NiP’s rebuild is finally over.
Ninjas in Pyjamas has signed the former GamerLegion rifler Isak "isak" Fahlén on May 8 to complete the rebuild of its CS2 lineup.
The addition of isak to NiP's CS2 roster comes days after the organization played in ESL Pro League season 19 and failed to reach playoffs. The 22-year-old Swede will take the spot of academy player Maoz "BluePho3nix" Paz, who was standing in while NiP searched for a permanent fifth player in the market.
With isak, NiP effectively rebuilt its CS2 lineup. The organization only kept the Spanish in-game leader Alejandro "alex" Masanet and longtime rifler Fredrik "REZ" Sterner after the RMR fiasco in February, which cost NiP's participation in the PGL Copenhagen Major.
After that, NiP picked up Ukrainian AWPer Artem "r1nkle" Moroz, promoted the academy player Max "maxster" Jansson permanently, and signed Richard "Xizt" Landström as the new head coach. Alex revealed in an interview with esports.gg earlier this month that he didn't have a say in the roster changes and it was all NiP's management.
What does NiP gain with the signing of isak?
Isak is expected to fill an important spot in NiP's CS2 system: the anchor position. Anchors are players responsible for defending one of the bombsites even when the rest of the team already rotated to fight in the middle or to the other bombsite.
And, according to NiP's head coach Xizt, isak has all the qualities to succeed in this role.
"Isak embodies the essence of team play — he's the unsung hero who elevates the performance of his teammates," Xizt said in a comment to NiP's announcement. "Isak's consistent performance under pressure, posting solid stats in the least flashy role, underscores his reliability. Despite his youth, Isak's potential for growth within our setup is promising and I think he'll quickly become a crucial asset."
Isak's career upon joining NiP
Isak has been playing Counter-Strike professionally since 2019, but went on to make a name for himself after joining GamerLegion in April 2021.
He stayed three years in the German organization and most notably was part of the lineup that had a Cinderella run at the BLAST Paris Major in May 2023 and finished runners-up to Vitality. On top of that, isak was also a part of the lineup that made IEM Cologne playoffs in August 2023.
We expect isak to debut for NiP from May 15 onwards as the team are one of the participants of the online tournament RES European Series 4.
That's all for now. Stay tuned to esports.gg for more CS2 news and guides.