During a streaming session, talking to his viewers, the Swedish Counterstrike profile spawned a theory.
Only 24 hours later, the rumor Fredrik ”Slop3” Wahlstedt started had been confirmed and suddenly he was responsible for exposing one of the biggest CS:GO stories of the year.
– I was relieved when it was proven to be right, when I had in mind how big it had gotten in only a couple of hours, slop3 says.

Fredrik ”Slop3” Wahlstedt has been a Counterstrike profile on the Swedish scene for years, but recently started casting and streaming more actively again. During one of those sessions he talked to his viewers when a theory popped into his head.
– Someone talked about the tweet where Mikail ”Maikelele” Bill stated he would play with Team Orbit. I had seen it but didn’t think about NiP playing on Sunday too. When someone told me I thought: ”that’s pretty strange, how were they planning on solving that?”.

”Something was not right”

Slop3 started putting the pieces together and had soon created a picture of the situation. Maikeleles tweet, the fact he hadn’t attended the Pantamera afterparty with the rest of the team, and that someone told him Marcus ”Delpan” Larsson was probably standing in on Sunday.
– They were gonna lend Maikelele to another team and take a standin for a big tournament, that’s when the penny dropped, because NiP as a big and serious organization would never do that. Something was not right.

”Worried it spread the way it did”

Slop3 tweeted his theory and quickly saw it retweeted. But he, who used to write for the eSports news site Rakaka.se, had to expand on his thoughts instead of just airing them on his stream. So when he saw the rumour growing, he published a post on Reddit, detailing his theory. There, he was met with a lot of skepticism.
– I would estimate that 90 percent told me I was wrong. Everyone said: ”He’s been playing great, why would he leave” or ”Why would they kick him?”.

What was your reaction when you saw how it spread?

– I was really worried that it had spread the way it did. I didn’t want it to affect somebody in the meaning that we put someone in a position where they were questioned for something they didn’t deserve to be questioned about.

”Felt good to not be a hundred percent wrong”

After the post on Reddit, several large eSports new sites picked up the rumor. Maikelele then commented to Aftonbladet Esport that Slop3 was ”on a wild goose chase”, but after Ninjas in Pyjamas made a statement on Friday evening the rumour suddenly became real and Wahlstedt had exposed the largest player story so far in 2015.
– I was relieved when it was proven to be right, when I had in mind how big it had gotten in only a couple of hours. But in the same way I felt that it was wrong, from a performance perspective. It felt good to not be a hundred percent wrong and hated by everybody, even though some of my points were off.
– But what I don’t like is that I said Delpan was the replacement, because I didn’t realize the effect it would have on him and that he up until the game had a pressure on him he didn’t really need.

”It’s been blown out of proportion”

How do you think he fared in the NiP debut?

– I think he performed good when you think about what was expected. Everyone compared him to Maikelele and Delpan had his ups and downs, but especially on the last map he proved that he has what it takes to play with NiP. But more importantly for them is that they have to make a decision on who to use, since Katowice is only a month away. I have a feeling the Maikelele situation is only temporary and has been blown out of proportion. I think they’ll realize he’s the best AWP:er for NiP, and that eventual personal factors keeping him back in the team is something they have to work out.

Will you keep breaking stories like these on your stream now?

– No, it was a one time thing that I could spawn a theory with the help of my chat, and built a story that I thought was right judging from the pieces of the puzzle. But I never thought it would be correct.