How Xyp9x became the Iron Man of Astralis
The biggest modern enigma in the Counter-Strike scene is Andreas ‘Xyp9x’ Højsleth who, for the last 5 years, has managed to reinvent himself from a run-of-the-mill fragger to someone who constantly beats the odds in the game.
Højsleth started off in Counter-Strike: 1.6 before moving to Global Offensive. During his time with Copenhagen Wolves, he joined up with Nicolai ‘dev1ce’ Reedtz and Peter ‘dupreeh’ Rasmussen, who would go on to be the core of the world’s greatest team, Astralis.
Xyp9x is often the least noticeable player on his team as he plays in the support role. He won’t get many multi-kills like Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif or sit on top of the leaderboard like Dev1ce. Instead, he has become a master at setting the stage for these players and doing the cleaning up after the fact.
The Dane has earned the title of ‘Clutch Minister’ as the support player for Astralis, often being the last to rotate into a fight, regularly sacrificing himself as a result.
He isn’t just good in these situations: he thrives in them. At the time of writing, he is second-best in the clutch rankings with 648 1vx clutches, closely behind Richard ‘shox’ Papillon at 649.
Xyp9x has brought glory to the support role when a lot of people thought it was simply a position for players of a lower mechanical skill, but he continues to prove them wrong every time he loads into the server.