The truth about SpawN - Part 4*
- Written by chaOz (translated by nugg)
You know what you got...
The 27th of June 2005, SpawN was back in SK again and once more with the manager to whom he owed so much. A happy reunion where the players were top motivated to give another effort under the SK-banner. For the manager, bds, this was also good news, which at the same time provided a base for the ponderings on why NiP were not able to be successful with the players they had. He told Fragbite:
The players contacted us before they left NiP and we had a couple of good meetings where we discussed everything. I'm glad to see that they think of SK as a serious organisation and that they want to play for us again!
I think that the players have realized that the most important thing isn't to earn as much money as possible but to have fun (and thus earn money). The salaries and such I don't want to comment on but I think that we will have a significantly better relation between the players and the organisation with these five than we had before. The fact that NiP managed to break down such a successful team in just 6 months proves what I believed earlier, that it's considerably harder to manage an organisation than what many think.
bds - June 2005
And in the same way as HeatoN was annoyed by the loss of SpawN, bds was equally happy to have him back, which he put in words at the SK site:
SpawN: The player that brought aim to an entirely new level. Core player of the legendary 2003 SK team and eager to win even more tournaments!
bds - June 2005
Come fall, all the contracts for the Danish team would expire, and without putting it in words, it was looking like all the Danes would be laid off with a "thank you for your time and effort". We are now in July 2005 and with CPL Summer around the corner, the Swedish team was eager to win a great title for SK once again. CPL's event seemed for a long time to be for the teams playing Counter-Strike: Source, but after a low amount of sign-ups, Counter-Strike 1.6 was launched once again. However, the damage was done and only two teams from Europe took the long journey to 
Dallas; SK.swe and 
fnatic:
fnatic
-
Magnus 'Magix' Berndtsson
-
Abdiwahab 'MegatoN' Mohamed
-
Yousef 'solido' Rihai
-
Benjamin 'diGitaL' Hilden -
Jørgen 'XeqtR' Johannessen
Thus, the two Mohamed-brothers were both going, but yet again it was the little brother who was most successful. SK.swe rushed to the upper bracket final where they faced 
Evil Geniuses. Overtime had to come into play before the Canadians would win the game, 23 - 25. SK.swe defeated Gamer Company in the consolidation final quite quickly, though, and they therefore had to meet EG once again. Even though the Swedes had to win two maps this time, it all went pretty smooth. 16 - 13 and 16 - 10 and the team had done it again. They had won CPL Summer 2005! Even though the event did not bring big competition for SK.swe, it was just what the team needed.
Success was also to be found at the national team, which was also marked by the players from SK.swe. SpawN was more or less a permanent player and together with talents like Marcus 'zet' Sundström from the new NiP and Patrick 'f0rest' Lindberg from Begrip, the Swedes played their way to the final in Clanbase NationsCup's 8th edition. At this point they were facing the Danish team, which mainly existed of players from 
Clan-IT. However, the Swedes were merciless and with SpawN in top shape the team won 16 - 13.
)
Filled with self-confidence, the players now travelled to Great Britain, more precisely 
Sheffield, where CPL had one of their World Tour-stops. A bunch of top teams had decided to attend, including NiP which had gathered a new team. SK.swe's ambitions were pretty clear; a place in top3 at least, where a 1st place was preferred. The opening games went as planned, but then something unforeseen came up. A hungry team9-team beat SK.swe in to the lower bracket, where the home team 4Kings also turned out to be too overwhelming for SK. A noticeable exit for the team whose game never reached a higher level, which was required, compared to CPL Summer where the opposition was more easygoing. To make everything worse, NiP went to the final, where they were faced and was beaten by the extremely well playing team9.
SK.swe kept the mood up after the tournament though which illustrates the difference between this team and the time in NiP. There, a defeat like this would have been even bigger and the mood would have been very low. SK.swe decided to look positively at this and had gotten plenty of experience on how to play together from this event. Experiences which would be needed very much for the next event: CPL Winter.
We now find ourselves in December 2005, and as mentioned earlier, CPL's two primary events are those where SK.swe have the best traditions in. No other team has marked these two events as much throughout the times as SK.swe has. The team has basically never been at this event without finishing in the top3. The team was also full of confidence before the first match and believed greatly in the team. This, vilden described as being one of their greatest strengths:
We play rather predetermined and try to "team" as much as we can. But of course we let people do what they are good at. SpawN for example is best when he can run around a little like he wants to. So we have to think about using everyone's individual skill as much as possible too.
vilden - December 2005
Surprisingly for many, SK.swe was seeded as number 1, which was rather incomprehensible when looking at their performance at CPL UK. The organizers had looked at the placements at CPL Winter and most likely also CPL Summer the same year, which SK.swe had won. With this seed, there was a considerable risk for the team to face the rivals from NiP - a match which vilden explained the players had been looking forward to since the split with HeatoN. As expected. SK.swe found themselves facing NiP in the 3rd round of upper bracket.
The battle of the legends
This NiP-team had been playing together since June 2005 and with the latest performance at CPL UK, the self-confidence was topping. Especially a player like zet had been growing and was in the home country starting to threaten SpawN's dominance in the rankings.
)
Ninjas in Pyjamas
- Tommy 'Potti' Ingemarsson
- Emil 'HeatoN' Christensen
- Dennis 'walle' Wallenberg
- Marcus 'zet' Sundström
- Oskar 'ins' Holm
The match against NiP had incredibly many aspects and infights in the overall battle. Most obvious was of course the reunion of the two old teammates, HeatoN and Potti. Two players having more experience than the players from SK.swe, and who was at this time, already legends. fisker, ahl, and SpawN would of course do anything to beat them and at the same time prove that they made the right decision in leaving HeatoN. Furthermore there would be the AWP-battle between walle and vilden; walle, who was among the new players, the most experienced and had a stunning career behind him. Both he and vilden were two of the most skilled AWP-players in Sweden and therefore this duel would hint as to who would be the country's best AWP-marksman. Last, and definitely not least, there was a one man army-fight between zet og SpawN. zet was seen as somewhat of a phantom and he had - as mentioned earlier - really grown during his time in NiP and had become a player who could determine the outcome of a match on his own. SpawN had obviously proven he was able to do the same and this fight in the game would have a crucial importance for the outcome of the match.
Sadly for the match was that it was to be played at de_cbble which with its dominant CT-side made it hard to establish the strength conditions among the teams. The ninjas started out as CT and managed to scrape nine rounds together. Not a convincing performance and far from what was needed. SK.swe showed no lack in the defense as CT and they only needed to play ten rounds before victory was a reality; 16 - 10. A great achievement by SK.swe and an enormous self-confidence boost which was very important in the ongoing tournament. Most sensationally in the meantime was an episode along the middle of the match where SpawN did some of the most incredible ever seen at CPL.
Lunatic-Hai. The Asians had also been playing at a very high level throughout the tournament, and proved that they finally had gained some tactical skills to match their extreme aim. Especially a player such as )
wNv.gm occurred, after some controversial happenings with computer-problems on both sides where the wNv-players apparently had acted unsportsmanlike. A match which SK.swe never got over and with a defeat against 
begrip vs. 
tto
ATS vs. 
plan-B
LLL vs. 
[K]
Cube
D4 vs. 
Dh
sYnck vs. 
4K
forZe vs. 
DP
Delta vs. 
gNu
eSUBA vs. 
esca
HSBG
defs vs. 
SitG
hoorai vs. 
mX
fu.sk vs. 
SoH
logic vs. 
-Eq-