Rakaka.se is reporting that ESWC 2004 runnerup and former spiXel player Björn "Bullen" Wall has passed away from illness at the age of 26. The Swedish player's family have created a facebook page for those who wish to leave messages.

Björn "Bullen" Wall (1984-2011)

Bullen quickly became known as one of the rising talents in Swedish CS as a member of HLO.caYa and made his mark by defeating vesslan and XeqtR's Adrenaline, along with dsn and cArn's xPerience.se, at the finals of Season 5 of the Swedish Esport League (SEL) Playing alongside the likes of Callipo and Hyper it was Bullen's play on train, released as a POV demo, that sparked his team to the unexpected victory over the league's favourites for the title.

From there he headed to spiXel, to team up with the man who would be his partner in crime for the next six months: walle. In April of 2004 spiXel showed beat up on a mixteam of fisker, vesslan, SpawN, quick and solido en route to winning Rendezvous X. spiXel shocked the world that Summer as they finished 2nd at ESWC, behind The-Titans, cementing walle and Bullen as top tier players.

At OsloLAN that October Bullen's spiXel defeated an NoA team with ahl and XeqtR standing-in, prior to the latter's recruitment, to win 1kg of gold. At Nollelva another victory over NoA, again sporting XeqtR, and an overtime loss to SK.swe meant a 3rd place finish for spiXel. With EYE still tinkering with their lineup, thanks to Hyper having left for SK.swe, who had won Nollelva, vilden's men brought in the duo of Bullen and walle in their bid for another CPL title.

CPL Winter 2004 was the stage and the chance for Bullen and walle to correct the errors of the ESWC final and be victorious, especially since SK.swe was not in attendance. EYE had won Dreamhack Winter and from all accounts were performing at a high level in practice in Europe. The favourites for the tournament quickly emerged as EYE and NoA, the two meeting in the upper bracket on train.

That game proved to be prematurely spoiled as an early NoA ramp room flashbug cost the transatlantic team all the remaining rounds of the half and gifted EYE and easy win and trip towards the final. NoA would meet them there via the lower bracket and after the Swedes lost the first map 14:16 the second, also on inferno, went to the team who would not be denied as they made history to win a CPL from the lower bracket.

2005 began poorly as EYE were upset at Optihack by dsn' Skolpojkarna and an relatively unknown team called Embrace, who just happened to feature future Swedish top tier players f0rest, Tentpole and RobbaN. vilden departed for NiP, which didn't work out, and later walle also left for the same destination.

Bullen continued to play for EYE, helping them to a 3rd at GameGune that year. Later that year he played in an EYE lineup containing dsn and cArn, who were at that time far from decorated players, but the side were unable to find success at the WEG S3 qualifier, even losing to then underdogs Wings as part of the Finns' miraculous storyline.

His big return to top tier play came in January of 2007 when he joined up with NiP, along with miniwalle and KF3, to replace the outgoing ins, SpawN and zet. The team did not last long, apparently due to practice issues, and the newly instated trio left as swiftly as they had arrived. Bullen's CS career had come to a close.

Bullen's accomplishments:
2004 SEL S5 (1st)
2004 Rendezvous X (1st)
2004 ESWC (2nd)
2004 OsloLAN (1st)
2004 Nollelva (3rd)
2004 Dreamhack Winter (1st)
2004 CPL Winter (2nd)
2005 GameGune (3rd)




Source: rakaka
(Photographs copyright of fragbite)