Robin ”Fifflaren” Johansson leaves Ninjas in Pyjamas, marking the end of an era.

The team that has won it all and have done so with the same five players for two and a half years will never look the same again.

And even though the haters, who have jumped at every chance to criticize the NiP player, are cheering right now, they can never change the simple fact that Fifflaren will forever be a part of CS:GO-history.

Right after the embarrassing elimination from ESWC the past weekend, when the old rivals Titan completely demolished Ninjas in Pyjamas 16-1 on Dust2, the players took to Twitter and vented their frustration.

In game leader Richard ”Xizt” Landström expressed concerns that they didn’t know where to go from there to turn the slump around.

Now we know what that meant. Now the CS:GO community knows.

Yesterday, Robin ”Fifflaren” Johansson and the team announced his withdrawal from the competitive CS:GO scene. After winning every tournament possible (22 titles on lan, 29 finals, 32 top 4 spots), he will no longer be a part of Ninjas in Pyjamas. The most successful team in Counterstrike history, who up until yesterday never changed a player during a two and a half year period, will now never look the same.

Fifflaren was a team player in the true meaning of the word. He took on the dirty work without complaining and paved the way for his more flashy teammates. Outside the screen and the large stages he was one of the most well spoken and positive eSports professionals I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. The reactions from the community after his decision only validates my view, as pros from all over the world celebrated him. CS:GO has lost a major profile.

But as celebrated as he was for his personality and antics, he was equally debated and even hated when it came to his in game performance. In a team filled with superstars and top fraggers, he was always in the background. The stats could never quite measure up to those of Christopher ”Get_Right” Alesund, Adam ”Friberg” Friberg and Patrik ”F0rest” Lindberg, making him an easy target for criticism when the team lost. And his teammates took some of the flak as well, as every bad game was followed by a stream of ”time to get rid of Fifflaren” posts on Facebook and Twitter.

In an interview after ESL One, he claimed he didn’t care about all the hate, that he didn’t read what people wrote about him. But the question is how much it has worn him down. No person could stand that kind of criticism day in and day out without it affecting ones well being. Now, both Fifflaren and Ninjas in Pyjamas will no longer have to handle those comments and that must be a relief for both parties.

According to the teams’ press release, the decision to quit was Johanssons. But wether or not that’s true is questionable. Following the latest string of bad results, the team needed a change and Fifflaren was simply the most logical player to replace. The silence from his teammates, and the over-eagerness from CEO Per Liliefelth when he explained that there was no conflict behind the decision and that it was Fifflarens choice leads me to believe that there’s more to the story. Things might surface when everyone involved can distance themselves from the news.

Even though the team came out of a deep slump, Fifflaren and his NiP still managed to win ESL One in Cologne giving Johansson his first ever major title. If he had retired back then, he would’ve ended things on a high note. But a decision like that is of course hard to make right after the biggest success of his career. The win didn’t become the turning point for the team either, when the slump continued during the fall. That has to be a deciding factor in his decision. It’s hard to imagine that he’d quit if NiP had won DreamHack Stockholm and ESWC.

For Fifflaren, the career seems to be over. But for Ninjas in Pyjamas the hard work has just begun. DreamHack Winter with another major is right around the corner and now they have to get a new player used to their system. NiP:s curse is that they will always be compared to themselves and their 87-0 record in the beginning of the teams journey. The fans will not suddenly excuse them if DreamHack Winter turns out to be another failure, and the questions is what the ninjas will do if Fifflaren’s departure doesn’t turn their bad form around.

On Thursday, they will present their new player. But no matter how things turn out for Ninjas in Pyjamas in the future, noone can take away the fact that they are the most successful CS:GO team of all times.

And Fifflaren will now and always be a legend in the community.