Professional gamers have always been the center of attention in the world of eSports. Every gamer has a special trait of his or her own that makes them shine in one way or another, be it smart, funny, charming, or even shy. One gamer in particular that has caught the attention of the community would have to be Marcus Sundstrom, more commonly known by the alias “zet”. Marcus is certainly someone gamers, both casual and competitive alike, can relate to. Starting out as a relatively unknown player, he has been able to overcome the odds several times to break through as one of the most talented Counter-Strike players in the world today.

Born in Sollentuna, Sweden, a small municipality just fifteen minutes away from the major city of Stockholm, on June 9th 1987, Marcus was just like any other child with his two parents and older brother, Andreas. He had several hobbies that included lots of sports like pingpong, hockey, and floorball, a fast and dynamic indoor team sport popular in Sweden. Even with his tremendous amount of outside activities and friends, Marcus always found himself spending most of his time on his computer, eventually playing his first computer game with his older brother. With his growing interest in computers, Marcus found himself playing more and more computer games with his real life friends. These games included old school game titles like StarCraft, WarCraft, and Quake 3. Even with this bountiful list of games, Marcus soon found himself drifting towards another game that his friends introduced him to: Counter-Strike.
Marcus began playing Counter-Strike when his classmates first showed him the game at the tender age of twelve, getting instantly hooked in the first few minutes of playing. Starting with Counter-Strike Beta 5.2, Marcus never stopped playing. For this new game, he would begin the process of creating the name everyone has heard of today. Marcus’ inspiration for the name zet came from the IRC channel r3tro. Modifying the channel name to his liking, he would start using the name zetr0, eventually changing it to zet.

Marcus wouldn’t find his fame just yet, as it would take joining several different teams before finally making a name for himself in the gaming community. Playing Counter-Strike for the most part of his teenage years, Marcus eventually found himself joining up with teams like da4ce, port22, and Ownage. It was shortly after joining team Ownage that Marcus found himself taking the game a lot more seriously than he previously expected. After leaving the Ownage squad, he would next team up with the Swedish powerhouse, SSV Lehnitz, eventually becoming the team’s most valuable player. While Marcus would take this time to hone his skills and develop his famously unique aggressive style of playing, he’d have to wait a bit more to find his eventual world fame.

He wouldn’t have to wait too long though, as he would find his peak in yet another Swedish powerhouse team, the well known Ninjas in Pyjamas. Here, Marcus would break out of his unknown status to become a world class player. Joining the team on June 15th, 2005, Marcus would become one of the team’s leading fraggers, leading the team to strong finishes at the World Cyber Games 2006 Finals, getting an impressive second place finish, and the KODE 5 Grand Finals, where the team would accomplish the unthinkable: defeating the wNv.gm team on the Chinese team’s home soil, a place where they appeared seemingly unbeatable. Among Marcus’s many accomplishments with the team are first place finishes at the WSVG Dreamhack, World Esports Festival, and CPL Nordic events.

While Marcus may have enjoyed an enormous amount of success with the Ninjas in Pyjamas team, he decided to leave on January 13th, 2007 to join up with the compLexity Syndicate. With this new team of his, Marcus also made another huge decision that would ultimately change his way of life. To accompany his move to the compLexity organization, he found himself moving from Sweden to the United States to live in the brand new compLexity House, a dwelling located in Dallas, Texas that was acquired by the organization for the team to live in. It was also with this new organization that Marcus would find himself making the transition from Counter-Strike 1.6 to Counter-Strike: Source along with the rest of his new team. In just a few weeks of playing, the team, with Marcus, has become a strong Counter-Strike: Source contender.

Throughout his gaming career Marcus has always displayed amazing amounts of talent and dedication. His decision to move to a whole new environment to further his gaming career defines the amount of dedication he has always had. This is the same dedication that gained him the amount of popularity he has today. Starting at a young age, he was able to skyrocket himself to the top of the Swedish mountain, eventually being recognized by many as new comer of the year for 2005. This, combined with his unique aggressive playing style, amazing aim, and outspoken personality, has certainly made him one of the most recognized Counter-Strike professional gamers in the world.

Marcus’s GameSense stats can be found here:
http://www.gotfrag.com/cs/stats/player/1216/

A clip of Marcus at WCG World Finals 2006:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEpJTj6Ua8A

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