f0rest: “I'll give it to [Astralis], they played incredible, for us it felt like almost perfect CS”

87-0. 87 consecutive offline map wins during Global Offensive’s inception, a streak that will never be replicated. Approaching six years since such a streak was broken and NiP is a very different team, with only two players enduring to this day from the original lineup.

Injected with the youthful talents of REZ and Lekr0 alongside the experience of dennis this Swedish side harnesses a plethora of versatile individuals. However, lacking a seasoned leader difficulties arise in making use of their talented players and although the Swedes are moving in a positive direction, plenty of refinement remains ahead of them.

Held by many as the greatest player across different versions in Counter-Strike, we talked to f0rest following NiP’s Major quarterfinals finish and explored the inner workings of the Swedish side.

Allan: Touching on Lekr0 in the In Game Leader role, it has been about a year since NiP's long standing caller in Xizt departed, how difficult was Lekr0’s transition to being IGL and is he still adjusting?

f0rest: Lekr0 definitely had a hard time at the beginning, he’s never done the role before and none of us in the team are really experienced In Game Leaders. Something important that we showed him was that respect goes a long way. As long as people listen to him and tend to his needs as an In Game Leader he would grow into the role more comfortably. As time went on we had some back and forth, where at times he felt less comfortable with the IGL role but now he’s really starting to get into it and I think all that is needed is time. We’re still fairly new in terms of having a player who has never been an IGL before and just adapting to the role overall. I still consider us a team trying to find our playstyle, even now it doesn’t really feel like we’ve reached that point where we can say this is the way we play. One game we play bad and then another we really put up a fight versus Astralis. For example, we put up a really good fight against MIBR but then suddenly lose to Winstrike, once we can just eliminate these mistakes and work it out as a team, I think we will be good to go.

Being a former coach of NiP, pita returned a year ago, what does pita bring to bring to the Ninja’s as a coach?

Pita is the one coming up with new ideas, figuring out new tactics, new styles we should try, he is the one studying our opponents with what maps they play and what we should do against them. Outside the game he takes on a more management sort of role, he is trying to at least, there’s a lot of stuff that’s happening. Overall he is just trying to improve our gameplay, he works closest with Lekr0 and I would even say that dennis is in on how we should do certain stuff. Between pita and Lekr0 I think they are doing a great job, it’s all about improving and we are still getting there.

NiP has four players that can pick up the AWP if needed, on the CT side NiP switches up who is main AWPing across the maps, why not settle on an primary AWPer?

I think the four of us are comfortable using the AWP, none of us though is a breeded AWPer and nobody has played the main AWP role. Playing the AWP as a main role is certainly a different playstyle which might take even longer to adapt to than what we are doing now. I think this is the faster approach towards what we want do. As you said four people can play the AWP and it depends on which positions we play on certain maps. When we started to play with each other, we sent players all over the place and then would say “hey dennis you are playing this spot so you should be AWPing on this map”. Except on Dust2, where I would say that I’m the main AWPer. It might not always look like it but all four of us are happy to pick up the AWP and play it, sometimes we might fight over who should play the AWP but that is a problem for another day.

As a follow on, during matches NiP regularly passes the AWP around and moves in and out of double AWPing, particularly on the CT side, how do you decide who is AWPing and where those AWP's are put?

When you have four players that can play the AWP at any given moment someone's going to pick up the AWP and all of a sudden you have a double AWP setup. If a player feels uncomfortable, saying they can't hit bullets with their M4 he's going to ask "hey guys, can you give me the AWP this round". I think a very important part about playing the AWP is having the feeling for it, for example, even if REZ might have started off being the AWPer on Overpass T, he might think this is not the game for me to be AWPing and say "hey f0rest you want to take over" and I'm like "hell yeah give me that AWP". I think we can take away the pressure and help each other in that sense, instead of just forcing REZ for example to be the main AWP where he might not like the role at all.

On the T-side I think NiP leans towards playing heavy contact whilst taking map control and looking opening kills, frequently trying to group and trade onto the CT’s. Do you agree and can NiP adjust from round to round to play more structured if needed?

At times we do rely mostly on individual skill but at some points we do have set rounds. I assume that many people think we do loads of what looks like dry peeking but in our minds we are trying to trade. Not just offering up players, if he gets the entry that's great, if he goes down then we trade onto the CT player. I think we are still trying to define our style and we are still not really certain on how we should approach T side. On Mirage we have a lot of executes, on Overpass we might play more aggressively as T, try to get up in their faces very fast without set strats. It all depends on the map, depends on the mood. We are trying to limit the number of mistakes and if we are not feeling it that day we need something else to fall back on, that’s still something we are working on and we are making good progress.

A topic you touched on earlier was that you don't feel like NiP has a defined style, moving forward what is the plan in this sense: going execute heavy, throwing in more contact plays, playing more standard?

The problem is that I would still consider Lekr0 to be fairly new to being In Game Leader. I also still consider our team fairly new in the sense that most teams have born In Game Leaders and we are still trying out a lot of different stuff. We've just got to find the balance of when we should do the contact plays, when we should do the executes, when we should only rely on executes. I think we just need to figure this out for which team we’re playing, maybe study our opponents a bit more and see what can we punish, where they make the most mistakes. I think this tournament was a good one because although we lost to some teams that we are expected to beat, we then we go on and give Astralis a run for their money on Dust2 and that’s where we need to figure out as a team why we are so up and down, why we cannot find our middle ground and define our style.

Talking about NiP’s quarterfinal against Astralis, throughout the event NiP had been banning Dust2 but during this match you banned Nuke instead. What is the logic behind this choice, presumably you were prepared for them to pick into Dust2?

We have played a couple Bo3's against Astralis, both times they picked into it and even though we think Nuke is a good map for us, coming into this match versus Astralis we thought that we've tried playing Nuke against them, so what can we do differently this time. Considering the maps that came out of the veto, we couldn't really have asked for better and I think having Mirage, Dust2 and Overpass is certainly up there, where this is a chance for us to legitimately beat them. That was our game plan here, even though Dust2 has been our perma ban during the Major, we had one week of practice so we just dove into Dust2 and I think we showed a good result versus Astralis. They said they were surprised we could play Dust2 but I think this shows when we really work for something we can figure things out. We learnt a lot from this game and even though we lost on Dust2 we thought “hey, Dust2 might be back for us”.

Again, during the veto versus Astralis, Train, Mirage and Overpass seemed possible picks for NiP, why go for Mirage and do you think Astralis prepared specifically for this choice?

Mirage is a comfort map for us and I think it’s one of Astralis' worst maps where they have actually lost a lot of games, we've even beaten them on Mirage a few times. Obviously in that game they came in very, very prepared. They did not give us a single moment to think, they just shut us down cold and I think when it got to 8 or 9 to 0 and we'd really got nothing out of the rounds, they just ran away with it. On that day, I'll give it to them, they played incredible, for us it felt like almost perfect CS, whatever we did they shut us down. It might be that we played some bad Counter-Strike but from our perspective we tried pretty much everything we had in our arsenal, we tried literally everything we had and nothing worked. I just have to give it to them, on that day they beat us fair and square and they really did their homework. I think they expected us to pick Mirage and prepared a lot, but I also think if we play Mirage against them again on another day, it’s definitely not going to be the same.

Obviously Mirage did not start brilliantly with NiP failing to pick up any Terrorist rounds, what was going wrong within team: was the pressure getting the better of you, was Lekr0’s calling particularly bad that game?

At the beginning on Mirage I think we had our best chance, we had a 2 on 1 against Xyp9x where the score was 2-0 for them and that would have definitely switched over the momentum [due to Astralis’ economy had they lost the round]. We lose that round but fine, it’s nothing, going into the next round Lekr0 gets two entry kills and we couldn't convert that either. At this point I think the pressure starts to get to you and frustration might build up within the team. Once you can't convert these rounds you just go deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole and that's where the mentality comes in, as a team you need to stop this downhill trajectory and we were trying everything, loads of people chipping in and nothing worked. The individual skill was not their for us either, people were feeling a bit cold, a bit shaky maybe, especially when you are down 0-8 and you haven't killed anybody it’s going to be rough to take initiative and perform as you usually would. Although, I think we did show that could shake it off and laugh about it. At 0-15 down we won the pistol and just went completely ham trying to get the crowd hyped and just denying them the 16-0. Just thinking “fricking hell we did it, we won a round and we're just going to scream at them, get the crowd going”. With that mentality I think we could move into the second map and give them a proper fight and that's something we are also going to take with us, being down, getting recked so hard that people are laughing at you, but still come into the second map with boxing gloves on and put up a good fight.

Despite the prestigious history of the NiP organisation, notable titles in the present day appear out of reach for this cohort of Swedes. Though, in contrast to years gone past, their renewed philosophy towards working as a team to overcome deficiencies is now the modus operandi. Standing between NiP and success is an unfinished jigsaw and although they have all the pieces, championships come from arranging them.

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Photo credit: StarLadder