Nicolai ”HUNDEN” Petersen was one of the five guys recruited to SK Gaming as the former powerhouse of Counter-Strike announced a new CS:GO squad earlier this summer.
But due to low individual statistics he was soon targeted with hate and ridicule and three weeks later he was let go from the team.
– When everything was going on with SK and that stuff, I didn’t open HLTV because of all the hate, HUNDEN tells Aftonbladet Esport.

Earlier this summer, in the end of May, the legendary Counter-Strike organisation SK.Gaming announced their new CS:GO squad after a long break from the scene. In the line up we saw players such as Michael ‘Friis’ Jørgensen and Asger ‘AcilioN’ Larsen, led by the in game leader Nicolai ”HUNDEN” Petersen. It was not long before they faced internal problems.
– I felt like we had too many leaders in the team. We had different views on how we should play the game, how we should practice and stuff like that. So the team chemistry was not right, plus in my opinion we missed a key player in Lukas ”gla1ve” Rossander. So i decided to leave the team after few weeks, HUNDEN tells Aftonbladet Esport.

In hindsight, do you feel it was the right decision?
– When I see that they are traveling around the world, I miss playing for a bigger team. Lets clear it out, three of them are very good mates outside the game, so I miss them a lot because we had fun when we were traveling around the world. But for my own life it was the right decision because I was not happy when i was playing with SK and not motivated at all. SK was the biggest thing in my esport career but it was with the wrong team.

Hate and ridicule

In the beginning of the SK era, HUNDEN became a target for hate and ridicule among the fans. The reason was his poor individual statistics that often showed red, negative, numbers. Because of this, condescending phrases such as ”BOT HUNDEN” became somewhat of a meme in the comment sections of the Twitch chat and HLTV.
– Of course it has bothered me few times, but if people look at our matches – they can see that I just want to win. If I have to go first I will do that to get the needed information. I had talks with Alexander Müller, the owner of SK, about this, and he said that ’as long as you feel confident and it doesn’t bother you, you will be strong’. And after a lot of talks with him, it hasn’t bothered me. But i think my own performance have improved the months after I left SK gaming, so maybe the future will bring some green numbers – I cross my fingers for that!

There have been other cases where people get hate for not performing ”green numbers”, like Robin ”Fifflaren” Johansson and Ricardo ”Fox” Pacheco.
– The hate players receive is disgusting to see. People should really rethink what they are typing, because I lost confidence in myself for a small period, and the same happened for both Fox and Fifflaren I guess. But I’ve seen those two players being awesome, and Fifflaren was a beast back in the days, and had good matches. But when you lose skins, all those threads on HLTV doesn’t improve your confidence at all. I guess I ended in the same shit storm as them.

”It turned around to a fan thing”

However, the HUNDEN hate took an unexpected turn as fans changed their approach towards him. Instead of being condescending a lot of people started praising him, even calling him ”god”. There are plenty of threads, like this one, that illustrate the change of climate.
– It’s pretty funny to see it turned around to being a ”fan thing”. Now I just need my signature in the game so I can please them even more, or play some bad matches so i can keep my hype on, HUNDEN says and continues:
– To clear things our, when everything was going on with SK and the stuff i didn’t open HLTV because of all the hate, but now the jokes is pretty old about ”#csgod”, ”lord hunden” etc. So now i can start reading them without getting down.

Do you take this negatively or positively?
– Only the last two week I have seen this in a positive way, if they really enjoy the way I’m playing its good, but before that it was pretty negative for me. I can say it’s a 60 percent chance that I will start streaming soon so it can be a two-sided relationship and not just them leading the show.

”In my opinion we have over performed”

After the short period with SK.Gaming, HUNDEN found himself leading a new squad of individuals. With players such as Lasse ”maeVe” Elgaard and Benjamin ”tabu” Vangstrup the new team has gathered under the banner of Reason Gaming.
– It’s going pretty well, I can lead them the way I want. We have to improve a lot, and I have to think about that they have not played a lot against the top teams. So we are doing a lot of mistakes at the moment, but all of them are learning very fast. In my opinion we have over performed, beating teams like KILLERFISH, Space Soldiers and Epiphany. Our goals are not even close to the ones SK have, but I’m sure with much more time we can reach our own goals.

Other than streaming, what else do you have planned for the future?
– I hope I can stay a profile, I like the hype now. So streaming should be the next step in my own career. When the SK contract were being done, I decided to take at least 6 month away from my school to focus on SK 110 percent. The contract was for full time so it could pay my livings, but when i left the SK team i was pretty much left without anything. So I got a job working on a betting site, because we don’t get a salary in Reason right now. So the future brings a lot of CS with my lovely team, and hopefully we can make some good results in the future to bring in a salary.