- Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson will not attend the event due to personal reasons
- Fnatic is bringing CS veteran Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg as a stand-in for the tournament
- This is his second time playing as a stand-in for fnatic in the past year
F0rest has been one of the most important members of fntaic from their early days, and he is once again playing for the organization as a stand-in in the upcoming IEM Dallas.
F0rest Will Substitute KRIMZ
IEM Dallas is approaching fast and CS:GO organizations are busy making last-minute preparations for the event, be they training or roster shuffles. The European team Fnatic is certainly doing both, as the organization recently announced that it will be playing with a stand-in at the North American event.
Fnatic’s Swedish player Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson will miss the upcoming event due to personal reasons, necessitating the team to call upon CS veteran Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg to play as a substitute. The 34-year-old player will compete in place of his younger compatriot, who assured fans that he would be “back on the server before you know it”.
Fnatic and F0rest Go Way Back
This won’t be f0rest’s first rodeo with fnatic as the veteran CS player has attended the Pinnacle Cup Championship in Lund, Sweden, in mid-2022. It was fnatic’s first event with Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi and Fredrik “roeJ” Jørgensen among their ranks after the European organization revamped the roster following their failure to qualify for the PGL Major Antwerp.
F0rest and company started off the Pinnacle Cup Championship well, with a surprise and close 16-14 victory on Inferno over favorites Heroic in their first game. However, the team could not maintain that form and after losses to BIG and Heroic in series play, fnatic crashed out of the competition. Despite that, f0rest performed admirably, scoring a 1.31 rating against BIG on Nuke.
Fnatic and f0rest’s history stretches a long way before the Pinnacle Cup Championship, going back to the days of CS 1.6. F0rest used to be part of the team for five years, representing fnatic in the Counter-Strike 1.6 stage from 2006-2010. He played a crucial part in building fntaic to what it is now, helping the team win multiple championships, and cementing his reputation as one of the best players in the game. Now, f0rest has another chance to prove he’s still got it at the upcoming tournament. It’s important to note that fnatic is replacing Virtus.pro at IEM Dallas because the Russian-majority squad is unable to attend it due to visa issues. According to the ESL’s rules, the next available squad from a bracket can replace a team that’s unable to attend. It just turned out that fnatic is said team, as they placed fourth in the closed qualifier behind OG, Cloud9, and Astralis, all of whom have already either been invited or qualified for the event.
