Andreas ‘Xyp9x’ Hojsleth, is a Danish support player that currently plays for Astralis, but his career can be traced back to CS 1.6 where he played for wikapidiots. Xyp9x is renowned and characterised as one of the few Danish players that doesn’t have a massive ego, and is willing to play a support role. Furthermore he is one of the long standing Danish players, along with Dupreeh that have consistently been on the best Danish side, and despite this have never won a major. Although he is currently thought of as a support player, Xyp9x originally started as most Danish players do, a young rising aim talent that had incredible clutching abilities and full of potential. This in the end is how Xyp9x should be characterised, as a player that was full of potential, playing in teams that were full of potential.
2012
A Late Switch
Xyp9x was late to the party when it came from switching to CS:GO from 1.6, he made the switch as part of Ildal lions, however the next day joined the tier 2 Danish team, CPLAY. Xyp9x achieved middling results as part of CPLAY, however it was evident that he was a young aim talent that could be moulded into something greater. With this in mind the Nordic mixed-squad Fnatic picked him up, where he played among CS 1.6 legends Friis, Karrigan, Trace, and MODDII.
2013
Danish/Norwegian Fnatic Era
As part of Fnatic they started out with decent results, with two second place finishing at Mad Catz: Birmingham and EMS One Spring season where they looked to be below the level of the top teams of NiP, Virtus.Pro, VeryGames, and Western Wolves, hovering around as the 6th or 7th best team in the world. After a last place finish at EMS One: Summer Cup and a 5th place finish at Starladder Series 6, Fnatic changed out their Norwegian entry-fragger StingeR for what would become Xyp9x’s future teammate and leader, Karrigan. This roster change did not fix any of Fnatic’s troubles however, as they came last at both Dreamhack Summer 2013, and the ESEA Invite Season 14, and lost 2-0 to a rising UK based team Anexis in the quarterfinals of Fragout League Season 2. After these string of poor placing’s the Fnatic org released the team, and the mixed Nordic squad all went their separate ways.
As part of Fnatic Xyp9x played the role second entry fragger, often running into sites behind StingeR, Friiis and later Karrigan, receiving information from the first man on the site, and then using his intuitive positioning and strong aim, open up the site for his team to come and plant the bomb. On CT Xyp9x was a reliable aimer, that often found himself playing a supportive type role to facilitate the double awp set-up of Karrigan and Friis.
Fnatic Disband, Copenhagen Wolves line-up
After Fnatic disbanded the roster, Xyp9x and star awper Friis joined Copenhagen Wolves, along with: Dupreeh, Pimp, and FeTiSh. This Copenhagen Wolves line-up shares many of the characteristics and roles that Xyp9x’s former team Fnatic had, for starters Xyp9x plays in virtually the same role, as the second entry fragger, working in tandem with Dupreeh to attack sites, and on CT he is still that reliable aimer and playing a supportive role to the stars of the team, Dupreeh and Pimp. This wolves line-up would not last however, as although they were performing well in domestic competition online, they struggled to ever beat the top 5 teams in the world, and in to try and breathe new life into the team they removed both Pimp and Friis and bought in former Wolves players device and Nico. This roster change would give the wolves more reliable fragging power, and wouldn’t directly affect how Xyp9x played in the short term, he still played off of Dupreeh, entrying into sites together, however he had even less pressure to frag with the power upgrade in the forms of star awper Nico and future superstar device.
Dreamhack Winter 2013
This line-up at CS:GO’s first major Dreamhack Winter 2013 had a solid performance beating both SK and Astanta Dragons in the group stage, before battling it out with the second best team in the world, VeryGames in the quarterfinals, losing 2-1 in a relatively close fashion. Dreamhack Winter was overall a very good tournament for Xyp9x, out of the 5 games that Copenhagen Wolves played, he dropped 20+ kills in 3 of them, and demonstrated his reliability and consistency on a world stage, against the top teams.
Uber G33KZ
Shortly after Dreamhack Winter a dispute was reported between the players and the Copenhagen Wolves org, over contract issues headed into 2014. This lead to the players not resigning their contracts and leaving the Copenhagen Wolves brand, reforming under one of FeTiSh’s old mix-teams name, Uber G333KZ. For the 2 month span the Danish Squad was orgless they competed in 2 tourneys Fragbite Masters Season 1 and a small Danish-only LAN. They placed runners-up at both and it was clear after their 2-0 over VeryGames at Fragbite Masters that this Danish squad had the potential to be a world class team. At this point in time device and Dupreeh had started to become an obvious pair, and along with Xyp9x were all considered rising talents, and clearly had the skillset to become top tier players. However the main star player of the team at the time, Nico was released from the squad after internal disputes, leaving a gaping hole in the squad that needed to be filled by another star awper. This opportunity is what lead device to step into the spotlight and become the star of the team, Nico also leaving gave an opportunity to another rising Danish talent Cajunb to join the squad.
2014
Team Dignitas
In early 2014, the squad of now: Xyp9x, Device, Dupreeh, Cajunb and FeTiSh were picked up by Team Dignitas and headed into their first tournament of the year Dreamhack Stockholm Invitational 1, where they were quickly knocked out by Fnatic and NiP. This performance gave no real indication to the level that Dignitas could play at, and headed into the first major of 2014 there were a lot of question marks surrounding this young Danish squad, full of potential but yet to prove themselves.
EMS One: Katowice 2014
At the major itself, Dignitas got off to a great start, beating their fellow Danish side Reason and American squad iBuypower in convincing fashion. They then went into the quarterfinals in hot form and quickly dispatched of the CIS team Hellraisers in a convincing 2-0, with both device and the new inclusion of Cajunb playing incredible counter-strike top fragging in both games and in clear form. However this hot streak came to a crushing end when NiP destroyed the Danish side 2-0 with Xyp9x putting in an admirable performance on Inferno and device on nuke, but still was not enough to pull Dignitas through. Katowice was a solid tournament for the new team and proved that they weren’t world beaters, but they were definitely a team to contend with on an international level.
Dignitas, the Onliners
The first tournament that Dignitas participated in after Katowice was Fragbite Masters Season 2, this was an online tournament with all of the best teams in the world in competition. In the group stage Dignitas topped their group, beating both Titan and Mousesports and were placed into the winners bracket, against Portuguese side K1ck. In a fairly one-sided 2-1 against K1ck, Dig moved onto the second round where they faced off against French powerhouse LDLC. At the time LDLC where a newly formed squad that had incredible skill and potential, similar to that of Dignitas, however it was clear in this Bo3 that the Danish squad had more firepower, and could outclass the loose style of play that the French side had, with the slow default set-ups on T-side that in-game-leader FeTiSh often relied upon. In the semi-finals Dignitas impressively managed to beat VP in a Bo3, in a fairly convincing 2-0. This result was largely caused by Xyp9x, in this series he was the master of the retake, often taking back a site after the poles had a chance to set-up in strong post-plant positions; his intuition and game-sense was also on show, winning key 1v1’s to secure his team the game. The Grand-finals was played against another French powerhouse team, Titan. This grand-finals was a thrilling series, with Dignitas having a one-map advantage, the series ended in a close 3-2 with Dig coming out in top. This online tournament was Xyp9x’s first large CS:GO win and would be a great way to start what would be a long tenure as part of the Dignitas brand. The tournament as a whole showed the world that Dignitas was a CT side dominant team, able to shut out entire halves just with their CT side of play, their T side however clearly had some issues, their play was pretty straightforward as a whole, and relied heavily on out-aiming their opponents. Furthermore Dig’s star player Device went missing in the finals, for one of the star players of the team he had the second lowest rating out of any player, and clearly felt the pressure of the big game. On the other hand however Dupreeh was a revelation, dropping 87 kills across 4 games and with a rating of 1.27, he played an incredible final and was integral to their success. Despite this being the young team’s first win, it was still an online tournament and they had yet to prove themselves on LAN.
Copenhagen Games 2014
This victory put them in good stead to head into one the larger international LAN’s of the year, Copenhagen games 2014. At this tournament Dignitas faced no real opposition until they hit the quarterfinals in a Bo3 against Fnatic. This was a pivotal series, as Dignitas were a team rising up the ranks that needed to prove themselves on LAN, whereas Fnatic had been on a steady decline since their victory at Dreamhack Winter 2013. It was an incredible series from both teams with Dignitas taking the series 2-0 in the end, beating Fnatic in double overtime on Inferno in the first map, and another overtime on the second map, mirage. This series affirmed that Dignitas was on the way up, and despite their 2-0 loss to NiP in the grand-final, with yet another overtime inferno game, this tournament was a major placing for the Danish side.
Aizy in, Cajunb out
A couple of weeks after Copenhagen Games, internal disagreements was reported between Dignitas members, which eventuated in Cajunb leaving the squad, and young aiming talent Aizy joining the team. This roster change would be instrumental in shaping how the Danish squad plays now as it did a number of things: Firstly it forced device to become the primary awper for the squad, secondly it reinforced the notion that the team supplements under-performing/disgruntled teammates with young, rising aim talent and finally it put more pressure on FeTiSh to lead an even more inexperienced team with raw potential, whilst trying to be a fragger and secondary awper as well. All of these factors are very important in providing context to how the side reacts to situations later down the road.
Gfinity G3
The real test of this new roster would be at Gfinity G3, the biggest LAN before ESL One Cologne 2014, and would therefore be used as a gauge for the form of teams coming into the major. At the tournament they topped their group, not losing a single game, and both Xyp9x and device hitting their stride sharing top fragging responsibilities across all 4 games in groups. The quarterfinal series against NiP was the device/Dupreeh show, both managing to dismantle the Swedish side on cache and inferno, this was a very impressive win as it was the first time the Danes had managed to beat NiP in a Bo3 on LAN. They faced off against a familiar polish side in the semi-finals, Virtus.Pro. They lost the series in a fairly convincing 2-1 mainly as a result of their clear struggles on T-side and a poor performance by Aizy throughout the series. Both Dupreeh and Xyp9x played well in the playoffs, however for a star player device was thoroughly mediocre. Without LDLC attending G3 this was a tournament that Dignitas should’ve won, with a 30-4 record going into the event, losing to VP in the semi-finals showed that they struggled on LAN and in high-pressure games.
ESL One Cologne 2014
ESL One Cologne 2014, this was the tournament that Dignitas had something to prove, after their disappointing result at G3, the Danish side where one of the favourites to win the major, and to claim their stake as the best team in the world. In the group stage Dig handily took a game off of Australian side Vox Eminor, Xyp9x then had massive troubles against Cloud9 and they lost 16-14 with Xyp9x not even breaking into double digits with his frag count. This then led to a tie-breaker against Titan on nuke, this was a total domination of Dignitas’s CT side play, destroying Titan 16-1. After the group stage, Aizy and device were the clear best players on the Danish side with 1.38 and 1.23 ratings respectively, Xyp9x on the other hand was the worst performing player with a rating of just 0.96. Going into the round-of-8 they faced off against French upset side, Epsilon, led by superstar player shox. There was a lot of talk about a potential upset if shox played well, but the Danes put this speculation to bed, in a super convincing 2-0 the power combo, device and Dupreeh destroyed the French side and went into the semi-finals in hot form. In the semis they faced off against the new Fnatic squad that had both star player KrimZ and solid performer olofmeister in the line-up. This series revealed many of the underlying problems that existed within Dignitas. Firstly it showed their inability to adapt to new maps, that FeTiSh’s mid-round calling on T side was holding them back, device choked when they needed him the most, Aizy was to raw to compete in high pressure situations, and that they could simply not advance past the top 4 in international tournaments. Once again Xyp9x left an international tournament in the semi-finals, and added another top 4 finish to an increasing list of missed finals. After Cologne it was safe to say the Dignitas were thoroughly a gatekeeper team, if you could beat Dig there was a strong chance you would be able to win a tournament or place runners-up, lose to Dig however and there was no chance of advancing past the semi-finals.
Cajunb back in
A month after the major Dignitas locked and reloaded to compete at the Dreamhack Stockholm. This tournament was the straw that broke the camel’s back; they won only one game in the groups against a faltering Copenhagen Wolves and then lost two overtime games to Fnatic and the Finnish side 3DMAX. After this disappointing finish to the Finnish (heheh), they decided to bring back Cajunb.
Dignitas slump
With the old gang back together, they went to compete FACEIT League Season 2, at this tournament they didn’t make it out of group stage, losing to Fnatic twice and iBuypower once. This terrible finish would foreshadow the Danes results at the next two large tournaments ESWC 2014, and Fragbite Masters Season 3. At ESWC they managed to top their group beating out the North-American hopefuls iBuyPower, in a close 16-14, however they would be knocked out in the round-of-8 by Virtus.Pro, with Xyp9x having a below average series along with the rest of his team. This poor performance would continue at Fragbite Masters Season 3, where they placed 4th overall, losing to Fnatic and Virtus.Pro but beating lower level teams such as NiP and Na’Vi. These string of poor performances and consistent mediocrity for a team full of potential had optimism running low for the last major of 2014, Dreamhack Winter.
Dreamhack Winter 2014
Coming into Dreamhack Winter 2014, Dignitas didn’t necessarily have to win the whole tournament but needed at least a top 4 finish to prevent their decline in performance since ESL One Cologne from costing them a spot amongst the elite level teams of the world. Furthermore device and Dupreeh would need to come through in a big way in order to prove themselves as international stars that didn’t choke under the pressure of big games. In a familiar turn of events the Dignitas line-up easily dismantled their competition in the group stage, with both Cajunb and device stepping up to the plate. This promising start however would come to a screeching halt against the CIS team Na’Vi, losing 2-0 in devastating fashion. Dignitas were up 11-0 to start the game on CT side, but once again their poor T side play plus their star player device having the worst score in the entire server over the 2 game series, cost them a place in the top 4. This disappointing group stage finish, combined with their previous results meant that a change in the roster was inevitable.
Karrigan in, FeTiSh out
Days after the Danes were upset in the quarterfinals it was announced that long time in-game-leader and captain FeTiSh would leave the squad, in favour of former Copenhagen wolves and mousesports in-game-leader, Karrigan. This roster move sought to change a major flaw which had held Dignitas back since their inception, a rigid, slow, default T side play that was unimagined and ineffective, and was a major factor, in-game as to why the lost key matches. Karrigan was meant to bring some upbeat, innovative T side strats that would transform Dignitas into a flourishing T side team.
Xyp9x, the complete support
Karrigan coming into the roster would see Xyp9x become the full team/role/support player for a couple of reasons. Primarily Xyp9x clearly did not have the same level of ego and intensity that all the other players on his line-up had, which meant that despite his clear skill and game sense, he was the only player with the right mind-set to take the responsibilities as a support player. Secondly Xyp9x was by default the only player left that could actually fill a supportive role, Karrigan shared secondary awping responsibilities with Cajunb and couldn’t support as he was calling the strats, Dupreeh was the entry-fragger, device the star player that the team was based around and also the primary awper, and Cajunb was the secondary star that also picked up the awp; as a result Xyp9x became a support player merely by association.
2015
MLG X Games: Aspen
The first tournament of 2015 that Dignitas participated in with their new roster was MLG X Games: Aspen. This tournament would be an indicator of how the new Dignitas would perform: would they be like the old side, mind numbingly consistent in the top 6 teams in the world, never making a final and being forever a gatekeeper squad, or would a new approach and new leader change up such a stagnated team, and turn the insane amounts of potential into something great. In Aspen Dignitas played an impressive group stage, losing only one game in overtime to a top 4 team in the world at the time, NiP. Heading straight into the semi-finals the faced an impossible road block in the form of the second best team in the world at the time, LDLC. Against LDLC they managed to take a map off them in the second game on inferno, winning a surprising amount of T-rounds, having strong mid-round calls, and Xyp9x filling in for roles such as lurker, and pure support when need be. Despite the upset on inferno LDLC still ended up destroying Dig on cache and closed the series 2-1. This put them in the tricky spot of playing the best team in the world at the time Fnatic, in a Bo3 for the bronze medal. Although Fnatic were the better team on paper, they handed the first map to Dig by not banning Nuke in the draft, a poor map for Fnatic and one of the better maps for the Danes. The second map was Mirage, and this was a fairly even map for both teams, and would come down just to how the players played in the server. Dupreeh had been playing well the entire tournament but on Mirage he really stepped into his own, dropping 30 kills, and making critical entry and impact frags throughout the game. Also on Mirage it was apparent that Xyp9x had fully transitioned into the role of support , often baiting for device and Cajunb on sites, being left to hold sites on his own, or playing a lurk role on T-side to kill rotators. Dignitas ended up winning the game in overtime, and taking the series 2-0. All-in-all , even though the Danish side only walked away with a bronze medal, they had shown clear improvement in multiple areas, and a change in their T-side strats and mid-round calling was only positive, and the potential that Dignitas had always shown had started to break through.
The TSM Era/Before Katowice
Before the major, ESL One: Katowice 2015, the Danish squad announced that they would be switching organisations after contract disputes with Dignitas, they would be now flying under the famous League of Legends team banner, Team SoloMid. Going into Katowice there were no expectations for TSM to make the top 2 or win the tournament by any stretch of the imagination, but a semi-final placing would secure them a place in the top 4 teams in the world, and give them a solid result to make a run for even higher placing’s in future LANS.
ESL One Katowice 2015
The first group-stage game was foreboding as they lost 16-14 on one of their historically best maps, Nuke, to a relatively very weak team, C9. Despite this initial result however they managed to win their next 2 games, and place in the round-of-8. Unfortunately for TSM, in the quarterfinals they were matched up against the 3rd best team in the world at the time NiP. In short it was a heartbreaking series, with NiP fairly handily taking the first map on dust 2, but TSM firing right back with a 16-4 win on Inferno, it eventuated with the final map being nuke, an incredible map for both teams, and would clearly come down to the wire. In the first half TSM managed to win 6 T-rounds, an incredible feat for a team that historically could never get T-rounds, doing it against the best nuke team in the world, on the hardest map to get T-rounds on. This achievement would be dwarfed however by a not-so typical case of NiP magic, where the Swedish side managing to string together a series of unlikely wins on T-half, done purely off the back of incredible pedigree and raw skill. NiP took the series 2-1 and TSM were sent home packing in the round-of-8. At Katowice Xyp9x showed that even though he was a support player, his skills had not diminished since he was considered one of the Danish scenes rising talents, with an insane Famas ace from him on inferno and regularly clutching out rounds in 1v1 and 1v2 situations.
TSM, Fnatic’s online Kryptonite
The most notable event that happened after the major was in an online competition, PGL CSS, where the beat Fnatic in two Bo3’s one in a fairly convincing 2-0, and another in a nail-biting 2-1. This would begin a recurring theme of TSM being the Fnatic’s kryptonite, and despite the clear disparity in where the teams were ranked in the world, TSM 5th, Fnatic 1st(however these positions would later change) TSM would always would seem to come out on top. Xyp9x would then have decent performances at Starladder and Copenhagen games where he lost to NiP and Virtus.Pro respectively, however these tournaments didn’t have a major impact on the rankings, as neither LDLC (Soon to-be EnVyUs) or Fnatic were present. However one tournament that would definitely have an impact on the rankings would be the kick-off season for PGL.
PGL CSS: Kick off Season
PGL: Kick off Season was a stacked tournament, every single top team with the exception of Titan was present and with a strong format and a Bo5 final, the favourites were by far and away Fnatic and EnVyUs. The majority of the games were done in Bo3 format and TSM’s first series was quick and painless, a clean 2-0 victory, against the CIS squad Na’Vi. The second series would be against the second best team in the world, Fnatic in a Bo3 however in similar fashion to the online PGL tournament TSM beat Fnatic 2-0, very convincingly. What is even more crazy however is that they faced Fnatic again in the group finals, and won again, this time however in much closer fashion. The series was an extremely close 2-1, with the driving factor for TSM’s win being device. Device showed up in epic fashion in this series, completely taking over both Cache and Inferno to secure TSM the win. After the group stage finished and the semi-finals began, TSM faced off against Fnatic yet again, and not to be a team to break tradition, TSM beat the Swedish side 2-0, on Fnatics best map, inferno. This led TSM into an eerily familiar position that they had found themselves in at Katowice 2014 and Copenhagen Games 2014, facing a strong NiP in the semi-finals of an international LAN. However unlike the 2014 days device and Xyp9x showed up, NiP consistently pressured Xyp9x on CT in Dust 2, trying to consistently open up the map by targeting him, but Xyp9x remained cool, calm and collected, and was the rock solid fragger that TSM built a 2-0 series win against NiP off of. This win put Xyp9x in a spot where he had not been in since he was a part of Fnatic in early 2013, the grand-finals of large international tournament. This was a massive opportunity for every single member of TSM, as this would be the first time as a team that they could prove themselves on an international stage, and put the storyline of a team that was full of potential, but also full of chokers to bed. In a movie script like turn of events in the final, after beating both the best and third best team in the world Fnatic rose out of the losers bracket to face TSM for a 4th and final time, for $40,000 and to prove why they were an elite level team. With a one-map advantage and strong maps headed into the series TSM looked to start strong on mirage, with Cajunb dropping 27 frags and having an insane game, and winning the map. Despite this initial win however it looked like device was back to his old ways, bottom fragging on the first map and clearly struggling. The next map was dust 2, flusha and Xyp9x went head-to-head in this game, dropping 31 and 26 kills respectively, but if TSM’s support player is top-fragging that means that the rest of the squad was clearly not up to scratch, TSM lost dust 2 and needed to win overpass to prevent the series from going to inferno, the map which Fnatic had begun to build a dynasty on top of. On the third game of this series, on overpass, TSM’s style of play was epitomised, the game was carried by the consistent play of device and Cajunb, supported by the entry-fragging of Dupreeh, the baiting and clutching of Xyp9x and the masterful mid-round and T-side calls of Karrigan. This tournament showed TSM finally playing to their potential, and finally gave Xyp9x his first international win.
A String of Danish LAN Victories
This tournament win would open the flood gates to a period of Danish dominance, comparable only to the Western Wolves days back in 2013. The next 2 large international LANS they participated in, FACEIT Stage 1 finals, and Fragbite Masters Season 4, the won, beating out the best teams in the world and cementing themselves as the 2nd best team in the world, with the only thing standing between them and a number one spot was the major title and impressive history that Fnatic had, TSM was in prime position to take the number 1 spot. This blazing hot form however would come to an abrupt halt at the ESL ESEA finals where they lost out in group stage, however this would only be a small blip on an otherwise impressive track record heading into the major, as they also managed to win the FACEIT Stage 2 finals as well. Despite this incredible success however before heading into the major, there were many rumours circulating that Xyp9x would be cut from the squad in favour of aim-star Aizy. Fortunately this wasn’t the case, but it shows one clear thing in favour of Xyp9x, that the Danish scene admires insane aimers so much that none of them actually learn how to play a support style. This means that up until early Dignitas started to consistently make top 4’s previous Danish lineups had just been substituting under-performing players with rising aim-talents, which ironically is what Xyp9x was in the early days. What Xyp9x could do however that many of these other rising talents couldn’t was adapt, to put his ego aside and play for the better of the team, to be the glue that holds a team together, rather than be the superstar player that wins the game.
ESL One Cologne 2015
Heading into ESL One: Cologne, there were 3 clear favourites in the forms of Fnatic, TSM and Na’Vi to win the tournament, with the outside chance of Virtus.Pro or the new-look EnVyUs to be dark-horses. In expected fashion TSM didn’t drop a game in groups and easily beat mix-team kinguin in the quarterfinals, in the semi-finals however they faced off against the brand new French line-up of EnVyUs. This was a frustrating series for TSM and TSM fans alike, as once again the Danish side got knocked out in the semi-finals, this was not down however to device choking, as it had in many previous iterations, rather this was just TSM losing to a better team that could just play a loose, pug style and out-aim them with pure skill, a luxury that the old Dignitas used to rely on heavily. After ESL One Cologne Fnatic had a clear drop-off and it looked like it was the beginning of the end for a dynasty, and three teams in the shapes of EnVyUs, TSM and Virtus.Pro were all battling each other to take the top spot. TSM Managed to win CPL over EnVyUs and PGL CSS: Season 1, whilst EnVyUs won Dreamhack London over TSM and Gfinity Champion of Champions over Fnatic.
TSM, Favourites to Win
Dreamhack Cluj-Napoca was going to be the first major that TSM were the absolute favourites to win. TSM had beaten EnVyUs at CPL, and the French team had been inactive for entire month after that, and were going into Cluj with a loss to TSM as their most recent performance. Fnatic had clearly struggled after winning Cologne, not winning a single event, with their best result being a second place finish to EnVyUs at Gfinity champion of champions, it felt as though that iteration of the Fnatic line-up had run it’s course. That left only Virtus.Pro and Na’Vi as having outside chances of winning the event, so based on the performance of all the other elite level teams, Cluj was Xyp9x’s chance to take the major, and take the elusive number one spot that had evaded him his entire career.
Dreamhack: Cluj-Napoca
The group stage performance from TSM was strong, easily beating flipside and G2, losing only 12 rounds over two games, with strong performances from both Cajunb and Dupreeh, they went straight into the quarterfinals against a faltering NiP line-up who were rumoured to disband after the major. Similar to how the PGL Kick of Season was the collapsing of many storylines into one moment, this series against NiP ultimately defined TSM and defined Xyp9x’s career. As stated previously TSM were the favourites to win the entire tournament and in the group stage game, against a lineup that had struggled to make it into the top 4 of tournaments for the last 4 months and had clearly run their last race. They lost. TSM lost in the group-stage game in a 2-0 series against NiP, this was in the end the ironic truth. Even though this was meant to be the major that defined the Danish side as one of the greatest lineups of all-time and immortalise them as a team that had it all, it simply reinforced the narrative that had been told since the old Dignitas line-up formed out of Copenhagen Wolves, that Xyp9x, and whatever Danish team he is a part of simply cannot perform at majors, and do not have the consistency and mental fortitude to realise their potential and become great.
A Eulogy for Greatness
In the end the career of Xyp9x is one that was defined by the possibility of greatness, in the beginning it was on him, a young aimer to bring about victory, and it was him that was full of potential. However as part of the gatekeeping team of Dignitas he began his transition away from the spotlight of carrying his team to victory, not by choice or by lack of skill, merely by the quality of players around him. He completed this transition into a support/role player when Karrigan joined the roster, as now a full support player his consistency, and mild-mannered attitude was the basis and glue that facilitated the three stars of Dupreeh, device and Cajunb to each come into their own and work their way to the top. Although as part of TSM Xyp9x was and never will be considered their best player, he is a rare-commodity in the Danish scene and is an integral part as to why TSM even came into Cluj as the favourites to win. His exceptional clutch play, selfless support style, and mild mannered attitude are the qualities of Xyp9x and even though his career will be characterised as never reaching its full potential, he is still one of the few genuine gems to come out of the Danish scene.
