SK Gaming announced Sundstr�m's signing in the first days of September, a move that left many hoping he could emulate the impressive Ninjas in Pyjamas form that had turned him into an ever-present name on every "favorite starting-five", GotFrag.com forum thread.

GotFrag.com reported in June 2008 that Anton Budak, coach of SK Gaming, was more than keen on bringing Sundstr�m to the team. SK and Sundstr�m would not finalize the deal until three months later.

The wait was a smart move, considering Sundstr�m's longtime absence from 1.6 competition. Even though zet was probably not quite ready in September, Abdisamad "SpawN" Mohamed's unimpressive form and apparent desire to become inactive paved the way for Sundstr�m's arrival. A move that could be classified as a "the lesser of two evils."

With Sundstr�m on board, the team placed first at WCG 2008 Sweden Finals, second at DreamHack Skellefte�, first at EM III Global Challenge LA, second at EM III Global Challenge Montreal, 5th-6th at EM III Global Challenge Dubai and 5th-6th at World e-Sports Masters.

SK Gaming has won twenty-seven times, lost six and drawn twice. Despite the team's impressive overall record, zet's performances since joining SK may tell a different story.

Although today's game relies more on strategy and team coordination rather than pure fragpower, zet's signing became a reality not only because he was a free agent but also because he had been one of Sweden's most skilled Counter Strike players ever.

There is no doubt that SK Gaming's zet has not been at the same level as Ninjas in Pyjamas' zet just yet. Most of you will remember walle's performance against GamePlay in Dubai, RobbaN's great AWP action against Blank, allen's impressive display against fnatic or Tentpole's topnotch game against Meet Your Makers in Los Angeles. Who can name a world-class display by zet since joining SK Gaming?

Sundstr�m's overall stats with SK Gaming

Sundstr�m's stats from EM Montreal

Looking at Sundstr�m's GameSense statistics, one can see that zet's frags have been rare of late, having walked out of EM Montreal the only player from SK to have a negative record and more than 60 frags behind SK's best, walle. Moreover, he scored just 102 frags in 185 rounds, making it a 0.551 Frag Per Round count.

Sundstr�m's stats from Extreme Masters LA

In Los Angeles, Sundstr�m grabbed a +13 record, still SK's worst player. 35 frags behind his next team-mate, RobbaN, and 54 frags behind the team's best player at the event, allen.

Sundstr�m's stats from World e-Sports Masters

At the World e-Sports Masters - where SK crashed out at the group stage - zet was once again the team's worst player with a -12 record, 14 frags behind SK's top fragger in China, Tentpole.

It is impossible to tell whether zet will ever make a return to the form that saw him shine with Ninjas in Pyjamas from 2005 to 2006. He was signed by SK Gaming because, following SpawN's retirement, he was believed to be the best player to fit the bill. Did SK get better with zet's addition/SpawN's departure? Maybe. But so far zet's team-mates have been cloaking his poor form.

With SK Gaming flying to Cologne for the World Cyber Games on the back of two disappointing events, pressure is piling on every player, but specially on zet. Anything less than a top-three finish will come as a shock to the fans - who will be left wondering whether zet is hot or not.

Sundstr�m Photo courtesy of www.esl-world.net

User Comments

A good read, ill admit.

fnatic.MSI Lindberg : glow is HOT

Its gonna take him some time....the fact that he's finishing positive in any match right now against the top teams in the world that have been playing 1.6 the whole time that he's been playing Source is a testament to his skill.

finishing even +1 to MYM and +7 to MiBR LA is pretty impressive to me after his huge long layoff.

its not like he's coL playing online CEVO against US players.

he's on LAN at big international events against the best in the world...

the fact that u call his play poor is really sad.

he's playing amazing given the circumstances.

o and yes, i know he played 1.6 while he played Source but he was playing here in the US and online....no where near playing on LAN in big tourneys

Fate has me highly skilled and loaded with talent - Vince Vaughn

Hes more of a team player now then he was before.

If only he can be like fnx or nak and just switch from 1.6 to CSS like that and still dominate.
Actually I haven't paid attention to how well they actually do in Source/CGS, but who cares

What does "When the real zet?" mean?

now go home and get your fucking shinebox!

he needs time, source f***ed him up like every other player besides frod

"I never thought I'd see hacker get bent over the table on d2, but I think it just happened" -jESUIT

i think "when" was suppose to be "where's"

from one of the best 1.6 swedes to best swede source player to an inconsistent 1.6 player :[

i hope zet gets his groove back soon because SK is one of my favorite teams of all time

This comment was edited at 10/28/2008 10:23 PM

just use ryennn's, he UNLEASHES usp bullets in mehLer

yes gamesense makes the player

lawl at this article

team game. give him a break Luis Mira. :D

healthpoint yo

nice article, good to see the stats.

SK wont win anything for a long time.

"i rofl in your directions." Stupidity at its finest.

#2 he has had more LAN experience in the last year or two than any 1.6 player, because CGS is completely on-site. So for weeks on end he played "face to face"...

ONCE YOU MOVE TO SOURCE, YOU'LL NEVER GET BACK ON COURSE.

bad grammar

there is more to cs then just fragging. zet boosts morale and adds life to the team. right now, he is alot like robban. not a mad fragger but a great team player. only retards look at frags to judge performance. this article is a joke

This comment was edited at 10/28/2008 10:53 PM

man source f*cked him over

http://esportsea.com/users/72708

#10 although your statement is very true, they just been on a bad streak...kind of like fnatic has been on a bad streak of not playing at the level they should be

Yes, zet brings a lot to the game like being a better communicater, and boosts morale. But he brings the team down by being a poor fragger at the moment.

if u dont think that frags are highly indicative of how well a player is playing u are really dumb

im not saying that gamesense is everything, in fact i am very opposed to that idea, but fragging is an absolutely essential part of this game and the best players get the most frags, especially when looking at a period of a couple of months

U GUYS ARE DUMB LOL
i know u all luv ZET n what not

but maybe u should look at sum demos from b4
and compare it to now...

the article is talking about how ZET can no longer put up huge rounds like when he was on NiP...
basically saying "is this the zet we used to know ~"

in the finals match at EM LA i thought zet looked pretty great.

didn't watch the others, but he had a few 3 or 4 kill rounds that were pretty nice

/ggrhino

Just give him some time. Playing source for even a few months will really hurt your 1.6. game.

blame CS:Source!!!!

lol!!!

"Yet, another headshot..."

well not saying that stats doesn't matter but his role in nip is totally different to his role now. when you have some aggressive players in your team such as tentpole and allen you have to calm down a little bit to bring equilibrium. every big team have their defensive rifle guy such as ins in fnatic, mje in mtw, loordb in mym. at nip he was the forest of the team which he isn't anymore so get over it. he will get better stats as he gets more used to sk's style because by being less aggressive you are left mostly lms so his flanks should get better.
on the T side zet is always known getting killed a lot and not caring about it. when he left col hanes had probably better stats but they still had a less impressive year. you need someone who can sell fakes and get killed every round but still be concentrated.
but all in all, zet is way too far to be compared to neo or forest right now. he is just another player on sk while he was THE player in nip.

AYM

sad but true! i guess he need some time D:!

-(Bravo)-Jan1uX

#6 fnx and nak only played CSS for a little while, nowhere near zet's 1 1/2 years.

#mrevolution

#2, you do know that the MiBR team consists of CGS players who are playing 1.6 during their off season? They've probably played less 1.6 than zet, and there's more of them than there is in SK-Gaming, so why aren't MiBR falling apart?

.. oh well, zet was never amazing at Source anyway..

#29; cogu also played in the CGS, and they've played Source just as long as zet did (since the arrival of CGS), remember that zet played 1.6 in coL too!

This comment was edited at 10/28/2008 11:42 PM

i dont think it is fair to call this article bullshit O_O

zet clearly isnt the player he was, he needs to get better or gtfo

dead, DEAD!

you just cannot judge from stats, if you check out the demos, you can see that he always kills on his spot, at least on the last 3 tournaments, he does his job, that's why he's still on SK....

#33 a weak 5th is the difference between world championships and 2nd/3rd/4th place.

Ask exodus (coL. exodus).

#30 .. SK isn't falling apart. They've been more successful than MiBR in recent months.

Bottom line: SK is better now than they were with SpawN. They've been more consistent than any team over the last few events (less mouz I suppose), and with zet continuing to re-gain his game, SK will contend more than they have already.

This comment was edited at 10/29/2008 5:31 AM

hello

article was a good read but it suggests that zet is supposed to be carrying his team as the lone star, not taking into account that cs is a team game.

It's zet.

Don't doubt him.

watched him pull of some amazing clutches, hes just out of form.

iM dblstR intel

for all the people arguing about his time in source, he's been playing and practicing for many months now he should have shaken source off and gotten back to his 1.6 form

also, the entire mibr team switches from 1.6 to source every few months and you dont see them complaining, cogu actually said in an interview that it doesnt affect there game at all. and if you havent noticed mibr has been playing amazing

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2B-0b5KkpA

he didnt do well at all at WEM, in the SK mTw match he died holding inner 3 gun rounds in a row without getting a single frag, really hurt them.

It's noob to look at the frag.Look how he contributed to the playstyle of the team dude.Spawn could not and never boost the pace of the game like zet.That is the difference
Thank to him,SK can have good results at latest events

That's fucked up, What has zet done to this guy?

beast !

I watched a lot of SK's matches. Zet has not played well in general.

Agree with #40 Zet has been especially bad defending inner on train (watch the matches against mibr/blank/mtw)

This comment was edited at 10/29/2008 1:41 AM

I don't really agree, we can really see a progress in his play in the latest events. I remember 2 1on2 he won consecutively vs GamePlay I think. SK still lost the match, but it could've been worse.

Don't forget zet plays as entry fragger in SK, it's really easy to get fragged without fragging one when you play big teams...

All in all, I recognize statistics are here, but when you watch the matches, he's not THAT disappointing fragwise.

he just needs time to get used to the game...

zets like a movie star(1.6) who tried his hand at TV(source) and could never get back in that movie star groove, you NEVER come back ;)

Who said zet ain't performing.> lol he's doing gr8 dats y Sk z on Top b/w Events.> when zet was'nt in sk did u see dem in finals or semis ?.> hardly v seen.> now sk z 2 strong u cant say zet z nt performing gd.>

I can tell u a world display from zet..against gameplay walle was amazing but zet took 2 rounds in the raw in a 1vs2 cituation while sk where ct and sk could have won the game(they score was 15-13 in favor of sk) if bombsite a wasn t falling so easily(the b site fell easily in the overtime).Maybe he didn t have 30 frags but he kept alive sk..
It s a matter of time before he makes a good performance(lots of frags:D)

ps.pardon my english

Put The Cot Down Slowly

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