NIP give insight on roster overhaul in new video

The Swedish organization explains what happened behind the scenes during the off-season.

As the off-season came to an end and the community sat back and assessed all the movements, there was little doubt that Ninjas in Pyjamas ranked among the winners.

The team ended 2024 with a four-man lineup and within touching distance of the top 40 in Valve's Ranking System. A 3-3 run at the Europe RMR, where they were knocked out by the eventual Major champions, Spirit, also offered hope that the Ninjas could climb up the ranking in 2025 with a single player upgrade.

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Official: NIP reveal Snappi-led lineup

But rather than playing it safe, Ninjas in Pyjamas blew up the roster and began an almost complete rebuild around head coach Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström and up-and-coming AWPer Artem "⁠r1nkle⁠" Moroz.

In a new behind-the-scenes video, the Swedish organization shared insight on the signings of Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer, Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck, Michel "⁠ewjerkz⁠" Pinto and Rafael "⁠arrozdoce⁠" Wing, which marked the start of a new era for the team.

"I think we had one of the best transfer windows that I have seen or heard about in NIP," Erik Wendel, the organization's Director of Esports, said in the video.

"We managed to get [them], one for free, the other three for symbolic sums. That is also a crazy part of this transfer window, which allows us to still be extremely ready for whatever comes our way in 2025."

Perhaps the most shocking aspect of this roster overhaul was the benching of longtime member Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner, who was later transferred to GamerLegion. The Swedish player had gone through multiple roster iterations since being hand-picked by Xizt in 2017 and was widely regarded as the face of the team.

"Benching REZ was probably the hardest [decision] in my career so far," Xizt said.

"He is an OG member of NIP. He is a legend of NIP as much as someone like f0rest or GeT_RiGhT, in my eyes."

Snappi takes charge of this new-look NIP after a difficult year on Falcons that ended with the Saudi organization benching almost the entire roster and signing a new core.

The Danish veteran, 34, said the NIP setup reminds him "a lot" of ENCE, where he enjoyed one of the most successful periods of his career.

"It was a rough year, personally and professionally," Snappi acknowledged. "My goal for 2025 is mainly to be happy. Hitting the reset button and having a fresh start with new people around you is probably the best way to go about it."

It's a fresh start for Ninjas in Pyjamas, who will have to battle their way through online qualifiers to move up in the VRS. It might be a while before the team will get to play on LAN, but Wendel believes "we have the right people to get through this."

"That is going to be a process that can go semi-quick if we get one really great result at some point," Snappi added.

"But it can also take six to 12 months to get high enough. I think that is going to be the toughest challenge, to kind of accept that, even though we might be a really good team, we can't play the best teams yet."