How dev1ce Went from Choke Artist to Major MVP

Shane King
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Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz had a turbulent rise to becoming a legend in Counter-Strike between overcoming injury to being renown for choking when the lights were the brightest. But often the stories that overcome adversity become the most inspirational.

Reedtz spent his early career as most young talented Danes do at Copenhagen Wolves before eventually finding a landing spot at Dignitas with two other players he would spend his career with – Andreas ‘Xyp9x’ Højsleth and Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen. This team was supposed to be great, but whenever they faced powerhouses like NIP or Fnatic, they crumbled.

After moving to TSM, dev1ce started to perform better due to Finn ‘Karrigan’ Andersen’s T-side strats and also due to working on his mental game but, still, they couldn’t get over the bump of not turning up at Major tournaments.

After TSM hired a sports psychologist in 2015, dev1ce took concrete steps into avoiding burnout and bettering himself – something he would later compile while working with Mia Stellberg at Astralis and working with a healthier lifestyle. After working with the psychologist, he jumped up to 3 in the HLTV rankings.

Under the Astralis banner, the Danes blossomed into becoming the greatest team of all time. The team picked up Lukas ‘gla1ve’ Rossander and later Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif and there was no going back from there. The team has now won four majors including three in a row after picking up Magisk.

Dev1ce has become a staple in the top five of HLTV’s annual rankings while also being known as the best player on the greatest team.

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