Academic Analysis by innersh1ne #2 — Young Ninjas

We’re continuing our series of articles on Counter-Strike academic teams—today we’ll talk about NIP’s youth team, Young Ninjas. Given that the team is currently short-handed, it’s not really possible to discuss them as a fully-fledged squad. However, unlike NEW VISION, Young Ninjas has been around long enough to warrant a comprehensive review.

Young Ninjas, playing in the European style, gives its players a lot of freedom. For example, Joe “joeski” Holmes plays consistently aggressively even in roles that don’t always call for it.

Visually, it seems that NIP’s academy roster’s defense is built primarily on individual plays. On offense, however, there’s an interesting contrast—more scripted rounds mixed with moments of great freedom. On the one hand, there aren’t many “default” plays—which isn’t ideal for a youth team. On the other hand, the percentage of rounds where everyone does what they want—roughly speaking—somewhat compensates for the lack of open-ended moments.

This pattern is atypical and unusual for an “academy” team, but it has its own logic. However, when it comes to official matches, the Young Ninjas’ playing style seems fairly predictable; you just need to figure out what type of round you’re playing against—whether you’re defending against NIP’s youth team or, if you’re on offense, you need to “read” the players’ individual patterns by doing a bit of prep before the match.

Currently, the team has only three players, as Gareth “MisteM” Ries has moved up to Eternal Fire, and Roman “n0te” Hames is temporarily playing on the main roster. Sometimes this isn’t very convenient, since they can’t participate in tournaments, but on the other hand, both players are performing well enough to attract interest from other teams.

Given its rich history and the number of players it has developed, Young Ninjas has “produced” several strong prospects. Among the most recognizable nicknames are Kasper “xKacpersky” Gabara, Adam “adamb” Angström, Löve “phzy” Smedebrant, and Sean “eraa” Knutsson.

xKacpersky currently plays on the main roster of Ninjas in Pyjamas—Kasper is one of the team’s most consistent players, with an average rating of 1.13 over the past six months. It’s worth noting that xKacpersky excels on the attack side, with a 1.21 rating. His main strength lies in his solid mechanics.

eraa is one of the most remarkable yet underrated snipers on the scene. Not much is said about Sean; he’s currently playing for the Swedish team Alliance with a rating of 1.17. A distinctive feature of Knutsson is his relatively passive start to the round, but in the mid-round, he constantly moves around the map and picks off opponents. He spent over a year in NIP’s academy, and after some time in Tier 3, Sean is now shining with Alliance.

adamb graduated from Young Ninjas three years ago and has since played for Metizport; Adam now represents OG. His player profile is roughly the same as xKacpersky’s, but his preferred positions and roles differ slightly.

phzy—now a player for Astralis—is a strong and mechanically “annoying” sniper; playing against him is often frustrating. Although he isn’t currently performing at his best with the Danish team—a 0.87 rating is unacceptably low for an AWP player—at 23 years old, he already has an impressive track record: Sangal, Wildcard, 9INE, NIP, Rare Atom.

Another player from the academy roster, n0te, is currently playing for the “main roster” on a temporary basis, and his in-game style also resembles that of adamb and xKacpersky—it’s interesting that almost all NIP academy alumni who play the rifle role and perform well are of roughly the same type.

Erik “ztr” Gustafsson—the captain, who has played for GamerLegion, FOKUS, and Metizport—also came up through Young Ninjas. Erik is one of the most sought-after young in-game leaders on the European scene.

Other “notable” players who have come through Young Ninjas:

It’s hard to single out any one of the three current Young Ninjas players, but if you look closely, joeski stands out from the other two. The 19-year-old Finn generally performs better on defense than on offense—with a rating of 1.08 versus 1.0, respectively—but this is because Joeski isn’t afraid to go first. joeski is a classic aggressive rifler with a good feel for the round, somewhat reminiscent of Howard “rain” Nygård in his playstyle. In addition, the Finn is a strong clutch player and has a 61% win rate in 1v1 situations on HLTV.

Young Ninjas is coached by Zitte, a 31-year-old Swede. His role with Young Ninjas marks his first coaching experience; he has held this position since early 2025. Prior to this, Rasmus had a fairly modest playing career in CS:GO without a single high-profile tag.

As for the other two players on NIP’s “youth” team besides joeski, tein is a dark horse. The 19-year-old Pole began his professional career relatively late by today’s standards—just a year and a half ago. So far, it doesn’t seem like he’s found his comfort zone in terms of role and position, and he’s still figuring things out.

For rud, this is already his second academy stint; prior to this, he spent a year and a half at GamerLegion Academy. He’s a decent but fairly passive sniper who focuses more on supporting his team than on aggressive openings. 1.04 is a mediocre rating for an AWP player, but rud looks like a player capable of actively leading his team in the mid-round—in other words, a sniper in the mold of Álvaro “SunPayus” García.

For a fair assessment, let’s look at Young Ninjas’ performance in 2026. The map pool is the same as the main team’s—neither roster plays Inferno. Interestingly, the academy performed best on maps that tend to feature a large number of scripted rounds:

With the exception of their main pick, Dust 2, Young Ninjas played roughly the same number of matches on other maps—which is beneficial for an academy roster.

“Dust 2” is the team’s comfort zone; despite a mediocre win rate, Young Ninjas chose this map in more than 80% of their matches.

It’s important to note that NIP’s academy team consistently travels to LAN tournaments, which is essential for gaining relevant experience. Not everything can be “learned” online, and the pressure—even in the CCT finals—can’t compare to that of a single LAN match. I’ll note that the organization mainly chooses Scandinavian events to participate in.

Currently, the Young Ninjas roster ranks 125th in the world with a 58.1% win rate over the past three months and is competing in closed qualifiers for smaller ranked events like the CST with mixed success.

Despite modest results and lower “visibility” compared to other long-standing academies, such as MOUZ NXT and NAVI Junior, the Ninjas in Pyjamas academy is producing solid results and following a sound talent development model. Since its inception, Young Ninjas has promoted two players to the main roster and produced at least five solid prospects—a good result.

The project can certainly be considered a success, and the current iteration of Young Ninjas also looks quite promising. The academy’s value is further enhanced by the organization’s national identity—Swedish players are always in demand, and the quantity and quality of talent on the local scene have been limited recently. Young Ninjas, meanwhile, is one of the few paths for Swedish prospects to break into Tier 1.