mTw 's Christoffer 'Sunde' Sunde has quite the resume with a WCG gold medal, IEM III European Finals title and an ESWC Masters crown amongst other accomplishments but one of the few majors which has thusfar evaded him has been the ESWC Grand Finals. His team finished runnersup in 2007 so coming fresh off a DreamHack Summer victory the Dane heads into this year's ESWC with his team as one of the favourites to finally achieve that prestigious goal of becoming the ESWC champion.

First impressions upon seeing your group for ESWC?

We are in group D along with Alternate and eu4ia - which on paper seems like a good pull for us, we never had any problems with those teams. All in all I think the 4 team groups are well balanced. I presume that two teams from each of the 3 team groups are advancing, those groups seem a bit tougher.

What can you say about OSLF's chances in their group and the tournament altogether?

Yeah, I think their most recent result was beating mouz in the KODE5 qualifier in Germany. mouz probably have that in the back of their mind when facing them again, and I don't see OSLF coming out on top again. They are probably gonna fight it out against PlayZone for that 2nd spot - I have my fingers crossed for them :)

ESWC had a lot of prestige and tradition to go along with its grand finals in the past and it was a place a number of teams made their mark or cemented their status as an elite team, as you know from your 2007 campaign there. Do the new organisers taking over, the unpaid prize money from 2008 or any other differences change the way you think about this event as you go into it?

I don't know much about the new ownership and all that, obviously I hope that there will be no problems with unpaid prizemoney. With that said I think ESWC was always an event that put a little extra effort in making it glamorous and prestigeous, something I personally enjoy. It's back in Paris where I think it belongs, and I'm really looking forward to see the setup and feel the ESWC atmosphere

How highly does an ESWC title rank in terms of those you have to get before you hang up the mouse?

I've never won an actual ESWC as you say, we did however win ESWC Masters 2008. Winning ESWC is the biggest achievement I have left, considering what events are being held these days. It will be interesting to watch Arbalet's progress as he/it seems to really throw some events out there, the next being in Dallas, Texas - I will have to wait and see for myself how that turns out.

In 2008 you had your shot at winning ESWC when you guys were on that now legendary run but that tournament didn't turn out too well for you. With your 3rd at Arbalet and 1st at DreamHack is it reasonable to say you're peaking at the right time and this might be your best chance at winning the event outright so far? If not how would you describe the team's upward trajectory at the moment?

We are playing well right now, it seems that the insecurity that we've had problems with earlier is history, and we are molding together as a unit like we were in the past. Our teamplay is improving and is a lot better than it used to be - if we all hit our shots I think we are a team to be feared.

Now you can look back at 2010 as a whole since you've returned do you see any specific things you guys changed in the game or your setup that helped you get from that terrible IEM IV WC performance to the two recent results? Is there anything you've changed personally to adapt to playing with this lineup again as you've been refinding your form?

I think we had quite some work to do with our two new players, making them adapt to our gameplay as well as adapting to how they play. That being one of the issues I also believe it was a matter of playing better individually, we simply missed too many shots. It doesn't matter how good your teamplay is, when you fail to take advantage of the situations you gain by it. Personally I didn't change my gameplay much, besides rotating differently with the AWP.

Talk about trace a little because here's a guy who was in every Danish top team not called NoA/mTw, multiple times, but when he got his chance to really shine, filling in your shoes for a while, he impressed a lot of people. Now you guys have finally managed to make it work with you and he in the lineup without stepping on each other's toes it seems. What has it been like playing with him and what can you say about him as a player? Some would call him the best Danish player right now.

He was always a good player and a great aimer, why he hasn't been given the chance to play with NoA/mTw earlier is simply because we didn't need new players for a long time and why change anything when what you've got is working like it should. Ever since he joined mTw he has been playing really good, and he's certainly one of the best players in Denmark, if not the best.

markeloff's AWPing style seems to have been kryptonite for a number of top teams and players this year with his aggressive and fast flick/drag shooting style. You guys had problems with them at Arbalet Cup Europe to say the least so how do you think you individually match up vs. him and Na`Vi? How about you guys as a team?

I'm generally against drawing conclusions from a few match-ups, but they have destroyed us the few times we've met. I don't think it came out to being markeloff vs. me, and for comments on that I'd have to watch the demo and see who shot who the most, but I didn't feel dominated in any way. He is a really good AWP'er no doubt, but why we lost I would boil down to saying we simply played bad against them.

It's fair to say if we pick the top teams as Na`Vi, fnatic, mTw, mouz and SK that Na`Vi is the least favourable matchup for mTw so far though correct? Do you particularly look forward to facing Na`Vi again?

Well yeah, we want to beat Na`Vi but I think fnatic is as strong as Na`Vi. They play very differently and have each strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn't put it as if Na`Vi is our nemesis like Pentagram were in the past, so not really feeling the urge for revenge, atleast not yet.

It has been suggested, before your DreamHack win, that your 3rd at Arbalet was a "fake" or "soft" 3rd place since you guys got smashed by Na`Vi in the 1st group stage, lost twice in 3 games in the 2nd group stage and then only had to beat PinG to get guaranteed 3rd, who could be argued to have had an easy route since forZe was the only team many would describe as "top"/"good" who they beat.

What can you say to that and how do you look back on that arbalet run for mTw? What kind of pride do you take in that placing?

As we already concluded Na`Vi beat us badly. The 2nd group stage we lost 16-14 to fnatic, followed by a 16-14 loss to United, both matches could easily have turned out better for us and things would have looked different. But how things line up, who we meet when and all that, is out of our hands so people are allowed to think and say what they want.

I take no special pride in finishing 3rd at Arbalet, I wouldn't say I got any special vibe.

In your matchup against SK you seemed to take care of them pretty handily, especially on nuke where they looked really shaky and passive. What did you think of their performance and was it a surprise to you after they had beaten Na`Vi in two straight? How do you rate that series in terms of your team's play at the tournament?

I'm not surprised that we beat them, as I mentioned above we have been playing a lot better lately and I think it shows. On nuke we got our T side rolling and it was only a matter of routine to end it as CT.

Without being unduly kind since they got to the finals and you guys beat them to win the title what are your thoughts of that H2k lineup? Did they have a hot tournament? Did they push you enough that you ever felt like they could have won the final?

H2k played a great tourney, beating MYM and fnatic I think - We did well by not underestimating them. They are still underdogs coming into a match vs the top in my eyes. I think It's fair to say they had a hot tournament. I predict they are gonna suffer from not having a complete line up in ESWC.

Do you have any specific thoughts in mind when thinking back to zonic's ace rounds in the final?

I don't know man, it's nice and unexpected when people pull off a round like that. It boosts the whole team when a player wins insane 1onX situations.

Final words?

Thanks to our sponsors; Sennheiser, Kaspersky.net, OCZ, mysn & Mindfactory.de.


Find out more about Sunde and mTw at mymtw.com.

(Photographs copyright of mymtw.com, fragbite and zotob.org)