f0rest to replace KRIMZ at IEM Dallas 2023

The popular Swedish esports organization, Fnatic, has announced that Counter-Strike legend Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg will replace Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson in the team’s lineup at IEM Dallas 2023.

This announcement, for all of us who have followed f0rest since his Counter-Strike 1.6 days, is excellent news, as we will once again see one of our idols competing at the highest level. In addition, this will be the return to the competitive scene the 34-year-old Swede after almost a year of inactivity, where he had only dedicated himself to creating content on his Twitch channel.

Fnatic announces f0rest as KRIMZ’s replacement for IEM Dallas 2023

A few minutes ago, one of the world’s most popular esports organizations, Fnatic, especially in the CS:GO scene, announced that f0rest would be part of the team’s starting lineup at IEM Dallas 2023.

As mentioned, the Swedish legend will replace his great friend and teammate, KRIMZ, who, for personal reasons and the short time between the team’s last two competitions (Paris Major and IEM Dallas), will not be able to travel to North America.

In addition, Fnatic notes that they are very excited to see f0rest back competing in a LAN event and thank him for accepting this challenge on short notice.

Fnatic will attend IEM Dallas 2023 in place of Virtus.pro, which announced at the time that it would not be able to participate due to problems with the visa of some of its players.

Return of f0rest to its former home

This marks the return of the Swedish legend to what was his home for four years during Fnatic’s golden years in Counter-Strike 1.6 (2006-2010). At that time, Fnatic dominated the pro scene and won many Tier 1 tournaments together.

However, with the advent of Counter-Strike 1.6, f0rest spent his entire career playing under the NiP banner and has undoubtedly become a legend in this organization he represented for eight years.

Together with NiP, f0rest won different champion trophies in tournaments at the highest competitive level, such as Intel Extreme Masters XI – Oakland in 2017 and DreamHack Masters Malmö 2016.

But, as time went by, the 34-year-old Swedish legend’s level of play decreased, and in 2020, the player decided to part ways with the team to join Dignitas, a team that is now disbanded.

Eventually, f0rest decided to step aside from the competitive scene when Dignitas disbanded in mid-2022. Since then, the player has been playing daily alongside Adam “friberg” Friberg and, on a few occasions, alongside Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund on his Twitch streams.

Now, Fnatic’s lineup for IEM Dallas 2023 is as follows:

• William “mezii” Merriman
• Nico “nicoodoz” Tamjidi
• Fredrik “roeJ” Jørgensen
• Dion “FASHR” Derksen
• Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg – Stand-in

Header: João Ferreira | PGL