Hello there,

I know I have been pretty bad at writing here at the Fnatic site recently. I don’t really have any good excuse, but I was thinking I could make up for that by writing something more comprehensive than the usual tournament update. It struck me the other day for how long I have been playing CS competitively. Somehow I have dodged more bullets than James Bond to push the inevitable retirement further away into an unforeseeable future. I have seen some great players give up on the game due to the motivation issues and in some cases because their skill didn’t match up as the competition evolved, players that I, at the time, thought were better than me. It’s funny how I ended up here, I’m not really sure myself. Given the tricky nature of learning something and then relearn it, which is essentially what you need to do in CS because the way you play nowadays is a lot different from just a couple of years ago, not to mention how completely different it is from when I started, I am pretty darn happy about still being in one of the best teams in the world. We are people of habits and sometimes bad habits are not necessarily easy to; a) identify and b) do something about. It would be easier for a new and somewhat decent player trying to turn pro to get to a high level now if he had somebody teaching him to get good, because then he wouldn’t have any sort of backbone assumptions of how to play to fall back to, which I probably do. But then again, when CS evolves even further he would sooner or later be facing the same problems. I don’t feel like my individual skill right now is at its peak given our very busy traveling schedule with very limited practice time, but I know what I need to do to get there, and I am planning to make an effort to finish this good run I’ve had within competitive gaming with strong performances. So do I still enjoy playing CS? Absolutely, I thrive on playing tournaments and that is not something that will change.

Right now I am on the plane to China to play the MSI Beat It tournament, a tournament the whole team is looking forward to. I think Beijing is an amazing city for a tournament with its interesting cultural legacy, contemporary culture and good gaming environment with a lot of gamers and fans. We have been playing at LAN for three days before this, which is not a whole lot, but we all had our vacation days for the summer after e-Stars in Seoul. After this tournament I am not sure what our next tournament is. We are not attending WCG as I believe most of you know. I hear a lot of people talking about how prestigious WCG is, but in my opinion WCG have been pretty bad the two years I had the chance of playing it. When we attended the tournament in 2007 the rules for CS were just insanely stupid and in 2009 a couple of countries got the chance to stay at a very good hotel 100 meters from the venue with a great breakfast buffet while some countries, including Sweden, were staying at a not so great smaller place a bus trip away, with a not so great breakfast including very sweet bread and over boiled eggs. Also, after playing the first map in the final 2009 at stage we were told to pack up and head to the tournament area again to play the remainder of the game. WCG is not what I would use as a benchmark for a successful tournament and thus it doesn’t bother me a whole lot not going there this year. I would want to go just for the sake of the competition and I wouldn’t say no going to LA, but the situation is what it is and we have to live with not going.

The summer this year has been great, the only thing that bums me out a bit is that I moved to a new place in the beginning of the summer and I haven’t had a chance to hang out at home and set everything up. I guess that’s what I will be doing come rainy days in September after MSI Beat It. I will also start to run and work out a bit more in September as the summer has been an off period for me with the exercising. For once it will feel pretty good returning home after Beijing for more than a couple of days to see friends and family.

I think this is pretty much what I wanted to write right now, but if you think you have any good suggestions for upcoming blogs feel free to drop a comment and I’ll take all feedback into consideration.

Yours truly,

D to the SN