Of all the countries in the world, Sweden is the typical country when it comes to Counter-Strike games. Over the years, Sweden has almost always had one of the best teams in the world. Talent as well as ability to play as a team is called legendary, as is the history written by Swedish gamers. However, at the present time, they are no longer considered the best country in CS in the world. The last time a Swedish team was considered the best in the world was in early 2016, when Fnatic won a total of six LAN tournaments. Since then, Sweden has gradually declined as both Fnatic and NiP lost their flashy silhouettes. When the old method no longer works, the two teams are forced to take young talent to the next level. During the transition of generations, Jonas “Lekr0” Olofsson rose from being a pawn to becoming a leader who represented a new generation of Swedish players to rise to the top.
The first time people heard about the name Lekr0 in the international arena was at DreamHack Masters Malmo in 2016. Before the tournament, GODSENT recruited Lekr0 on recommendation from Simon “twist” Elasson and Markus “pronax” Wallsten. GODSENT surprised the world when it reached the semi-finals, losing to compatriot NiP. In that journey, Lekr0 is considered an important factor. This player with great skill is the second brightest star after twist and has rounds that leave an indelible impression. However, like other talented rookies, he was unable to replicate his form after that.
DreamHack Malmo is the highest achievement that GODSENT has achieved and no next line-up of the organization has achieved those results. Although that tournament helped Lekr0 shine, he is still not considered a top player in Sweden. In the end, Lekr0 is still just a young rookie and soon becomes a key player in Fnatic’s transfer game. The top Swedish teams possess legends. Fnatic still has: Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson, Jesper “JW” Wecksell, Dennis “dennis” Edman, Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer, and Robin “flusha” Ronnquist. Four of these five names are still in the all-time great squad.
As for NiP, they still believe in four key members: Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg, Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund, Adam “friberg” Friberg, and Richard “Xizt” Landstrom. No top Swedish team wants to recruit new talent and only the collapse of Fnatic in 2016 made that happen.
Fnatic was then demoted by Luminosity as the best team in the world. Although it has always made it to the top 4 at many events, the results tell a different story. At the same time, olofmeister has to deal with trauma, leading to internal turmoil. Whatever the reason, at the end of ELEAGUE Season 1, the team decided to keep Olofmeister and dennis, while KRIMZ, flusha and JW reunited with pronax to play for GODSENT.
As for Lekr0, he was one of the players who changed to Fnatic with a twist. This change resulted in bad results for both parties and after two unsuccessful months, they took it one step further. It’s a rivalry between olofmeister/dennis and JW/flusha. KRIMZ was the one in the middle and decided to return to Fnatic. Thus, after two months, Lekr0 returned to GODSENT again. During this period, he seems to be just a pawn on the Fnatic board. A piece used in exchange for more convenient choices on the board.
However, things started to change. After the Swedish transfer period ended, Lekr0 returned to play for GODSENT. He continued to improve himself during this time. At the same time, both NiP and Fnatic gradually realized that the old method no longer worked. Fnatic returned to the Dennis roster of early 2016 in 2018, but failed to return to the top. As for NiP, the plan to change the 5th member was not enough, and the team had to eliminate friberg in 2018. Replacing friberg, NiP recruited Fredrik “REZ” Sterner. This is a seismic move as NiP is gradually changing the way it thinks about its future lineup.
Fnatic soon realized the same thing. After the PGL Krakow Major, the Fnatic roster split up. Dennis goes to GODSENT. Olofmeister to FaZe. In their place, Fnatic decided to bet on young people. The team put Maikil “Golden” Selim as IGL. Golden was previously an IGL for Fnatic’s second team and they decided to give him the opportunity. Lekr0 also returned to Fnatic.
These two members revived Fnatic. Golden and Lekr0 became the second star of the team. Together, the two achieved many good results: the top 4 ESL Proleague Season 6 Finals and the ECS Season 4 Finals at the end of 2017. In early 2018, the team finished top 4 at the ELEAGUE Boston Major, leaving early at the StarLadder i-League Season 4. , but won the IEM World Championship and WESG.
Despite the positive results, team problems gradually surfaced in Fnatic, when rumors of Golden being kicked from the roster. This came when the team lost to StarLadder and only the IEM World Championship and WESG kept him. Golden partly confirmed the rumor to be true by tweeting below:
I stay.
— Maikil Selim (@goldenmajk) March 18, 2018
As for Lekr0, it is not clear whether he was eliminated or left on his own. Whatever it was, NiP and Fnatic exchanged: Lekr0 joined NiP, and William “draken” Sudin joined Fnatic.
For NiP, this is a great deal. Draken has been playing for NiP for over a year but still hasn’t improved his AWP. Lekr0 on the other hand is constantly evolving and was once one of Fnatic’s superstars. Although the team no longer has a main AWPer, the difference between Lekr0 and draken is clear.
However, NiP had leadership problems. At the beginning of that year, NiP recruited Dennis from GODSENT and he became a temporary IGL even though he didn’t want to. This problem happened after ESL Cologne 2018. At that time, Lekr0 decided to take over IGL, according to an interview from HLTV:
“Dennis decided he didn’t want to be IGL anymore and I volunteered for the position, I said I could try, if people like it we can keep doing it, and if not, someone can try the position. this mind.”
This is a shocking move and many believe it will happen just like the past Nathan “NBK-” Schmitt – NBK- took the role for a short time and then gave up. However, Lekr0 received praise from the members.
“I am very happy that he really wants to be IGL. I think Lekr0 is still learning and the way he behaves in is amazing. He always thinks about what to do next, at some point in the game: “what options do we have, what ideas can the team come up with?” – forest talks about lekr0 when talking about the role of IGL with HLTV
Over the past few months, Lekr0’s IGL capabilities have continuously grown. As leader, he used two different ways of playing. The first is the default playstyle, relying on the team’s superstars for kills and information, then making decisions in the middle of the round. The other style is to deploy tactics or hit the site. He confirmed this in an interview with HLTV,
“We played in a very loose default style and most of the influence came from calls in the middle of the round, based on the information the team got from the opposing side. The information people give during the game is very important for us to play in this loose way. But when communication is not possible and not playing confidently, the team often plays more tactically.”
Since taking over the IGL at NiP, the team started to move up the ranks. Before Lekr0 era, NiP was considered a tier 2 team with bad results at international LAN tournaments. Although the team tries to find better members and when it comes to shooting skills, NiP has many names, the results are disappointing.
However, after Lekr0 joined, NiP gradually returned. While Lekr0’s IGL isn’t as computationally intensive as Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander, it works well with the players that NiP owns. In addition, he continues to excel in the IGL position – which is precious especially when the rest of the team fails to explode.
Lekr0 is now one of the key players of NiP. he is the leader the team needs to take it to the next level and is arguably the best leader Sweden has at the moment, if you take into account individual skill. There are two reasons for this. The first is the long history of being able to learn from others as well as playing CS. Lekr0 recalls the following:
“I think I had very good IGLs, I learned the best things from pronax back then, and when I first played for fnatic, with olofmeister and dennis, I really learned a lot from olof, even though he didn’t. must be IGL. But the ability to communicate and what you can do with communication, I learned a lot from that. That’s what I’m improving now. And playing against the same old teams with GOLDEN, flusha and dennis – I think GOLDEN is the real IGL, the other two can be but they don’t see it as the main role, they have too much experience.”
The other reason is the trust that the NiP players have in him. The legends seem to trust Lekr0 completely, in GOLDEN’s case he has never had the same trust from Fnatic. Alternatively, it’s possible that Faruk “pita” PIta has had a certain degree of influence on him as a NiP coach and is a seasoned veteran himself. Recalling what GeT_RiGhT said about LekR0 in Drop the BombTV, “…I think if people give him enough time, Lekr0 will become a top player.”
During the Fnatic-GODSENT 2016 transfer window, Lekr0 was the jiggling piece between the two teams when one of the team’s top players wanted to change organizations. He was neither supported nor trusted as the team’s superstar at that time. However, when that process stabilized, Lekr0 had time to build herself with GODSENT. Then he went to Fnatic and proved himself. Now that he has joined NiP and is a support for superstars and teams, Lekr0 has become one of the mainstays of the top name CS:GO team. This is the story of Lekr0. He surprised us with a blast at DreamHack Malmo. Lekr0 then became the key player in the 2016 Fnatic transfer. Now, he is the leader of NiP. Next time, surely the next generation of Swedish players will rise to the top and Lekr0 will be one of the stars representing this generation.
According to VPesports
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Source link: CSGO: From chess pieces to leaders, the story of Lekr0
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