Lekr0 Is Northbound

Jonas “⁠Lekr0⁠” Olofsson has led the NiP roster for almost two years, but in May, he was moved to the bench as the team welcomed Hampus “hampus” Poser. Now, the Danish organization North has decided to sign the Swedish player to their Danish roster, per reports by HLTV.

Allegedly, the team had signalled their interest in the player long ago already, but had apparently not been happy with NiP’s asking price. Now that this issue has been moved out of the way, the player is able to enter the North roster.

With Markus “⁠Kjaerbye⁠” Kjærbye, the Danes have recently lost their highest performing player. Kjaerbye⁠ has mostly held the role of a fragger. This means that he was sent out to deliver kills and players like Mathias “MSL” Lauridsen gave him the support that he needed. Lekr0 doesn’t exactly fit this description.

WHAT DOES LEKR0 BRING TO THE TABLE?

The Swede has led the NiP roster for quite some time. Under his wings, the team was finally able to get back to a Major tournament. During this time, he wasn’t exactly an incredible fragger. But that was okay, since it wasn’t his task to deliver crazy kills. Just looking at his recent career, one might ask the question how North intend to replace Kjaerbye with such a player.

But for longer-standing fans of CS:GO, Lekr0 might still be remembered as the individually talented mad-fragger of GODSENT. Back when Markus “pronax” Wallsten was still a part of CS:GO, he led an underdog team of Swedes to events like DreamHack Masters. There, GODSENT made a deep run and even challenged NiP. Before Lekr0 took over the IGL reins with the Ninjas, he was also a really capable fragger. His recent history with NiP doesn’t do him justice.

One should also not forget the origins of Lekr0. When pronax played matchmaking, he saw this young player and decided to pick him up. Several Danish players recognized the name and remembered being wrecked by hm in FPL. While they did have other candidates in mind for GODSENT, they didn’t try any other players out after trialling Lekr0.

Other teams had also shown interest in the player. Now that North have succeeded in signing him, he should finally get his chance at redemption. Having MSL as the in-game-leader will allow him to commit to his individual performance again. Lekr0 will likely debut at the NineToFive tournament soon.