This year, KnOfF decided to take a year off his life to do what he was always passionate about - professional gaming. The 19-year-old Orc player has had a fair share of success so far, playing an instrumental role in his team along with fellow compatriot and close friend, LiiLD.C.

He speaks to myMYM.com for a lengthy interview regarding the recent spate of events.

Hello, Fredrik. Some people call you the key player of nGize. What do you think about that?
I don't know if I'm the one of the best players in nGize. In wc3l, it is about who you play and which map you got. I only played mirrors in wc3l which is my best matchup. Lets say if I would only play against elves, I don't think my score would be like this.

nGize WC3L statistics looks as the following: LiilD.C: 9-5; KnOfF: 7-4.
It's really impressive, because you decided to focus on gaming just a few months ago. Why did you decide to take a year off for gaming?
Hehe thank you, yea I'm happy with the results too. Finally all my hard work is showing some results. The reason why I wanted to take a year for gaming was becuase I really wanted to focus on gaming and nothing else. Being a progamer is a once time life experience and it's really been a nice time so far.

You don't want to be a progamer or a trainer in future? Is it just a part-time job?
No i don't think so. When I'm done as a progamer I don't think I will have anything more to do with esports. There are so many things out there I want to do.

Of course I will still like computer games but I won't play it on a competive level, just for fun with friends and so.

As far as I know (from my own experience), you can't leave eSports at all. You will always look at pages with scores and play with other gamers, but if you really leave it, what will you do next?
Hehe, if warcraft 3 will still be alive when I stop maybe I will check some results and see which player are dominating the scene and how the swedish scene is going, but nothing else.

Then I will start studying/working and move together with my girlfriend and my freetime will go to the friends and the gym.

KnOfF with Team Sweden at ENC

How is a typical day like for you?
A normal day for me is: I get up at 11, get some breakfast, go to my computer, watch replays while eating. Then I search customgames, play for 1-2 hour and after that I go to the gym or out running.

When I come back I start playing again. In the evening I'm sometimes with a friend or my girlfriend. If not I play the rest of the night. So my life changed a lot from going to school, coming home at 17.00 everyday, and not much time for practice.

How about money? Is it enough to pay the bills and to have some for yourself?
I have to pay some rent at home since I'm at home everyday. I pay for food, but I have enough money to pay for what I need and have some for myself. The money I keep for myself normaly goes to clothes and stuff with my friends like clubbing.

When the old PGS squad decided to change organisation into nGize, which is not well known,  the community was shocked and afraid that maybe they couldn't afford the players. Are you satisfied with cooperation with your new home?
nGize.fsp is a really nice organsation. I met the bosses there when I was at ENC, who gave me and LiilD.C our gaming wear and we had a few talks about what we will do in the future and in the team.

They are really nice guys whom you can trust and they are doing their best for us. They always give credit when you do something good and it really feels like a big family now with the team and the nGize bosses.

Do you not have any regrets leaving PGS at all?
Why should I regret when everything is so much better now? I didn't have any contact with the guys in pgs at all, but now we talk everyday about how things are going and what the plans for the future.

For now nGize is in the 7th position at WC3L. It's much better than in past season. What aims does the team have for the current year?
Our aim is ofcourse to reach the finals, but it's really hard with teams like SK and MYM in the top, but with our team right now I know its possible, I always trust my team.

Now, with me and LiilD.C are doing so well I don't see why it shouldn't continue like this. Besides WC3L, we play WPL and NGL, which of course we will do our best in.

Competition is very hard. To be honest only you and LiilD.C can play like equal to players from top teams. Satiini who was in great shape in the past season is now quite weak, likewise with Yane and Shriek. Do you think that you and Daniel will be enough to reach the top?
Yea. The level of the top is really high, which means if you stop practicing, you will start losing a lot. Satiini didn't practice a lot the last month maybe 2 month, but now is he is practicing again.
So I'm sure he will get his old shape back.

Actually I don't know how much shriek and yane are playing. Shriek was thinking about going inactive but i'm not really sure about that.

And no, I dont think so, the whole team needs to play good if we want to reach such a high goal as reaching the playoffs in WC3L.

LiiLD.C and KnOfF - Big winners for nGize

We won't be able to see you in Cologne or maybe do we? This big event will take place soon. Any predictions of top3?
No, WCG.Nordic did something really strange this year. Normally the swedish WCG qualify is at dreamhack (Jönköping), or at the internet cafe in stockholm like playz or inferno online, but this year they decided to have it in a city high up in sweden called Skellefteå.

Not many warcraft players live around that place and for example me and LiiLD.C, it would cost a lot money just to get there. Since I'm not really sure who are going, but if sase will go I guess he will win and the rest I don't know.

So when will see you in action in near future? Which events are important?
To place top 3 at Dreamhack winter is my maingoal at the moment. But my goals are also to win all my matches in WC3L/Ngl.

Who's the strongest player in the world now? Will Europeans break Korean domination in Warcraft scene?
Hehe nice question! You got it in the first word actually. I think WhO is the best at the moment even if he lost to Grubby at NGTV. His performence at WC3L and ESWC, make him the best player in my opinon.

Yea I hope so, more and more europeans are actually showing up, but so are the koreans. Many new star players are coming up all the time just like Violet. So its hard to say.

Do you think that everything that could be discovered in-game is already discovered or some people can still surprise with new tactics or so? Is Warcraft dying?
You can always discover something new in this game which is pretty easy to see just by looking how the playstyles was for 1 year ago, it was totally different in every matchup.

Right now the game is changing pretty much I think, all races have many strategies and options to chose between. I wouldn't say warcrafit is dying, at least I don't hope so. Now when they added so many new maps to all tournaments the option of making new strategies is even bigger.
Just look at some games pretty recently from Fly vs Remind, Fly played really different from how orcs normally do.

How about your individual aims? You're not shining that hard like in WC3L matches.
Yea, I know my invidual performance been bad, mostly because I'm still lacking experience offline, but I'm trying to play offline as much as possible. My last offline tournament was ENC. I was playing pretty good at ENC, so I think its going better.

At the battle.net season 6 playoffs I had some problems with my computer and the sensivitiy, I never really got the sensitivity I'm used to so that could be one of the reason why I was playing pretty bad.

Are you a bit unexperienced with offline tournaments?
Some yea, and when something is wrong, like the sensitivity, which I was not used to, you always have it in your head and can't really focus on the game 100%. Also when I was playing at the scene, the sound was really bad, so that could be one point to why I was playing worse.

How did you lost to an inactive elf- Creo after one week of bootcamp in Madrid? What was the reason of that defeat?
Haha, well Creo is Creo, and I always have respect for him, after he came out nowhere and won WCG. But as I said before, some factors affected me a lot in a negative way, I was playing vs Creo on the scene and the sound was really bad, and I never got the sensitivity I'm used to and I didn't have much time to fix it so I had to play with the sensitivity I had which made me play a lot worse.

How did you become friends with LiiLD.C? Are you training with him a lot? I’m not talking about 2v2 only.
Me and LiiLD.C have been friends for almost 2 years now. We got to know each other via warcraft 3 of course, but when we got to know each other better we saw that we had so much more interest in common.

I would say we are pretty much the same overall, very competitive, doesn't matter what we do, always give our best in everything, doesn't matter if its warcraft 3 or just some table ball match, also being with friends, out clubbing and doing activities.

Now when we always travel together, we get to know each other even better, but we always have a great time.

With the practice part, yes we do practice against each other but I wouldn't say too much because we know each others so well. Like every strategy and the thinking, because we share replays and giving each other tips like everyday.

Is there any Warcraft 3 player you look up to or are you your own role model?
Grubby. I always liked how Grubby plays and his view of the game. We practiced a lot before his game vs WhO and just by playing 20 games vs Grubby I learned more than I ever did in this matchup before.

When I'm watching his games I always learn something new. But besides Grubby it’s myself, I try to find out some stuff while playing vs computer or in practice games, some new and unexpected things.

Which matchup is most balanced in your opinion and why? Which one do you like and dislike?
Well I think mirror is the most balanced, in the other matchups its pretty much that something that turns into "imbalanced". Like a blademaster with so many claws of attack against undead can be really strong and do so much damage. I wouldn’t say any matchup is imba though, I think the game is balanced.

KnOfF - 'I think the game is balanced' (Pic taken from readmore.de)

Starcraft II is coming up soon. Do you think that most WC3 players will switch to this game? Will you test Starcraft II yourself?
Actually when we were in Madrid for season 6, I tried starcraft 2 and I liked it a lot, so did the other warcraft 3 players. Now that you are asking, I get the picture in my head when I saw Happy trying it for the first time, he was really into it and started to spam and play with 300apm. Looked so funny, but I liked the game and maybe I'll start playing it myself. Depends on my life-situation then, whether or not I'm still playing as a programer.

Blizzard announced that they could be working on Warcraft IV soon. If you could be a chief of this project what would we see in that game?
It will be like warcraft 3 but with 2 new races, more heroes and new maps.

There were rumors about you suggesting to LLoth that he should fire DeMusliM today. Where is the truth?
No thats not true.. Why should I want to fire one of our best players. But ben (Demuslim) acted really strange the last months and I dont really know why.

Actually I dont know the reason why ben leaves us, but im sad with it and so is the rest of the team since he was a nice guy and a good player

How are your dance moves coming along? I heard you are about to join the Chippendales! In Paris some of the guys had the feeling that your hips were moving all the time. What can you say about that?
Haha nice question. Yea I like dancing and always did, my dance style is special but most people like it, and if they don’t, they normally laugh! And thats just good right? Its not about the drinking, I always dance like this ^^

And you like to dance with other man?
Of course I do, especially with Grubby.

Thanks a lot for your time. Good luck in upcoming progaming year. See you around.
Thank you too, yea for sure!