Top 20 players of 2018: KRIMZ (9)

After missing the previous two years, Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson returns to the Top 20 ranking for the third time with the ninth place in 2018's list powered by EGB.com.

Top 20 Players of 2018: Introduction

After playing 1.6 only casually, KRIMZ started making his name early on in CS:GO as part of a team including Mikail "⁠Maikelele⁠" Bill and Alexander "⁠SKYTTEN⁠" Carlsson that later became LGB, where he also became united with Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman and Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer in 2013. With that lineup, the then-19-year-old attended his first international tournaments, including the first two Majors, DreamHack Winter 2013 and EMS One Katowice 2014, making playoffs both times.

The squad broke down halfway through 2014, but it didn't take long for KRIMZ to move up to fnatic alongside olofmeister to refresh their struggling lineup and start what would become a dominant era of the roster also featuring Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell, Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist, and Markus "⁠pronax⁠" Wallsten. Before the year was over, that version secured five titles in 10 tournaments and a runners-up finish at one of the Majors, ESL One Cologne, with the Swede placing ninth in that year's Top 20 ranking.

2015 continued along similar lines, with fnatic keeping their place as the best team in the world for most of the year, improving on 2014's run by picking up two Major titles – KRIMZ's first – at ESL One Katowice and ESL One Cologne. Towards the end, the squad fell off and parted ways with pronax and the ex-LGB player was reunited with dennis to start another impressive run for the organization, with KRIMZ finishing off the year with the seventh place in the top 20 on the back of incredible consistency.

A fantastic start to 2016, during which fnatic extended the aforementioned run from three to six titles in a row, marked the end of the Swedes' domination. After olofmeister was forced to take a break due to an injury, fnatic were no longer able to secure trophies despite deep runs at most tournaments they attended, even after the return of 2015's best player, and KRIMZ's level began to deteriorate. For a brief period in Autumn, he separated from his ex-LGB teammates after the team broke in half, with him, JW, and flusha joining up with pronax and Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg in GODSENT, but continuous struggles saw him have a change of heart to go back to fnatic.

The calendar turned to 2017 and a few more disappointing attempts on both sides resulted in flusha and JW returning to fnatic, as well, but neither the team nor KRIMZ were able to replicate their former level, struggling for deep runs in the first half of the year. In August, olofmeister and dennis split from the rest, while Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim and Jonas "⁠Lekr0⁠" Olofsson made their way onto fnatic, with KRIMZ finishing off the year with a few impressive tournaments, although that wasn't enough to earn a place in the top 20 for the second time in a row.

For KRIMZ and fnatic, 2018 kicked off the same way as for most of the top-tier scene; with the ELEAGUE Major. The 24-year-old stepped into the year on the right foot, with some incredible maps in the group stage, including a 2.07 rating against Virtus.pro and 2.47 rating versus Gambit, as the team went 3-2 and KRIMZ kept his perfect streak of playoffs appearances for the time being. In the quarter-finals, the squad fell to SK (who played with João "⁠felps⁠" Vasconcellos as a stand-in) following a very close series, with the Swede adding a couple of more good maps to earn his first EVP mention on the back of an overall 1.29 rating - his highest in years.

"If I remember the Major right, we lost our opening match against FaZe and we did not play our game at all, we just tried to adapt too much. After that match, we just focused on our game and I went into my comfort zone.

"Before we faced Gambit, we lost to Na`Vi and it's kind of the same story, except we made really silly mistakes that we hadn't done in the past, so we were pretty much full tilt and angry at ourselves. We actually turned our anger to something positive that match and I just went rolling again."

He kept great form in February at StarSeries i-League Season 4, with six out of seven maps above 1.00 ratings, but the rest of the team did not show up at nearly the same level and they went 0-3 in Kiev despite getting some favorable matchups in the Swiss format: Gambit, TYLOO, and Renegades.

"What to say… I'm feeling thank you? Nah, but [StarSeries] was just a flop. We played pretty well before on officials and in practice, but something wasn't there that tournament, unluko for us."

With rumors of Golden's imminent exit starting to spread at that point, little was expected of fnatic at IEM Katowice two weeks later. However, with KRIMZ and flusha looking like two of the best players of the tournament, the Swedish side passed the groups from first place, defeating the favored FaZe 2-0 on the way. The duo kept performing to very high standards and led the team to the final after beating Liquid, where they took down FaZe yet again in a nail-biting best-of-five, while flusha outdid KRIMZ in the race for the MVP.

"We took a break from each other before Katowice and focused on individual practice, such as deathmatch, FPL, etc. At that time, it was the right thing to do for everyone and it somehow worked. I don't remember the full story, but somehow our travels got messed up on our way to Katowice and we didn't sleep before playing against Heroic in the opening game, and we just showed each other that we're here to play and make up for the previous tournament. A huge factor that we won Katowice was the way we played with each other and we had fun playing the game."

"We won Katowice 2016 and, after that, we didn't win a single tournament for two straight years and to go up on that stage again, lifting that same trophy in Katowice 2018 is a feeling I still can't describe today. Damn, we played well that tournament."

Reinvigorated by their first title run, the squad went to WESG as one of the biggest names there among mostly lower-tier competition. Despite a somewhat shaky run in the second group stage, where they tied best-of-two series with AGO and BIG, fnatic cruised through to the playoffs, with KRIMZ once again looking in amazing shape. He continued to put up big numbers in bracket play without ever dipping below 1.00 rating before the final, where fnatic beat Space Soldiers after another close final series 2-1 as other players stepped up, to earn his first MVP award since late 2015.

The great period for both fnatic and the star continued at one of the most stacked events of the year, DreamHack Masters Marseille. In France, KRIMZ once again played a key part in all of the team's wins throughout the event, putting up six maps rated above 1.40 as they made the top four, beating TYLOO, Renegades, and Ninjas in Pyjamas on the way, while also taking Natus Vincere to their limit. Although they could not contest Astralis in the semi-finals and the 24-year-old was the lowest-rated player across the series, his immense contribution to the high placing gave him his third EVP mention.

"Honestly, I have no idea [why I improved so much in 2018], but if I had to put a finger on it, I think that in my previous teams I wasn't thinking that highly of myself, I just did my part of the game. Maybe it was a mental block or something, but I gained confidence throughout all the failures."

From January to April, KRIMZ looked like a top-three player in the world with an average 1.26 rating, but when May came, he started to fall off. At IEM Sydney, fnatic once again made it to playoffs after beating Chiefs and G2, but another disappointing encounter with Astralis and a loss to FaZe saw them go out in the quarter-finals, with the Swedish star only putting up two out of eight maps rated above 1.00.

It was then that the team decided to make the first of many lineup changes, adding Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström as a new in-game leader in lieu of Lekr0 at the end of May. Two weeks later, they suffered their second group stage exit at ECS Season 5 Finals following two losses to Liquid in the GSL format and shortly after the British event, it turned out that there had been another roster change in the works, with Golden making way for William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin to bolster fnatic's firepower.

"It just didn't work socially with Lekr0 and that spread into the game, sadly. The best thing was to change the environment for both parties. In the beginning, Golden started to doubt himself, lost confidence in his own calling and blamed himself for every mistake that was done. That was the reason he started to put more hours into the game and kind of lost focus. We all were a part of it, of course, but he felt like it was his fault that we failed. I talked to him many, many times that he shouldn't put so much pressure on himself because he didn't cause every single problem. Golden is a guy whom I keep close to my heart.

"The options for a fifth were very limited and the only solution we saw was putting JW on a more hybrid position and take in an AWPer."

The new squad would travel to Cologne next to return to the playoffs stage, beating North and BIG before suffering a stunning defeat at the hands of FaZe in the match for first place in the group. In the quarter-finals, they were once again eliminated by the eventual champions of the tournament, Natus Vincere, as KRIMZ played well alongside JW to get fnatic to this point, but not enough so in the final loss to earn another award.

The last event before the break, ELEAGUE Premier, saw the Swedish side struggle in a group full of top-five teams. Even though they ended up exiting the tournament early, they held Na`Vi and MOUZ to very close series and KRIMZ led them to a narrow 2-0 win over FaZe.

Still, by then it had been clear that the bearded star had dropped off compared to his incredible play during the first four months, but he kept a solid level nonetheless between May and July as the team went through a few lineup changes. That for the first time wasn't the case after the off-season at DreamHack Masters Stockholm, another event where fnatic went out dead last following losses to OpTic and Heroic and the only one where KRIMZ went below a 1.00 rating overall (0.98).

That wasn't a great outlook for the team or the player ahead of the second Major of the year in London. KRIMZ returned to form, but he was the only one to turn up consistently in his attempts to keep his personal playoffs streak at Majors alive while the team as a whole struggled and were eliminated after losses to Complexity, Natus Vincere, and HellRaisers with a 2-3 record. It was obvious that something was wrong from the way fnatic lost to Kirill "⁠ANGE1⁠" Karasiow's side in the series – a 2-16 beatdown on the deciding map, Cache – and soon after the tournament, one of the core members of the squad, flusha, was benched.

"It was a huge disappointment to the team before that because everyone promised each other to have a certain amount of hours before our bootcamp for DreamHack Masters Stockholm. I did not do my part because of stupid personal priorities, so I'm still very ashamed of that today. I guess I was a factor in flusha leaving, that I let him down, but there were several other things, as well."

A short stint with Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom followed in the online leagues and, more importantly, at ESL One New York, where the temporary roster almost managed to beat MOUZ despite the lack of preparation, while Na`Vi ended their quick journey. Another player was on the chopping block then, as draken followed suit while the team welcomed Red Reserve's Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson, who had been considered by them earlier in the year already, and 16-year-old Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin.

"It didn't work out with draken because things just simply didn't click, with nobody to blame. I don't have any other explanation. We needed something completely new and fresh. We brought in twist because he is a really skilled player who also can pick up the AWP when needed.

"As for the little sh*t kid (smile), we took in Brollan because of his hunger and potential. Don't get me wrong, he's the best 16-year-old in the world I've seen play by far and what he can become in a couple of years is scary good."

After a few weeks of online play, during which fnatic were unable to qualify for either of the big leagues' finals, the new lineup played their debut at IEM Chicago. Rolling back to some great form similar to the first portion of the year, KRIMZ was in his element in groups, where the squad beat BIG, eUnited, and most notably Liquid to secure a spot in the semi-finals. There, they met Astralis and the 24-year-old added another great series to his resumé to push the best team in the world to their absolute limits, but the Swedes fell when the Danish squad pulled off a comeback from a 10-15 deficit on the decider, Inferno. It was an admirable attempt nonetheless, rewarded with a couple of EVPs that went to KRIMZ and JW.

"Everything clicked socially and we handled our problems straight away. In other teams, we were too afraid to talk about our problems, but with this lineup, we can talk openly about it, which is a huge factor.

"I personally gained so much motivation from the small things like someone in practice yelling 'nice' after a good round and stuff like that. Me and JW were not used to having this atmosphere around us and, god, we enjoy it."

Having missed out on the biggest events of the last few weeks of the year, including the league finals and BLAST Pro Series Lisbon, fnatic went to PLG Grand Slam — a tournament that was not considered in the analysis for the top 20 ranking because of a low level of competition — to close out the year with a triumph despite some struggles against FORZE, most notably beating the new G2 in the final.

Why was KRIMZ the 9th best player of 2018?

With an incredible start to the year, the first four months saw KRIMZ in the running for the No. 1 spot after EVP performances at the ELEAGUE Major, IEM Katowice, and DreamHack Masters Marseille, as well as an MVP-worthy level at WESG World Finals. Although he cooled off until the very end of 2018 comparatively, he still put up good performances for the rest of the year, always being one of fnatic's best players with ratings above the team's average at all 13 notable events they attended.

The Swede finished off the year as the fourth-best fragger at the Big events (0.78 KPR) while dealing the third-most damage (85.0 ADR), which resulted in the ninth-highest rating at tournaments of such stature (1.16). Those numbers become even more impressive when considering only the most competitive tournaments of the year — the two Majors and the five Big events that featured all top-five teams at the time —, as KRIMZ played at all seven of them and performed even better there compared to his overall average, recording the sixth-highest 1.18 rating and earning four EVPs.

He also rivaled the very best when it comes to impact on the outcome of rounds, averaging 1.07 kills in the rounds his team won, which ranks third highest among the top 20 players.

However, despite the high individual impact and his peaks, the lack of more standout performances and a slight falloff in big-event playoffs matches (1.09 rating) meant that the ninth spot was as high as he could reach.

"My personal goals are to become more stable in my own game and maybe win a few tournaments."

Bold prediction

KRIMZ didn't have to look far to come up with his bold prediction, highlighting 16-year-old teammate Brollan, who had a great debut with fnatic at IEM Chicago:

Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin

"I have to say Brollan. He is so skilled now, young and still with so much to learn. He will become No. 1 one day, for sure."

Stay tuned to our Top 20 players of 2018 ranking powered by EGB.com and take a look at the Introduction article to learn more about how the players were selected.