elemeNt

 

Name: Ola Moum
Alias: ElemenT
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Teams: Meredia, GoL, eoL, SK, NoA, mibr, 4Kings, united5, mouz, MYM, cbteam
Status: Retired
Achievements: 1st place GameSphere, 2nd place CPL Summer 2002, 1st place CPL Oslo, 2nd place CPL Winter 2002, 3rd place ESWC 2003, 1st place CPL Summer 2003, 1st place CPL Winter 2003, 1st place CPL Winter 2004, 1st place WEG I, 3rd place WEG II, 2nd place CPL Winter 2006, 4th place WCG 2008

Love him or hate him, the truth is that Ola “ElemenT” Moum was without a doubt one of the most influential, but also controversial, players of the last decade. A lot can be said about him, his temperament, or the fact he switched teams more often than some change underwear, but his contribution to the tactical game that Counter-Strike has become is undeniable. His earliest antics date back to 2002, when his team, Meredia, composed of relatively unknown players, secured winning honours at GameSphere while defeating Massive Attack and GameOnline, both of whom had performed really well at CPL Winter the year before. He joined GoL in the middle of 2002, with whom he placed second at CPL Summer, but ended up leaving the team shortly after that result to form his own project, eoLithic. After winning CPL Oslo, he would be pushed out of eoL by Hallvar “Knoxville” Dehli due to the latter’s wish to have Jørgen “XeqtR” Johannessen, who did not see eye to eye with Moum, on the team. Now without a home, Moum returned to GoL, picking up a runners-up finish at CPL Winter 2002, but his second spell there ended with this tournament as he once again quit for eoL. Moum helped eoL win the Swedish qualifier, but he shockingly departed for SK right after the tournament. With SK, he achieved even more success, winning CPL Summer and Winter and helping them win CPL Europe in Copenhagen, an event he had to miss due to school commitments, but in mid-2004 he was the subject of the first player transfer in CS when he signed for NoA. After some dry first months, NoA welcomed “XeqtR” aboard and the two Norwegian stars put their differences aside, helping the team win CPL Winter 2004 and the first edition of the World eSports Games. However, all was not well with Moum, who sided with Made in Brazil due to his wish to “try something new”. With mibr, he only managed a 5-6 place finish at CPL Barcelona as he decided to prolong with vacation in LA instead of flying to to Rio de Janeiro to bootcamp with the team, which led to his release. Just days later, he sided with 4Kings, helping the British-based team finish third at WEG season 2. He would be released from 4K later that year after moving to California, which made practice impossible for the team, joining united5 as a stand-in for CPL. The year of 2006 started with a bang for Moum, who was announced as mousesports’ last player, but he was not too successful in Germany, with his main achievement a fifth place at WSVG’s Intel Summer Championship. He would be released in August, allegedly beacuse of the language barrier, joining all-Norwegian side Meet Your Makers, whom he would guide to a second place at CPL Winter. But after deciding against attending WCG in 2007 due to undisclosed reasons, MYM showed him the door, leaving one of the game’s greatest minds without a team for almost a year, until he decided to create a new roster for WCG 2008. In Cologne, Moum powered cbteam to a fourth place, a remarkable result for a mix team, and that was the last tournament where he was seen as cbteam met an early fate.