fisker, who had studies and private life taking up most of his time and motivation for the game. With fisker being halfway inactive, the team was in need of an AWP-player, and in Sweden such a need boiled down to only one real choice;  Christian 'vilden' Lidström. vilden had been a part of the  EYEballers team that beat SK.swe back at CPL Summer 2004, so naturally knew Hyper from back then. vilden was very pleased with the opportunity, as he expressed in a comment to Fragbite:

citationstegn

It feels fantastic to be a part of Ninjas in Pyjamas; it's like a dream coming true. To be able to play with the best players in the world, and under the best organisation in the world feels like a million dollars. I'm looking forward to a year of success and happiness together with the Ninjas in Pyjamas.

vilden - February 2005

 

 

 

The first event in line for the ninjas was planned to be the Samsung Euro Championship, where the team had the opportunity to meet the new team in SK:  The-Titans. Unfortunately, illness played a determining factor for the team at this event. Hyper had to report in sick when they arrived, which made attending the tournament impossible. A very regrettable development, both for the players but also the fans, who were eager to see NiP in action again. This would - however - have to wait, and the team now had a month to prepare for the next big event: CPL Barcelona. CPL had recently revitalised their tour-concept, known from the early days, but prior to this event, more changes occured within the team.

 

As mentioned, fisker was slipping more and more into inactivity, which was mostly rooted in interest for other things than Counter-Strike, but he had also been marked as the player that had shown the worst game during the final events with SK.swe. Interest and motivation though seemed to return in April 2005, but at this point in time, it was difficult to get a spot back on the team. At the same time, offers were sent back and forth on the scene that could be interesting.  Made in Brazil bought elemeNt from NoA which left NoA with a free spot on the roster - a spot that was meant for fisker. Finally on April 10th the transfer was finalised and fisker joined NoA. This cleared things up for fisker since personal issues with HeatoN had been heating up. HeatoN had been sharing his opinion of fisker's private relationships, which fisker responded to on GotFrag:

citationstegn

Well, that is true I played bad the 2 last tournaments but every player has bad tournaments right? What HeatoN said about me being with my girlfriend a lot, that's plain bullshit to be honest. We had weekdays off so instead of going out clubbing I was with her, I've always been available for practice and everything, so that means I was with her at a maximum of 2 days/week but yeah that is a lot of time! Otherwise, right now I feel happy to be starting off with a new team. I've had a break from cs for a while and I think you need bigger breaks sometimes to boost your motivation.

fisker - April 2005

 

 

And so NiP lost it's charming limb fisker. For SpawN this meant the loss of one of his best friends from the time in SK, though SpawN believed that they would team up again some day.

 

As mentioned, CPL Barcelona was the next event in line for the ninjas, and they went for it knowing that they still hadn't played a major tournament together. This - however - did not shake their expectations. The tournament started as planned, but it didn't take long before trouble started emerging. NiP faced the hometeam  x6tence.AMD, and was defeated - thereby sent to the lower bracket. An early slap in the face for the ninjas - however - heads held high and they plowed on, showing some strength in the following matches, each won with the impressive score of 16 - 2. NiP made it to the lower bracket final where they faced  compLexity. The americans were looking very strong and indeed they turned out to be too much of a mouthful for NiP. 8 - 16 was the final score which placed NiP on a 3rd place, which overall was a decent result for the ninjas given their conditions at the time.

 

The following month brought a mixture of good and bad to the table. At Rixhack they achieved a 2nd place, which obviously wasn't 100 % satisfactory for the team, as their ambitions had been continually rising over time. However, their 2nd place gave them a ticket to the WCG. The pre-qualifier for the ESWC was next in line, and here the team displayed their full strength. SpawN faced his brother MegatoN for once in a final, who played for  SSV Lehnitz at the time. The two of them were rivaling forces, but once again SpawN proved he's the best. NiP won the pre-qualifier and secured a spot at the final ESWC-qualifier. From the outside things looked pretty good for NiP, but no more than ten days later, the team was blown to pieces.

 

 

Home, sweet home

 

Things were about to changed drastically for NiP. There were internal strifes that results could not outweigh. Ever since the beginning, the players had ambitions for winning everything there was to win, and there's no doubt that the relaunch of NiP placed faith in the minds of the former SK players that it was possible once again to dominate all tournaments and obliterate any opposition. However, with the increasingly administrative, HeatoN became difficult to play with. The role bds had back in SK naturally had to be filled out somehow in NiP, and whilst NiP had people to sort out things unrelated to the game, HeatoN figured he should take the role as the playing manager, which proved to be difficult for him and the team. Because of this, SpawN, vilden, Hyper and ahl decided to leave HeatoN on May 26th to try without him. vilden spoke to Fragbite about this move:

citationstegn

Well, it's not that complicated really. ahl, Hyper, SpawN and myself basically don't want to keep playing with HeatoN.

 

There are several reasons for this which I won't reveal details about. At the same time I would like to point out that I (we) don't have any negative opinions what so ever about how NiP works as an organization. It's probably the best, most stable and most comfortable organization that exists today.

 

It always felt like all the players in the team had about the same motivation. But at the same time everything didn't click with this lineup. It felt like we sometimes forgot to have fun. And no, to everyone out there, it wasn't only HeatoN's fault that that was the case, we have all ourselves to blame. That is the major issue that made us leave NiP.

vilden - May 2005

 

The CEO of NiP,  Peter Hedlund published this statement on NiP's website:

citationstegn

As we told the players that their lack of interest and motivation whenever the words "practise more intense" was brought up was not acceptable, they made the decision to leave NiP and this change was something that had to be done sooner or later. For us it's all about performance, performance, performance. We have seen an increase in lack of motivation so something had to be done. Because of the hard competition in e-sport nowadays our players have to focus to 110% when it comes to practice schedules and matches. This is not for fun, playing Counter-Strike is their job and it has to be taken as seriously as any other job. No one playing for NiP should ever feel confident in his/her position. It's all about performance individually aswell as a team.

Peter Hedlund - May 2005

 

 

A couple of days later, HeatoN mentioned that the problems probably wouldn't have occured if NiP had only won all of the tournaments they attended. But even though changes to the team seemed necessary, the loss of a star like SpawN is far from optimal, as he said to GotFrag:

citationstegn

As you all could see, the team didn't work so changes were needed. In some ways I really think it was good, but still, losing a player like SpawN is NEVER good. So if I could have changed something to make him stay, that would have been it.

 HeatoN - May 2005

 

 

What HeatoN did not know was that the four players already had meetings with SK about a potential transfer before they actually left NiP. However they were unable to make a deal since SK were still too busy with the Danish team. Shortly thereafter, HeatoN built a new team NiP, while SpawN and the three other ex-ninjas were ready to start up again after a short break. At the upcoming ESWC qualifier, SpawN was to be found on a new team, going up against the new NiP-team. The team was named  1911 and included:

• Michael 'ahl' Korduner
• Christer 'fisker' Eriksson
• Abdisamad 'SpawN' Mohamed
• Christian 'vilden' Lidström
• Mattias 'Snajdan' Andersen

Hyper had chosen to hang up his colt and retire, which meant that SpawN could be reunited with his friend fisker who came from the short stay in NoA. The team won an ESWC pre-qualifier which meant they had the chance to mess with the new NiP team at the main qualifier. What 1911 weren't aware of was that NiP wasn't intending to let 1911 go through and play the qualifier. SpawN, ahl and vilden were threaten with legal actions pertaining to their contracts with NiP, which subsequently made 1911 opt out of the qualifier. Snajdan explained the situation to Fragbite:

citationstegn

The way I understood it ahl, SpawN and vilden was still under contract (period of notice) with NiP but NiP had broken the contract previously when they clearly stated that they wouldn't pay any salary during the period of notice. The players then interpreted it as if they no longer had any obligations towards NiP, and that they had gotten fired from the organisation.

 

And, if I'm going to be honest, I think that HeatoN had something to do with it because I think they were afraid of facing us and considered us to be a great threat to them.

 Snajdan - June 2005

 

The story doesn't tell us if that suspicion was correct. Nevertheless, a very interesting episode. NiP won the qualifier and the ticket to the ESWC, and 1911 stayed together as a team. For those of you who haven't already figured this out, the team had a future with SK. 19 and 11 representing the letters S and K in the alphabet.

 

In the next article we will take a closer look at SK.swe's way back to the top, where SpawN plays a big role in their success. My thanks to Fragbite and GotFrag for the pictures, weenie for graphics, and heki for the translation.

 

 

If you didn't catch part 1 or part 2, this can be found below:

 

 

The truth about SpawN - Part 1

The truth about SpawN - Part 2