Ninjas in Pyjamas is going through another rebuild of their roster after several years of disappointing results. In an online interview with Pley.gg, Fredrik "REZ" Sterner shares his thoughts on the new roster, and how players like Artem "r1nkle" Moroz and Isak "isak" Fahlén have surprised the longest-standing member of NIP.

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How are you feeling about the new roster?

- Overall, I am super happy. I think Isak was probably one of the most important pickups we've made in a while. I think people have really underestimated him during his career. He brings a lot to our team that people don't really realize from a fan perspective. He enables a lot of us other players, and he enables me a lot. The same goes for Max (Max "maxster" Jansson). He makes the game very easy for us to play, and he didn't join the team to be a star player, hard fragger, or anything like that. He came in to support us and make our jobs easier, which he really does through his communication and playing style. So, yeah, I think he complements the lineup perfectly. I'm really, really happy that we managed to get him on the team, REZ explains before naming Artem "r1nkle" Moroz as perhaps the most interesting new addition to the squad.

- I think he has surpassed everyone's expectations with what he has done so far. He totally surprised me when I first played with him. I think he can become a top three AWPer in the world. I think he has already shown the qualities of a top AWPer. I've played with good AWPers in the past, I've played with device, and he’s obviously one of the best AWPers in the game. From what I've seen of r1nkle, he can reach that level, no doubt. And I think he's close to it already; he just needs more experience.

- He does everything so damn well. Maybe most of all, it's his mechanical skill. How he moves around the map, how fast his reactions are, and the initiative he takes in the game, like moving around and reacting to calls or sounds and what's happening in the game.

He's a very quick thinker and really fast mechanically, very mechanically skilled. When you spectate him, he kind of looks like he shoots and flicks like m0NESY or s1mple. He has THAT kind of skill. When we got him, he obviously didn't have much experience. So, I was super surprised when I played in Abu Dhabi with him, and when we started going to LANs with him, that he is very active in talking. He has a good understanding of the game already, and it feels like he has a lot of experience when you play with him because he makes a lot of good calls, and he reads the game insanely well. I think that's also one of the biggest things that surprised me. So, I'm just super stoked to see how he will evolve further. It kind of feels like he's close to his peak already, but he shouldn't be, not yet. So, yeah, it's going to be interesting to see what will happen.

With such a talented AWPer, and with a guy like “isak”, who complements your team so well, what does that mean for you as a player on the current lineup?

- For me, obviously, my career has been very turbulent. It's been hard for me to perform with everything that's been going on. There have been moments where I wasn't comfortable at all with the positions or the playstyle. It rarely suited me as a player, and that's a big reason why I struggled a lot in the past, because I wasn't comfortable most of the time. But right now, I feel like this team complements me and my playstyle.

So, I can play how I want. Playing with r1nkle, there are a few sites where I'm close to him, and I feel I can understand him very easily. He makes my gameplay easier. It kind of reminds me of back in the day when I played with device. I felt like I played very well when I was playing with him. I can feel that with r1nkle already; we think very much alike, and I can understand how he wants to approach the game, even before we go into a round or a match. It's easy for me to play because there are no question marks or uncertainties. That's why it's easier for me, and that makes my performance much better. I get more comfortable and gain more confidence in my aim and playstyle. Everything complements each other in that way.

What do you think is the biggest challenge for this roster?

- Right now, we haven't really played a big team on a big stage yet. I think that's going to be the biggest challenge. How will we approach that? How will we perform in such environments? Because we are fairly new, and we have young players who haven't really been in those top, top events. So, I think that's what we have to strive for: to try and play as many LANs as possible, as many stages as possible. You don't really get that from these online tournaments or these small events we had in Argentina or Abu Dhabi. It's not really the experience we're looking for; we want to play in a big arena. When we get those kinds of games, I think it's going to be easier to compete against the top-tier teams.

On Monday, Fredrik "REZ" Sterner and the rest of the Ninjas in Pyjamas roster will get the chance to qualify for one of the big stages, when they face G2 in the opening round of BLAST Premier Fall Groups in Copenhagen. The top six teams of the event will qualify for the Fall Finals later this year.

r1nkle

isak

Ninjas in Pyjamas

For the 19th time in history, ESL Pro League will take place, when Groups A and B begin on Tuesday. The tournament will be played at the InterContinental Malta Hotel in Saint Julian’s, Malta. For the final stages of the Playoffs from May 10th-12th, the matches will be played in front of a live audience. You can buy tickets for the event [link:{"url":"https://pro.eslgaming.com/csgo/proleague/","isNewTab":true,"text":"here"}].

These teams participate in ESL Pro League Season 19:

Group A: FaZe, Imperial, Astralis, Eternal Fire, Virtus.pro, Fnatic, 3DMAX, SAW

Group B: Vitality, Sharks, M80, BetBoom, Falcons, TheMongolz, TYLOO, G2

Group C: MOUZ, Bad News Eagles, ENCE, GamerLegion, FURIA, Liquid, FORZE, Monte

Group D: Complexity, PERA, Ninjas in Pyjamas, Heroic, BIG, BOSS, FlyQuest, Natus Vincere

ESL has moved away from the group stage format that we have seen previously. Now the teams face each other in brackets with an upper, and lower bracket plus a last chance stage bracket as well, which means that every team can lose two matches and still be able to qualify for the playoff stage.

16 teams will play in the playoff stage. The winner of each group qualifies for the quarter-final stage, while the 2nd place finisher of each group is seeded to the second playoff round. The 3rd place finishers and the four winners of the last chance stage brackets will face off in the first playoff round.

$750,000 is up for grabs at the tournament with $170,000 being handed out to the winners. A spot at the IEM Cologne 2024 tournament is also on the line for the winner.

The secondary prizes vary from $3,500 (29-32nd) to $80,000 for 2nd place at the tournament which will last from April 23rd until May 12th.

Tres "stunna" Saranthus, Freya "Freya" Spiers

Jason "moses" O'Toole, Janko "YNk" Paunović, Harry "JustHarry" Russell, Hugo Byron, Henry "HenryG" Greer, Chad "SPUNJ" Burchill, Alex "Machine" Richardson

Neo "Ne0kai" Caine, Harvey "Skriv" Rodgers, Lucy "LucyLuce" Eastwood, Brandon "BDog" Rawlings, Travis "Trav" Landaw Mott

Group A – B: 23rd of April – 28th of April

Group C – D: 30th of April – 5th of May

You can see the complete schedule and also find results [link:{"url":"https://pley.gg/news/schedule-results-from-esl-pro-league-season-19","isNewTab":true,"text":"here"}].

Teams to watch at ESL Pro League Season 19:

. With their recent signing of Denis "electroNic" Sharipov, VP has made their intentions clear about the future. But how will the former Cloud9 and NAVI star operate under the guidance of Dzhami "Jame" Ali? And will Virtus.pro be the next CIS superteam? We also keep a close eye on both Astralis and Eternal Fire in this group. Can the Danes build on their performances at IEM Chengdu, and what about Eternal Fire? We haven’t seen them in action since their playoff run at the Major.

[image:{"source":"cloudinary","publicId":"players/Magisk_dupreeh_Vitality_ep4gao","originalWidth":3840,"originalHeight":2160,"customWidth":"100%","customHeight":"100%","cloudinaryAssetData":true,"cloudName":"pley-gg","format":"jpg","caption":"Credit: PGL"}]

dupreeh and Magisk are back together once again. The two players have won Major with both Astralis and Vitality.

Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen is back in action after he made the move to 

, where he has been reunited with both Danny "zonic" Sørensen and Emil "Magisk" Reif. The Saudi-backed team chose experience over the raw firepower, that Mohammad "BOROS" Malhas could provide, and now we will get the first glimpse of the new lineup in action at ESL Pro League. Falcons take on TheMongolz in their opening round.

We have to wait a while before Groups C and D begin. But already now, we have a couple of interesting teams that we are eager to follow. In Group C, 

 has decided to cut Andrei "arT" Piovezan from the roster and also removed Nicholas "guerri" Nogueira as the acting head coach for the team citing the need for “international intellectuality” in the position.

 is another team that is looking internationally in their recruitment. As of this moment, the Swedish Organization is yet to reveal its fifth and final member of the new iteration of the Ninjas. The Ukrainian AWP’er Artem "r1nkle" Moroz seems like a very solid prospect, while the former coach of Heroic, Richard "Xizt" Landström will look to continue his success in the coaching world as the new brain behind NIP. Naturally, the reigning world champions from NAVI will be in focus playing their first matches since the triumph in Copenhagen last month.

Tournament favorites for ESL Pro League Season 19:

electronic

dupreeh

Virtus.pro

FURIA

Ninjas in Pyjamas is continuing the rebuild of their roster. Yesterday the fourth piece of the new iteration of the squad was announced.

19-year-old Artem "r1nkle" Moroz transfers from B8, where he spent almost three years grinding through the Tier-2 scene.

- r1nkle has been on my radar since BLAST RMR 2023. He's a young talent that already plays smart CS considering his experience, Richard “Xizt” Landström, Head Coach NIP CS said in a press announcement.

The new NIP sniper made his debut against Monte in the ESL Challenger Jönköping Closed Qualifier, where NIP overcame a shaky start on map 1 to win the match. Artem "r1nkle" Moroz ended the match as the highest-rated player on the server with a 1.31 rating. Later in the day, the Ukrainian delivered the exact same rating, as NIP won 2-0 against Blessed. The team plays later on today against Aurora. NIP currently fields their Young Ninjas player Maoz "BluePho3nix" Paz as their fifth man.

The signing of Artem "r1nkle" Moroz should perhaps not come as the biggest surprise in history. The women's team coach at NIP, Niels Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen did a video for Pley.gg in the summer of 2022, where he pointed at r1nkle as the most exciting prospect for the future.

[youtube:FuhUI1Wc8wU?si=SzPKt6Lo48BZdnMf&t=842]

We teamed up with Niels Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen, who has looked into a lot of demos to find the candidates for this list, where we have excluded all players, who are already playing on a Tier-1/2 team such as Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov to name the most obvious one.

You can see the video here, and down below you can see all the names of the players.

10: {cflag:DK} Frederik "Fessor" Sørensen

The 21-year-old rifler is currently playing on Astralis Talent, but has been roaming around the professional scene for the last couple of years without breaking through. Is the highest-rated player before the playoffs start at WePlay Academy League Season 4.

Is currently playing for MONAD eSport on a C-tier level. The Swedish AWP'er is only 17 years old and could have a long career ahead of him in professional CS.

The Polish AWP'er had some big shoes to fill after Ádám “torzsi” Torzsás was promoted to the first team at the start of the year. But with a 1.22 rating in the WePlay Academy League, it seems like mhL is exactly what MOUZ NEXT had hoped for. 

This list and video were created before the news of w0nderful's move to Team Spirit. But we understand why! The Ukrainian is only 17 years old and has little to no experience in Tier 1 CS:GO, but we cannot wait to see him in action at IEM Cologne.

The AWP'er of Fnatic Rising can play both passive and aggressive with his Sniper rifle, which in today's meta is a huge deal. And hey, it's cool to see a new country in CS:GO (an honorable mention also goes to fellow Romanian Laurentiu "lauNX" Tarlea from Sprout)

Ladies and Gentlemen; We have an in-game leader on the list! IGLs are notoriously underappreciated in CS, but we hope to have picked one of the most exciting prospects for the future in "siuhy", who has won three titles in the WePlay Academy team with MOUZ NXT! 

[image:{"source":"cloudinary","publicId":"mouz_nxt_gbrp0x","originalWidth":1920,"originalHeight":1080,"customWidth":"100%","customHeight":"100%","cloudinaryAssetData":true,"cloudName":"pley-gg","format":"jpg","caption":"Credit: WePlay Academy League"}]

4: {cflag:IL} Dorian “xertioN” Berman

He is only 17 years old, but has already made quite a name for himself. The MOUZ NXT rifler has also been part of the successful spell at the team winning three titles and being one of the most hyped young players on the scene. But he did not make it into our top three! 

Another one! MOUZ NXT is packed with talents, and this one is special. Jimpphat is only 15 years old but is already signed with the best academy team in the world, which speaks for itself. The young Finn is actually VAC-banned, but since the ban was issued in early 2018, he can already compete at a Major next year.

The Russian is one of the most exciting players for the future. He is right on the edge of being on this list, but he is still largely unknown in the wider CS community. He is playing on 1WIN, who mostly are grinding C-tier tournaments.

[image:{"source":"cloudinary","publicId":"players/r1nkle_zfiwax","originalWidth":1280,"originalHeight":720,"customWidth":"100%","customHeight":"100%","cloudinaryAssetData":true,"cloudName":"pley-gg","format":"png"}]

Who is this guy? Niels Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen was blown away watching demos of the 17-year-old Ukrainian AWP'er. He is currently playing for B8, but should have something much bigger in store for the future. Statswise he is currently rated 1.27 for his last three months, which is also very impressive. 

Deko

Jimpphat

xertionic

siuhy

regali

w0nderfu1

joelxd

Fessor

mouz NXT

Fnatic Rising

Astralis Talent

Virtus.pro is big favorites in today´s game, but there would be a chance for ex-Marlian to create an upset as r1nkle is playing on a high level at the moment.

The Ukrainian has played at 1.19 rating in the last three months, and the Ukrainian roster will have to count on him if they want to have a chance against YEKINDAR and the Virtus.pro roster.

Watch the first game of the EPIC League CIS 2021 today´s here:

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r1nkle

Player stats

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Perfect debut for new NIP signing r1nkle

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LIVE: Virtus.pro – ex-Marlian

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