He didn’t know it yet, but this summer of 2012 was going to be the starting point of one of the most beautiful, if not the most beautiful adventure in the history of Counter-Strike. Ninjas in Pijamas invests a lot directly on CS : Global Offensive, the five players get professional contracts, full-time for most of them and Fifflaren can focus fully on the game, like four years earlier during the CGS. Besides, the game mechanics of Global Offensive have a lot in common with Source, this is why his teammates asked him to lead them in-game.

After having lead all the best Swedish teams of CS:Source, Fifflaren was designated to lead three 1.6 veterans, of which two are legendary players. It wasn’t an easy mission, but it couldn’t have started better.

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The five Ninjas in Pyjamas players got involved in this new game as soon as it went into beta, and as usual, the ones who played the most were the best. The Swedish players will use this temporary advantage to get ahead of their European adversaries. Their first victory was a lan organized by SteelSeries with a cash prize of € 3500. It was the first of an absolutely unbelievable victory streak.

In September 2012, during the DreamHack Valencia, NiP face foreign teams for the first time, including VeryGames (Ex6TenZ, SmithZz, RpK, kennyS NBK), the colossus from Source that was already the Swedish team’s rival, at least on paper. The rivalry between these two team will materialize in a finale that was globally dominated by Ninjas in Pyjamas, who won their first European title with this match. Everything seemed to go well in the team and yet, a first modification was done inside the roster and Xizt, the ex-Fnatic 1.6 player, took the lead in the team, leaving Fifflaren with the status of “support player”.

The next appointment is taken at ESWC 2012, first “major” event for CS:GO with a 20.000$ cash prize and the presence of the developer team. Once again, NiP flies above others teams, they concede 13 rounds to the brazilian (rkz, zakk, cogu, zqk, Steel) before eliminating the Golden 5 (kuben, Loord, Neo, TaZ, pasha) in semi-final and taking apart VeryGames in the final. Ninjas in Pyjamas is world champion, undefeated in Lan and has, three months after game’s release, a huge psychological advantage on every other competitors.

Next, Fifflaren and his teammates are awaited at DreamHack Winter. They almost lost against Mousesports  (RattlesnK, Mx, prb, stingeR, pT) in group stage, and then again in the semi-final. Nevertheless, the steamroller concede only ten rounds against VeryGames in a one way final.

The Ninjas are engaged or qualified in the last three events in 2012. Three competitions they will surpass with insolent ease.

Starting with eSportsHeaven in Prague where they will beat the Frenchs representatives easily in quarter final, semi-final and final. The Scandinavian championship or “Thor Open” is only a formality, with just a bit more difficulty against Curse (natu, naSu, ScarK, allu, reflex). And finally, the NorthCon, a reference Lan in Germany where all can witness the gulf between Ninjas in Pyjamas and the others. The Swedes won their sixth title in a row by not conceding more than nine round per map.

Their first terror occurs at Copenhagen Games 2013. Winners of Techlabs Cups Moscow and the Mad Catz Vienne, the NiP will stumble against Virtus.Pro (kucheR, AdreN, Fox, Dosia, ANGE1) in good shap at that time. Nevertheless the Swedes manage to overcome them, 16-13,16-11. Ninth trophy in a row

It’s finally one week later, during the 5th season of the StarSeries that Virtus.Pro realise the impossible. The Russo-Ukrainian team become the first players to win a game against Ninjas in Pyjamas offline. More than that, they’ll confirm their good performance during the grand final and left the Swedes to an unusual second place.

Virtus.Pro puts an end to a record in the history of Counter-Strike : 87 maps won in a row at lan. This number is often took as a reference whenever people try to describe how Ninjas in Pyjamas was in another dimension at this moment.

Still number one unless…

The team could have had hard time recovering from this defeat but the opposite is gonna happen and NiP will prove it only few days later on the other side of the Atlantic, in Dallas. There again, Fifflaren, who’s becoming more and more criticized for his individual statistic, and his teammates are gonna settle the argument with guns. The final of the event will be remembered as one of the nicest match in the history of CS:GO as it ended 16-14 and 16-14 in favor of NiP, of course.

After ensuring their supremacy in Sweden by successively winning  the Svecup, the Swedish Championship and the DreamHack Summer with the famous ninja-defuse from Xizt saving the team from a premature elimination in the group stage, the Ninjas in Pyjamas will meet again with their peeve : Virtus.Pro during the semi final of the EMS RaidCall One Summer. There again, the Russian/Ukrainian team will prevent them to access their 17th consecutive grand final.

They will nevertheless manage to win, after long fights, the three following competitions : the StartSeries VI, l’ESEA XV Invite and the DreamHack Bucharest.

Yet, it’s a change in the rival team VeryGames with shox replacing kennyS that will lead NiP to doubt. The Franco-Belgian never ever beat the Swedes so far. Nevertheless they’ll manage to do so for the first time during the qualifications of the MSI Beat It, and a second time offline, during the final of the 7th season of the StarSeries.

When VeryGames win for the second time the EMS RaidCall One by beating Ninjas in Pyjamas in the grand final after a sumptuous game, the Swedes started to receive a lot of criticisms, and especially Fifflaren. For the first time in more than a year, their rank number one is contested. Their new defeat against VeryGames and their top 4 at the 2013 ESWC doesn’t help the situation.

One month away from DreamHack Winter, the first tournament to be supported by Valve, Ninjas in Pyjamas seems to be in pretty bad shape. The filming of a TV show following them in their gaming house accentuate even more the criticisms towards Fifflaren, people seeing Dreamhack Winter as a last chance for him.

Ninjas in Pyjamas seemed to be at their best after entering the huge venue full of computers in Jönköping. First of their group thanks to victories over Recursive and Universal Soldiers, they’ll lose a map against the impressive LGB eSports (dennis, SKYTTEN, olofm, eksem, KRiMZ) before winning and then meet VeryGames in a semi-final that looks like a final. A crazy game in which both team will have their chance but on nuke, third map, the Ninjas in Pyjamas will revive the demons that we thought forgotten on the French side and finally take their revenge on the French squad at the best of times.

Qualified for the grand final against Fnatic (pronax, devilwalk, flusha, JW, schneider), the scenario of the game will be substantially similar to the semi-finals with the exception that it’s their opponents who will take the advantage on the last map, Train. A surprising defeat for the public's favorites who seemed untouchable after their victory over VeryGames. Nevertheless, the performance is there and the  $50,000 in the bank account, too.

Very few competitions take place between the two major events. NiP logically won the final of the Svecup against LGB eSports and ended second behind Titan during the DreamHack TV6 Invitational. The finalists of the DH Winter arrive in Katowice for the second major with the status of favorite team next to Titan, then announced as the team to beat.

And if Titan already failed during the group stage, Ninjas in Pyjamas reach the quarter final without any problem. There again, like they did two weeks earlier in Jönköping, NiP lose Dust2, here against compLexity (sgares, n0thing, swag, semphis, Hiko) before dominating on the two next maps. A pretty easy win over Dignitas (FeTiSh, cajun, xyp9x, dev1ce, dupreeh) in semi final makes them reach their second final of a major event. Only problem, it’s impossible to go against the prophecy. A prophecy that wanted the polish guys from Virtus.Pro (Snax, byali, Neo, TaZ, pasha) to win in front of their 12,500 supporters. And here, in Katowice, Virtus.Pro was above anyone else, including Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Two majors, two silver medals. The Ninjas in Pyjamas will take their revenge at the Copenhagen Games 2014 by winning the tournament over those same polish guys. A new title in an european event seven month after their last trophy acquired at the DreamHack Bucharest. The team will impress again during the DreamHack Summer 2014 by keeping their title with victories against Titan, HellRaisers (markeloff, AdreN, kucheR, Dosia, ANGE1) and Natus Vincere (starix, Edward, GuardiaN, Zeus, Seized). June 2014, Ninjas in Pyjamas aren’t invincible anymore but remain the best team in the world.

The downfall

The end of June and especially the ESEA Invite XVI finals marked the beginning of a downfall for Ninjas in Pyjamas. Beaten by compLexity and Virtus.Pro, Ninjas in Pyjamas are out of the tournament and end for the first time in their history outisde the top 4 of a lan. A poor performance repeated a month later at the Gfinity 3 where Ninjas in Pyjamas took advantage of some quite strange rules to move to the brackets before falling heavily against Dignitas.

Yet more than ever bottomed out, Ninjas in Pyjamas will experience a miracle at ESL One Cologne, the third major. It almost seems like there is a divine power on this game. Reaching the quarterfinals with a win over Hellraisers, Fifflaren and his cronies will go through all kinds of emotions. Led, upset at every step of the competition, they will impose themselves on the wire at each meeting. 16-14 on the third map against Cloud9 (Shroud, n0thing, Semphis, Hiko, Sgares) in the quarterfinals, 16-14 on the third map against LDLC (apEX, Happy, Maniac, KQLY, Uzzziii) in semifinals, 16-13 on the third map against Fnatic (KRiMZ, olofm, pronax, flusha, JW) during the final. When we least expected it, NiP won the greatest success of their career.

But more time goes, and more this achievement sounds like a "one-shot" although it is difficult to use this term for such a team.

One month later, during the DreamHack Stockholm, NiP won’t even make it through the group stage for the first time in their history, beaten by Titan and LDLC. Online, they won’t manage to qualify to any competition. While they were announcing a lot of changes for the ESWC 2014, it was hard to notice them except maybe for their jersey change and the brief come-back for Fifflaren to the Leader-in-game position. Same disappointing story, Ninjas in Pyjamas don’t go through the group stage after losing pretty hard against Titan and getting humiliated by Platinium-eSport.

Two days after the event, the news hits : Fifflaren leaves the team. The first roster change in more than two years of existence.

August 2012 to November 2014 

 Ninjas in Pyjamas : Fifflaren, GeT_RiGhT, f0rest, Xizt, Friberg 

SteelSeries GO   DreamHack Valencia 2012   ESWC 2012   DreamHack Winter 2012   eSportsHeaven Prague Lan    Thor Open    NorthCon 2012   Mad Catz Vienna   TechLabs Cup Moscou  Copenhagen Games 2013   Finales SLTV V   EMS RaidCall One Spring

Finales ESEA XIII Invite   Svecup #2   ESPORTSM 2013   DreamHack Summer 2013   EMS Raidcall One Summer   Finales SLTV VI   Finales ESEA XIV Invite   DreamHack Bucharest 2013   Finales SLTV VII   EMS Raidcall One Fall 4.  ESWC 2013   DreamHack Winter 2013

Finales Svecup   DreamHack Invit.   EMS One Katowice 2014   Copenhagen Games 2014   Finales SLTV IX    ESPORTSM 2014   DreamHack Summer 2014 5/6.  Finales ESEA XVI Invite 5/8.  Gfinity 3    ESL One Cologne 5/6.  DreamHack Stockholm

At the head of almost all Swedish teams who had a real role on the Source scene, Robin "Fifflaren" Johansson has gone from iconic player to the most decried and criticized player in the history of Counter-Strike. Never has a player been under that much pressure to each of its tournaments. His record and series of victories will probably remain as the best answer to his detractors.

Never a player has managed to remain this calm about incessant waves of criticism or even insults. Fifflaren is primarily a smile and a permanent good humor to every event. An attitude that should serve as an example to any player wishing to become a professional in this game.

Fifflaren takes a well-deserved retirement and at the same time gets a beautiful spot in the eSports Hall of Fame.

Sources : Cadred.org, Xplayn.com, actu-lan.fr

Translation by Sephi, Jus, Marcadet, SicknesS. Thanks to them.