In 2007 NoA elevated themselves from fringe dark horses to genuine contenders and one of the driving reasons behind that achievement was the emerging play of their new player Sunde. A few big performances here and there and he had a few heads turning. When NoA progressed as far as they ever had, making an appearance in the ESWC finals Sunde's impact had become apparent to all and he went on to deliver one of the great finals performances from a losing player. Thanks to that, Sunde is considered not only their best player by most of the fans but also as an explosive player who can have big games which ripple out to his team-mates. The real story of 2008 for Christoffer Sunde though is the consistency with which he has put up big performances and the degree to which his fundamentals have been refined.

Let's start out in the most obvious place: Sunde has excellent reflexes, he can click a mouse button with intention as fast as anyone out there but maybe a small handful. This is a big strength and it is the centre of his offensive arsenal. The way he uses his strengths can be explained while simultaneously addressing a recent opinion trend on forums. Sunde's AWP has been much vaunted recently, in respect even to him being one of the "best" players with the weapon. This is in part thanks to a comment from his team-mate zonic in an interview but also a natural result of Sunde's increased use of the weapon due to the departure of hpx. When hpx was around he had such a range and versatility of techniques with the AWP that the rest of the team basically let him get on with that aspect and concentrated on the other areas of a team's offense. With hpx out the door and a strong rifler in Whimp replacing him Sunde has taken the AWP mantle onto his shoulders and now his game revolves around it when the team's economics allow for it.

In the hpx days Sunde was often a mid range rifler, he would patrol the mid range to it's limits but never overly aggressively. He would always try and enter bombsites with escort, usually 2 other players as Sunde is comfortable as the third player into a bombsite. His strengths in this role came from his rifling style. At a mid range Sunde would aim a precise first shot and then spray up to 5 or 6 bullets all with good accuracy. That when combined with the consistency Sunde possesses makes it difficult for CTs to play aggressively and so Sunde is an excellent lookout on an area so flanks don't happen as much and you can probe other areas of the map knowing you can come back and regroup with Sunde to attack the other site at any time. That's a sound strategy on some of the high skilled teams and NoA benefits from being able to do that even to this day. That said as mentioned above Sunde has been taking on more and more AWPing recently. In particular a standout performance against fnatic on dust2 put Sunde over the top in a lot of fans minds as he racked up the kills against CS' best team.

The truth of Sunde's AWP skillset is a little less sexy than that performance might have suggested to the casual viewer. In fact Sunde is in the strange scenario of being some one with very fast clicking reflexes but not very fast tracking. He plays to his strengths in this regard by mostly mixing sound positioning with using tripwire shots as his primary AWP offense. For the unsure tripwire shots are where the awp is stationary and one waits for the enemy to move in front of the crosshairs. For this kind of shot fast clicking time is a huge boon and so Sunde racks these kinds of kills up when he is able to get into a comfortable position and isn't pressured. He is not though one of those mad skills i-can-hit-any-shot type players who will attempt amazing shots at any opportunity. You don't see Sunde quickly and aggressively attacking with the AWP. Versus enemy AWPers he will rarely attempt to take a pick, especially if his team is not working that side of the map.


When Sunde attacks he likes to do it from the 2nd or 3rd position but with that comfort in place once he is out and into a site or defending a site he will happily stick around to find multiple opponents without seeking cover. He is willing to take some minor risks within this comfort zone and try and put his team further out in front. Knowing one's strengths is a key to improving in any aspect of life and Sunde has learnt this skill in regard to his CS approach. There are times Sunde will step outside of this style though and those are when he is put in a do or die situation and emerges with a big kill, often times if there are other enemies in the very near vicinity he will be so pumped up he will engage them and kill or wound them with no fear at all. This ability to be cautious when playing average and then cut-throat aggressive when in the zone is a hallmark of a well rounded player.

Lastly it is worth considering how Sunde's play impacts his opponents because one of the traits of a great player can be their ability to make their opponents play worse than them in big games. Let's consider two simple and familiar cases in fnatic's cArn and f0rest. When cArn plays against Sunde and Sunde gets early kills cArn becomes much more cautious and tries to cover flanks and not push aggressively against those positions Sunde dominates at the mid range. f0rest makes an interesting case because his electrifying aim and confidence makes f0rest a player who can only be described aggressively. His entire game is offense because when he engages enemies he makes amazing shots and wins rounds. When playing Sunde f0rest will start out as though nothing is different, he's rushing and pushing and sneaking and progressing and risking it. When he faces resistance the make or break issue is if he gets the best of the early outcome. If he doesn't then even the mighty f0rest has only a few more indicriminate jaunts before he has to back off like any of us. That said though f0rest IS pure aggression so even then he simply finds reasons to have team-mates accompany him on pushes but in a more controlled fashion. These two cases are both of players reacting for different reasons to Sunde's play but the end result is the same, the CTs are spread out when Sunde is a T because they are falling back on teamplay and not testing the Ts initial setups. This means Sunde can hold a large area of a map while his team-mates setup probing scouting missions at the other site.

He's not the next cogu or zet or f0rest or solo. Sunde is, however, a player who has some very marked offensive skills and areas of the game where he can dominate. He is also a player who works very well within NoA's system and he feels at home enough here to be able to maximise his potential. When his team-mates play with this he can elevate their game, his play making with ave in particular has put that player in the spotlight a surprising amount.