Cover Image Courtesy: Esports Only | Thumbnail Image Courtesy: DreamHack
The StarLadder Berlin Major 2019 has been a rough ride for some teams, especially Ninjas in Pyjamas who crashed out of the tournament yesterday after facing back-to-back defeats against MIBR, CR4ZY and North.
Finishing the event with a 15th-16th position is something that has hit the organization hard as it doesn’t secure them a Challengers Stage invite for the next Major. While reeling from this episode of distress, William ‘draken’ Sundin took to Twitter to reveal things about his ‘second journey in Nip’.
Via a TwitLonger post the former NiP player who had first played for the side back in 2017-18 contributing to the team's victory in both DH Valencia 2017 and IEM Oakland 2017, had been dropped from the roster after serving the organization for a period of about 15 months.
Following this draken went on to play for teams like Fnatic and Red Reserve, only to find himself being picked up by NiP once again. The catch here was that instead of being picked permanently, he was offered a trial period of minimum six tournaments, post which according to his performance a permanent spot would be offered.
Draken accepting the offer was excited to be back with his former organization, but the thing that upset him was that none of the players knew about his situation entirely. They thought that draken had come into the side as a stand-in for Dennis ‘dennis’ Edman, who at the time had taken a break from competitive play.
Only Faruk ‘pita’ Pita and Hicham Chahine were the ones who knew about the permanent position deal, draken felt sad and disrespected, going on to say that,
“You don’t go behind your player's backs and you DON'T LIE to your ex-player just to make him come back for a false reason. I signed a 10-month long contract, like come on? I expect all of the players to know that I could be back permanently.”
With dennis marking his return NiP went ahead and benched draken, with the whole story now in front of him, he realised what a big mistake he had made.
“I would never have joined NIP if I knew it was for standing-in for only three weeks. We only had 2 hours theory about how we should play and 1 hour of those was on inferno, which we never even played during these 2 events (Blast Sao Paulo/Starladder Shanghai). So basically I just took dennis role but had an AWP instead, which fucked up our T sides a bit, I wasn’t comfortable in my game because of that. But I just tried to focus on the bigger picture, I tried to let the NiP-boys shine and not play around everywhere, with aggressive peeks and calling setups.”
Not only was draken tied to the organization for 10 months now, but even when he played in tournaments like BLAST Pro Series: Sao Paulo 2019 and StarSeries & i-League Season 7, he wasn’t enjoying his time due to restrictions in the available role, so he just took a backseat and let others take command of the situation.
Tied in a contract with NiP, it was all too frustrating for draken who wanted to play with another team called Uruguay3 (GamerLegion).
“The whole situation was unfair because we had something really great going on in Uruguay3 (GamerLegion) and now I can't go back.”
But despite this, he praises Kevin ‘Ex6TenZ’ Droolans for helping him become a better AWPer.
“He really showed me dedication and setups how you can play around an awper like me. He taught kennyS, toinou and more players from the French scene.”
With just months left for his contract to expire, draken made up his mind to and tried out with a new team called Ancient. The team was made around their star player Nicolas ‘Plopski’ Gonzalez Zamora.
They did quite well for themselves qualifying for Europe Minor Championship - Berlin Major 2019 and also stood second at DreamHack Summer. As success was coming for the side and they felt confident, NiP jumped in and struck a deal with Plopski, who accepted the offer and went ahead to join them.
This got on draken’s nerve who went on to say the following,
“Yeah.. they steal our best player, (of course his decision) just like the Swedish scene have done for ages now. And it really screws up the team that we had built with sweat and hard work. I mean... they couldn't even field him at the major? Is this some sick prank to just fuck me over or something?”
With the departure of their ace, Team Ancient disbanded as all the players went their separate ways. Coming to the end of his side of the story, Draken concludes by saying that,
“Massive success is the best revenge. In my dream, I would be part of a team of young talented Swedes with me, Hampus REZ Plopski and Brollan.
Holy fuck - we would climb the rankings like a Space-X rocket.
Maybe… If you want to see this team, I might open up a crowdfund, so Sweden can get back on top.”
Though not directly related to any of the issues or the investigation going on against Ninjas in Pyjamas, it does show how the organization treats some of its players and the cunning tactics used to recruit players for the side.
