Only a few players have their names engrained into CS:GO history as deep as the Swedish legend GeT_RiGhT. Today we will show you his path through Counter-Strike.
Christopher “GeT_RiGhT Alesund is one of the most well-known and most-liked players to ever have graced the CS:GO scene. In summer 2020, his current organization Dignitas announced his retirement as a professional player. Reason enough to take a look back at his career.
After a lot of back and forth between the team and I, we believe this is the correct decision. I have long been thinking about my path and along with my current health condition, it was clear that now was the time to make a change. https://t.co/dyuVdVELws
— Christopher Alesund (@GeT_RiGhT) September 16, 2020
His start in Counter-Strike
Born in 1990, Alesund started playing Counter-Strike fairly early. At just nine years of age, he first touched the tactical shooter. After playing for some small local teams he started as a semi-pro in 2007 where he won his first noteworthy amount of prize money, about $1200.
Back then he already played together with Björn “THREAT” Pers, who today is the coach of Ninjas in Pyjamas. In the following years, GeT_RiGhT would grow to be one of the biggest names in the Swedish scene.
The two most important stations in his early career were SK Gaming and Fnatic, where he first played together with Patrik “f0rest Lindberg in a team. Since 2009 they have been inseparable. In the same year, the team won IEM III Global Finals and received $50.000.
Because of the surprising success, Alesund won the title of eSport Player of the year in 2009. In the following years, he then continued his streak as one of the best CS players worldwide.
The switch to CS:GO
When the official successor to CS 1.6 and CS:S was released in 2012, SK Gaming was one of the first big teams to make the transition, even though the game was harshly criticized by most of the community. One of the players which adapted best was GeT_RiGhT.
Because of the receding success in CS 1.6, the SK Gaming lineup disbanded in 2012. The following transfer of GeT_RiGhT and f0rest to the all-new Ninjas in Pyjamas lineup would be defining the scene for the upcoming years.
Adam “friberg” Friberg, Robin “Fifflaren” Johansson, and in-game leader Richard “Xizt” Landström joined the new team which turned out to be the first superteam to ever dominate CS:GO.
In the following year, the team achieved their legendary win streak of 87 maps without a single loss on LAN events. With a 1.47 HLTV rating, Alesund was a huge factor in success. He became famous for his deadly recoil control.
He even managed to achieve more impressive statistics throughout his career: GeT_RiGhT gathered more than 32.000 frags, fifth place overall. He also managed to win more than 67% of all his 1v1 situations.
But the wayfarers for new generations of CS:GO players might have had their heyday a little too early. When player and viewer counts exploded in 2014, the Ninjas had serious competitors in the form of Fnatic and the French team VeryGames.
They lost the first official major in 2013 to the Swedish rivals. More and more teams managed to close the skill gap, winning became harder for NiP. As fans learned, later on, they did not even see much of their well-deserved prize money back then.
Once upon a time there was a major win
Still, they came back strong in 2014: At EMS One Katowice they secured second place after the Polish home team Virtus.Pro. With that, they also qualified for the next major in Cologne.
At that point in time, the ninjas still were one of the better teams but most people felt like the other teams were performing better. After a streaky group phase, nobody expected the run they would show in the playoffs.
NiP grew stronger in every match. They started by beating North American Cloud9 2:1, then moved on to their first big test against LDLC starring players like Hovik “KQLY” Tovmassian and Dan “apEX” Madesclaire. With a nerve-wracking 16:14 on the third map Cobblestone, they secured the win.
In the Grand Final, they faced Fnatic once again. In this match, GeT_RiGhT showed up big time and carried his team over the finish line being the best player on the server.
Here you can watch the last round once again:
A long road
After that final the players’ ages and declining drive to improve started to become noticeable though. With only few achievements following up the big win, they started looking for a replacement of AWPer Fifflaren.
Slowly, the original legends dropped out of the roster creating space for new faces. The team managed to secure a few small tournaments wins in that time. In 2016, they placed first in three big tournaments, namely IEM Masters XI, StarLadder StarSeries Season 2, and DreamHack Masters Malmö. After their win at IEM Oakland 2017, they could not secure another big win.
In September 2019, GeT_RiGhT had to stop playing for NiP because of medical issues. Despite the team’s long drought and his condition, an interview shows that he never lost his love for the game.
Coming back with Dignitas
In 2020, the “old guard” wanted to test their strength once again and started a new team und Dignitas’ banner. While the project was a nice reminder of the old days for fans and players, the results showed that the game transformed over time.
GeT_RiGhT recently stepped back as a professional player. He continues streaming on Twitch and wants to announce the next big step soon. We will remember him as one of the all-time greatest. Without Christopher Alesund, CS:GO would not be what it is today.
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