When Christoffer 'Sunde' Sunde joined NoA in 2007 few could have imagined the impact he would have as he became a key part of the elevation of that Danish team from a side who fell by the wayside in the last 4-8 of big tournaments into one who could contend for the top spot against the elite teams of that era. As mTw.dk the team went on to one of the best years of Counter-Strike ever in 2008 winning four major tournaments and picking up the esports awards of 'Team of the year' and 'Player of the year' for Sunde.

This is part one of a two part interview with the 24 year old AWPer from Århus, Denmark. We discuss the early period of his career up until the point his team became the mTw.dk powerhouse we're all familiar with now.

You seem to have gotten onto the fringe of international fans' radars when you joined SoA in August of 2006. This lasted until March of 2007 and a couple of months after that you became an NoA player. How good did you think you were as a player at that time in light of what appeared from the outside to be a quick transformation upon joining NoA?

I remember back in the days where me, a friend of mine (Envy) and maybe someone else, I might have forgotten a name or two, created Mirror. We wanted to compete with the top teams in Denmark and we definately had some talent as well, but my leading abilities were a bit flawed as I consistently kept preaching how we would not attend a LAN tournament before we actually had a chance at winning it - which also unfortunately led to a lot of people doubting whether or not we were clean, in terms of cheating.

Regarding my view on myself and my capabilities, I was very confident in myself and I kept believing that I could beat anyone, even though it may not have been the truth. I think having the confidence to take chances, and believing in yourself no matter what, makes your playstyle that much better and consistent. Back in Mirror I considered ave and myself the core of the team, which is why it was hard when he got an offer from Ex Inferis, another top-mediocre team in Denmark, but also made me that much more excited to rejoin forces with him later, in Evermore. In Evermore I had my LAN debut at Rendevouz in Sweden and felt the rush from "a real tournament". The story from there and to NoA was pretty quick.

In Evermore ave played outstanding and it didn't take long before he got an offer from a SoA team in building - Luckily for me there was an opening not much later and ave managed to talk me into the team. This is where I'm not completely sure but I think it was before we even got to play a tournament with the lineup, after a bootcamp in the same town NoA at the time was bootcamping. We played a lot vs. NoA and ave remarked himself once again, and not much later he got the offer from NoA, which also led to the shattering of SoA. So by then I had no team and really no plans on whether or not to continue playing Counter-Strike. Then one day out of the blue I get a call from ave, asking me if I would be up for the challenge if they were to give me a spot in NoA and probably the chance of my life, regarding playing Counter-Strike.

Being as you lacked experience of the deep stages of major tournaments what was the incredibly close semi-final at ESWC 2007 against mibr like for you? At one point on the first map, inferno, you had the score at map-point to mibr 8-15 and you rallied to force overtime. The map ended up going through three overtimes and there was a crazy round where an NoA player defused the bomb with mibr players alive and close by, due to smokes and confusion from the Brazilians.

On the second map, train, you were the ones at match-point as you were up 15-10 before mibr began rallying back and fell just short as you won 16-14. What do you remember about those close games?

Yes I surely remember that match, we had just beaten NiP (I think), taking around 10 rounds in a row as T on dust2, thus securing our advancing to the playoffs. On inferno we made a great comeback and felt very much on top after that. The episode where hpx defuses the bomb in the middle of chaos was epic as well, we couldn't stop laughing. I remember not even understanding was had happened until he told me: "Yeah I just sprayed the colt and started defusing".

On train we pretty much controlled the match, I think we won T 10-5 and as you said we led 15-10, when mibr turned it up a notch and made us fight to the bitter end. At 15-14 we ended out in a 2 on 2, they were moving towards b2 bombsite as zonic and I already had positioned ourselves, waiting for them. There was tension in the air as we suddenly heard the sound of bones crushing and looked up in the right corner of the monitor where we could see one of the Brazillians had cratered, we killed the other one and moved on to the grand final. The mood was through the roof, I was probably high on adrenaline, but it is certainly a match I will never forget

In that ESWC final you were on new ground, but so was your team since they hadn't made it that deep in a major event. How was your experience of playing that final? Since fans made a lot of noise about your individual performance, despite the loss, what did you think of the way you played during that final and how would you assess it looking back now?

It was bigger than anything I had imagined up to that point, the whole setup with the stage, the crowd and the commentators. I remember after I had plugged in all my equipment on the stage I wanted to take a picture of the crowd, but I thought it was kinda embarresing so I tried to hide what I was doing, and it just turned out as a really bad photograph :). I think I played a good match and looking back now I am proud of my performance. With everything being new to me it was quite overwhelming, but in a very good way! When we lost the final I was a bit down and disappointed, but I think that's very natural in pretty much any scenario. It only took a few hours untill I appreciated what we had achieved.

After the final, when we left the stage to do interviews etc. I got some kind words on the way from a few fnatic players, that was when I realised and believed I was now a top-player, and it felt great! Comparing myself now to myself back then I'd have to say I probably was more of a motivating factor back then, as we see it with Gux & Get_Right, face & khrystal and hopefully now with Trace & minet in mTw. Now I'm looking forward to see what we can achieve in the future.

When PGS and fnatic met in the semi-final, where they ended up playing a close game, a lot of people felt like that was going to be the 'real final' since those were the two best teams of the year it seemed. Did you have similar feelings about that matchup and if we imagine ESWC was double elimination would NoA have beaten fnatic to reach the final still?

As the newest member of the team I didn't have any relations to any of the other teams, in terms of how strong they were compared to each other and to my team. So personally I took one match at a time and believed we could overcome everyone. However, my teammates might have felt like the underdogs coming in to a match vs. fnatic before the grand final. But after proving to ourselves, throughout the tournament, that we were capable of hanging with the big dogs, we would go into any match with our head held high and believing we could win.

A WCG silver medal is a prestigious accomplishment but that 2007 event had a lot of factors to be considered. fnatic and PGS had been eliminated early on meaning it was almost expected NoA would pick up one of the easier WCG golds in the event's history. Still you had a series against wNv.cn which you narrowly escaped with the win on the last round of the third map, then another close two map game against mibr. The final of course saw emuLate run over your team behind mSx's play. Taking into consideration these factors how do you weigh up the positives of winning a silver medal with circumstances where many felt you should have taken the gold?

Well that whole tournament was a kinda strange experience, both good and bad. First of all we had a TV-team from Denmark following us around most of the time, which was a cool and movie star-like experince. Then there was the games and the tournament as a whole. As you mention fnatic and PGS both went out quite early, and we had a fairly easy way to the final. With that said we all felt that we had a bad tournament, we didn't play nearly as good as we should have, but we still managed to beat two big teams; wNv.cn and mibr. I think we actually lost to emulate two times in that tournament, once in the group stage, then in the final. We were obviously disappointed when we lost to a team almost everyone would have thought of as inferior to us, but they played really well and deserved to win.

That NoA team had the reputation of being a team good enough to be considered top 3 in the world but of the teams in the top 3 the one who wasn't going to take down a major event. How do you see the transformation to mTw.dk and its success having taken place in light of factors like player changes and different roles within the team changing?

As you mention yourself there was several factors to take account for. The biggest change had to be the departure of hpx and the arrival of whimp, along with me having to take over the role as AWPer. This must not be understood as if hpx was just in the way, he was a really good player, and brought a lot to the team. At one point along the way we just started developing really great teamwork, our arsenal of tactics was variated and we all felt very confident before executing every strategy. I felt at that point that we were by far the best team strategically.

hpx was an elite AWPer and one of the best players within the team but the style of the team was different with him as the primary AWPer. hpx's strengths appeared to be in his smooth tracking and ability to hit a lot of shots consistently while AWPing a single position on the map. Contrasted against that your style seems to be based on your reaction time and hand-eye coordination so it sees you making a lot of flick shots and moving aggressively into areas to get the first pick of a round. You also use tripwire style shots where you let the enemy walk into your crosshair and then use your flast clicking speed to get the kill.

How do you think these differences between the two of you affected the transition from the NoA-era success to the mTw.dk-era success?

I think it's right that hpx was a more defensive AWPer than I am, but my success can't really be concluded by the differences between hpx and I. One of the great forces I had was that no one had a clue how I would play, and I was therefore able to pick out many players early in the rounds, merely by playing offensive when it was unexpected. I like making those cool "movie-style" shots that require hand-eye coordination as well as reflexes. With that said, I never count on those, nor do I try to position myself where I have to make shots like that. I try to take the safe kills, sometimes playing offensive ends up in a kill or get killed situation, then I just have to believe in my skills and that I can pull it off.

While we're on the topic of your AWP and your skillset with it. In light of what I've said before about your fairly unique style in terms of being the main AWPer on a modern team: do you feel like it's a gun where you're strong in every area with it and you're a complete AWPer? Or do you feel like you play to your strengths and avoid the areas you're weaker with it? How do you think you compare to some of the really elite level AWPers people think of immediately like cogu, fRoD, walle etc?

Again everyone has their own unique style, to put a few of my thoughts on those players on paper I'd say that: cogu is again a player that is very consistant and probably has a very high hitrate, fRoD I don't know much about, I have never had the chance to play against him so I don't know much about his playstyle, and walle is known for his aggressive noscopes with the awp, but he is a great all round player as well, being able to switch to rifles if needed. I feel that when I'm warm I'm not afraid of any aspect of AWPing, I feel confident noscoping as well as playing both aggressively and defensively. This should not be concluded as if I think of myself as better than everyone else, I just find strength in believing I am better :). Obviously there will be situations I wish I had a colt or ak, but you can't have it all.

Let's talk about ave: here is a player you played together with before NoA, so you have history with him, and you are the primary AWPer for mTw.dk and he is the tactician so clearly it's key you have a close relationship. In terms of your in-game play it seems like you two really mesh well together and are on the same page too, your play elevates each others since you back each other up so well at specific positions etc. How do you see that relationship in terms of your history together, the synergy of your playing styles and how would you describe's ave's game to the casual fan who only looks at the guys getting the movie type frags and wonders why he is in mTw.dk?

ave and I have history together, but to be honest our past history, before hooking up in NoA, has been more or less erased by the history we have written together in NoA/mTw.dk. We often have alike mindsets in the middle of in-game situations and I feel we have special teamwork that would be hard to replace. But it's not all a dance on flowers, we disagree on a lot of stuff as well, but when all comes to all I know I have a great teammate backing me up when I need it. What people don't notice, on HLTV or wherever they may be watching us play, is that ave often is the first guy in action, bunnyjumping to take attention, allowing the rest of his team to take down their opponents. Often people are judging his performance on the numbers on the scoreboard which is very misleading.

The second part of this interview will be published tomorrow and sees Sunde addressing the mTw.dk from 2008 until now. In part two Sunde offers up a number of intriguing opinions such as fnatic's 2009 not being the best year of CS and Mouz not playing well but winning the SuperCup due to other teams playing badly.

Visit the homepage of Sunde's team, mTw, here.

(Photographs copyright of readmore and fragbite)