SK's performance at this past weekend's EM LA event was spectacular. Yesterday it was clear that only MiBR was in their league, giving them their sole loss in the tournament and sending them to the lower bracket. They battled back, and after trouncing EG in the consolation finals they were back in the server with the Brazilians, and looking for redemption. MiBR had some padding, only having to win one match to claim victory, while SK needed two.

SK started off great, feeding off the momentum from their 16-1 win over EG, and completely steamrolled MiBR on Inferno. Then they headed over to Train, the map which saw the most play time over this weekend and served as an appropriate battleground to decide the event's winner. Following their thrilling overtime victory, GotFrag was able to sit down with Marcus "zet" Sundstrom of SK to get his thoughts about the weekend.

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You guys came back from the lower bracket to win the entire event. On top of that, you faced the only team to beat you at this event in the finals. How did it feel to come back and return the favor to MiBR?

It feels awesome. I don’t know about the rest of the guys, but I needed my revenge. So that was the mindset for me when we played against MiBR because I think we are the better team, I really wanted to show that, and I think we did. We even beat them in two maps so that was even more confirmation that we are the better team.


Speaking of revenge, I noticed you typing “This is revenge for WCG” to the MYM guys. Was that loss at WCG really haunting you up to this point?

For sure. That game was probably the one I wanted to win the most. We were in the finals for WCG. We won one map each and they took the last one. I really wanted to get my revenge and I'm glad I did.


We had spoken briefly about how MiBR is one of those teams who keeps a record of everything other teams do while they are playing them in scrims. Since you guys were sort of practice partners during their bootcamp in Sweden, did you take that into account when you were playing them at this event and try to switch things up a bit?

Well Walle is our tactical leader so he often thinks about stuff like that. When he comes up with ideas he is always thinking about what the other teams will be thinking, so it’s always anti what they are thinking. I mean you can never really know exactly what a team is thinking, but that is how he puts together a plan and tries to do the opposite of what is expected.


I noticed that after the finals match, tentpole joked around a bit with you saying “look, we won even with this source player.” Have you been catching a lot of flak for leaving the Swedish scene behind and playing CSS in the US?

Well he was just joking around with me, it wasn’t anything serious. I think outside of that, none of the guys have ever even mentioned it. But yea I guess some other guys have been joking about it. I think it’s aimed more to our opponents like “Look! You just lost to some source player who came back from no where,” so it’s more on them rather than me.


Speaking of your time in America, what made you decide to leave everything behind and try your hand at CGS and CSS?

Well NiP kind of fell apart, so when I got the opportunity to move to the US and get a visa and all that I was like “I have to take this shot.” I figured I would probably never get another chance to move outside of Sweden, getting paid for it and everything. The US is considered one of the top ten countries to live in, so it felt like a no brainer.


What did you think about your time here? What did you learn about, not just about the CS scene, but the culture here in general?

It’s a little bit different than in Sweden. Everybody is so nice, and they are brought up to be nice. They are taught manners so when they speak to you it’s always “sir and ma’am” and stuff like that. Its nice. People who don’t know you usually come up to you and are very polite. Whereas in Sweden I think people are more laid back like “hey what’s up,” in the States people would be more formal and proper.


It kind of seemed like toward the end of your stay in America, that you were really… ready to go home. It seemed clear that you weren’t really all that happy here anymore and that you were ready to head back it Sweden and give 1.6 another shot. Were you really anxious to get back?

Well it wasn’t really like that. I was actually ready to play another season of CGS. I mean it was like a week before the start of the new season that we agreed I would leave. So I was ready to play another season for sure, and I would stay another season if I got drafted after that. I don’t know. It was like, all of the people that I met were through the complexity people. I was friends with people, but only through others. I guess I just missed my friends and family. I was just homesick. I probably would have stayed and felt fine. Everything was good when I was there until the end when I had to go home.


So you came back, and played in mixes for a few months, then you find yourself back on a top team in the world, and a month after that you guys have your first international win in a pretty long time. Would you consider this a major win for you guys even though there were only a few European teams in attendance?

Yea for sure. All of the good European teams were here. I guess we might be missing some of the German teams, maybe emulate, wNv, and some Russian guys. But really all of the major top teams were here. Even some good American teams were here like EG. Well, then again we had two fairly easy matches against them. I don’t even know how those other teams lost against them.


So I guess you don’t think EG is all that great then?

Ah, no, not really. I mean they are good but I don’t consider them being a top ten team. I haven’t seen them at any other events playing this good or getting this many wins. All of their wins came on train, which I guess means teams weren’t scared of them on that map, but I guess it is one of their best maps. I think if the Europeans would have played them on different maps, thing might have been different. Who knows.


You guys took the win at WCG Sweden, where fnatic didn’t really do so well, losing early on. In your minds, is SK the best team in Sweden right now?

Oh yea for sure. I consider SK the best team in Sweden, by far. I mean the only games we’ve lost so far have been against MiBR, and evilzone in the Dreamhack tournament. So yea, I wouldn’t be able to pick another team besides us to be the best in Sweden because we are winning almost all of our matches right now.


How about in the world?

The gap is really so close between all of the top teams, so it’s really hard to say. I mean we are obviously we are the best right now. I really feel that way. We’ve been playing so much so we might have a bit of an advantage right now because of that. We’ve really been giving it our all, playing between five and six days a week. I have over a hundred hours of play time on my steam account for the past two weeks. So yea, it’s been crazy.


Ok, well thanks a lot. Would you like to give any shout outs or anything like that?

Let’s go SK. Everyone, we’re coming to get’cha.