Fnatic and Ninjas in Pyjamas were rivals back in the early days of competitive CS:GO due to the organizations housing Swedish teams, but that doesn’t mean that f0rest, one of NiP’s legends, had bad blood with the Fnatic players.
In 2013 and 2014, NiP was home to f0rest, GeT_RiGhT, Xizt, Fifflaren, and Friberg, while Fnatic had pronax, JW, flusha, Andreas “znajder” Lindberg, and Jonatan “Devilwalk” Lundberg in 2013. The British organization later added Freddy KRIMZ and olofmeister in place of znajder and Devilwalk in 2014.
During this timeline, NiP and Fnatic were two of the best CS:GO teams in the world. In 2013, Fnatic won DreamHack Winter, the first CS:GO major, over NiP before NiP won ESL One Cologne Major in 2014 over Fnatic. They were rivals on the server, but that didn’t affect their relationship outside the server.
“I think there was one small thing that stuck in people’s mind, specifically the [DreamHack] Bucharest incident with the handshake stuff,” f0rest said when answering a fan question. After Fnatic defeated NiP in 2013, the Fnatic players refused to shake hands with NiP’s players and insulted them.
“[That was] a heat-of-the-moment type of deal but I don’t think there is anything that we or them really hold on for too long. We are competitors, and in the heat of the moment, things get a little bit rough, that’s how it is. I’ll play with JW in the showmatch in Rio, man! No grudges, I think people [just] talk left and right,” f0rest said.
F0rest and JW will be teammates for the first time in their careers at the Sweden vs. Brazil showmatch at the IEM Rio Major on Sunday, Nov. 13.
