On Tuesday morning, Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) introduced Swedish Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player Tim “nawwk” Jonasson as its newest member. Nawwk is replacing long-standing player Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg. 31-year-old f0rest is reuniting with former NiP teammates under the Dignitas banner.
Needless to say, nawwk has enormous shoes to fill. The 22-year-old is now signed to one of the most prominent CSGO organizations without ever having attended a significant tier-1 event. Furthermore, the vast majority of his professional experience lays in Europe’s tier-2 scene. His most recent teams, GamerLegion and x6tence Galaxy, gave him a platform to showcase his abilities, but may not have allowed him to reach his full potential.
Show your moves
With all eyes on him, one might expect nawwk to let his nerves get to him. While he realizes the spotlight is on him now more than ever, he says he isn’t overly affected by it. On the contrary, he sees this as an opportunity to develop as a player. In an interview with HLTV.org he comments:
“It brings a lot of pressure, but I think that can be turned into something good that helps you perform. I feel like this is the time to really show what I can do. I know that I’m much better than what I showed in the second half of last year.”
Nawwk mentioned that he admires the level of consistency reached by players like Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. Looking through nawwk’s stats, consistency isn’t one of his strong suits. His ratings seem to go through peaks and valleys, with his lowest rating being .87 and highest rating being 1.24.
“This year I will work much harder to prove a point. I cannot wait to start playing with these talented players. I am sure I will learn a lot from them. And with THREAT as a coach, he will switch things up and also help me to become a better and more consistent player.”
It’s difficult to place his inconsistency on just himself, however; GamerLegion, as a team, had its share of problems. In examining the organization’s team page, 16 different players came through the roster during 2019. While several of these were stand-ins, it still speaks to the level of instability of the team experienced. Speaking on his lacklustre performances, he says:
“Consistency has been a problem for me, especially lately. But there have been a lot of factors involved. The last six months were a trainwreck; we changed players all the time, which honestly causes some motivational issues and forced us to play as a mix, which was no fun. But I don’t want to evade blame, I still could have performed better.”
Friends meet again
Hopefully, entering a more stable environment with different coaching will enable nawwk to focus on enhancing his gameplay, rather than being sidetracked by team issues. Additionally, nawwk will be joining a friendly face on his new roster: former teammate Nicolas “Plopski” Gonzalez Zamora.
“Reuniting with Plopski is going to be great. We have been good friends for a long time now, and he is the best teammate I have ever played with.”
Certainly, having previous experience with a member of his new team will prove beneficial to nawwk. A sense of familiarity is exactly what he’ll need to adjust to his new role.
“I will transition into some kind of secondary AWPer/hybrid. It’s something I kind of wanted to become but was too afraid to try.”
Nawwk and NiP will debut at the BLAST Premier Spring series starting January 31, 2020. They will be competing in Group A alongside FaZe, Liquid, and MIBR.
Published: Jan 23, 2020 12:30 am