hicksderhune

[hicksderhune]

TOP CSGO PLAYER OF 2019

One of my preferred things to talk about in CS:GO is who are the best players. While CS:GO has better details to make near decisions between players, that doesn't get to the entire story. Groups have various strategies and systems and players have various jobs in that. So as to make this rundown at that point, I set out specific criteria that I applied reliably over the entirety of the players. The criteria I included was: consistency, effect, job, and rivalry.

Consistency is a player's level normal degree of play over the timeframe. Effect is more diligently to characterize as in-game pioneers and bolster players have an effect that we can't find in the server. On account of this rundown, sway alludes to in-game activities: space-creation, turns, and gravity. Gravity is the measure of a player captivates a game. Job alludes to what a player does in their group and is expected of them. A few players need to play at a more significant level for their group to capacity and they are appraised higher subsequently. Rivalry alludes to the degree of groups/LANs a player visited. On the off chance that two players have comparable degrees of effect and consistency, however one played against the top groups more, they will be appraised higher.

At long last, I set the parameters of the rundown to just incorporate LAN play. LANs were additionally positioned relying upon configuration and significance. The Major, for example, is definitely more significant than the bo1 BLAST occasions or the Summit. The rankings do a three-month range so for this release it runs from October to December. For LANs that run from the month's end to the start of the new month, I include them into the month where they end.

10 Keith "NAF" Markovic [New]

LANs:

9-twelfth DreamHack Malmo

fifth - BLAST Copenhagen

second - ECS 8

5-sixth - ESL Proleague Season 10 Finals

second - BLAST Finals

NAF shows up on my best 10 rankings list. He was on the air pocket last time yet truly set his place in my best 10 with his exhibitions at ECS Season 8 and at BLAST Finals. He's been an incredible auxiliary star for Team Liquid and is by all accounts their most predictable player against Astralis specifically.

NAF is a hard player to nail down since he's flexible enough to assume almost every job except appears to tend towards the more latent side of things. Then again, when he's forceful, he bets everything. Among the five Liquid players, I think he has the best executioner nature for when to make trump card plays that can tilt the course of the match.

9. Ozgur "woxic" Eker [New]

StarLadderStarLadder

LANs:

5-sixth DH Malmo

9-twelfth StarSeries I-League Season 8

first - CS:GO Asia Championships (CAC)

first - EPL 10 Finals

second - EPICENTER 2019

Mouz had an enormous long distance race go through December as they went from competition to competition verifying their spot as a main 5 group on the planet. One reason for their prosperity is their hotshot AWPer woxicWoxic has not only carried over his aggressive AWPing style from his hyper-carry HellRaisers days, but he’s also learning how to be a stable system player and has started to introduce more of a Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz style AWPing into his game.

The primary reason woxic cracked my top 10 was his duel performances at EPL 10 and CAC. At ESL Proleague Season 10 he was one of the stars that Mouz needed to win the tournament and was their biggest star in the Astralis series. At CAC he was the MVP of the tournament.

8. Freddy “KRIMZ” Johansson [-1] DreamHackDreamHack LANs:

1st - DreamHack Malmo 2nd - SLi 8 Top 4 - ECS 8 2nd - EPL 10 Not much has changed for KRIMZ since the last ranking as Fnatic went on to add two big LAN results to their growing resume with good results at both ECS Season 8 and EPL 10. While those were good results for Fnatic, they didn’t move the needle much for KRIMZ on my list. KRIMZ is still a stalwart superstar for Fnatic, but the ascension of his teammate and the overall landscape has seen KRIMZ slip down a place from last month.

7. Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski [-1] DreamHackDreamHack LANs:

9-12th DH Malmo 5th - BLAST Copenhagen 2nd - ECS Season 8 5-6th - EPL 10 2nd - BLAST FInals In this month’s iteration, EliGE is the highest ranking NA player on my list. Like Vincent “Brehze” Cayonte and Cvetelin “CeRq” Dimitrov, he suffered from ESL New York and StarLadder Berlin Major no longer being removed from the pool. All three players had spectacular performances at those two LANs. Since then Brehze hit a massive slump. CeRq is still good, but his performances in December weren’t enough for me to rank him over NAF this go around.

Unlike the EG stars, EliGE’s consistency continues to shine through. While I wouldn’t mark December as a particularly strong run for EliGE (compared to where he was in mid-2019), his level isn’t far off from that. Among all of the NA players, EliGE seems to have the best floor and has the least volatile fluctuations in form because of that. So while he dropped down a rank, EliGE is still one of the best in the world and will likely be a constant fixture in these rankings.

6. Emil “Magisk” Reif [New] ESLESL LANs:

3-4th DreamHack Malmo 4th -BLAST Copenhagen 1st - IEM Beijing 1st - ECS 8 Top 4 - EPL 10 1st - BLAST Finals Magisk makes his first appearance in my top 10 rankings and he breaks in at 6th. Magisk has been an unsung hero throughout Astralis’ run in 2019. Even when they were in their slump in mid-2019, Magisk continued to be a solid anchor for the team. Since resurrecting at the Berlin Major, Magisk has also elevated his level as a lurker and CT-side anchor. He’s probably the best pit player in the world with his incredible spray control and micro-positioning.

Astralis’ flurry of results through December was what clinched Magisk’s spot here. While he was never the MVP of any of Astralis big runs (Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander took Beijing, Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussem took BLAST, dev1ce took BLAST), Magisk was the second or third best player in all of their runs. While I often give the nod to primary stars of their teams over secondary stars of other teams, Magisk played at a more consistent level than EliGE, so I gave the nod to Magisk.

5. Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin [+5] ESLESL LANs:

1st - DreamHack Malmo 2nd - SLi 8 Top 4 - ECS 8 2nd - EPL 10 In last month’s ranking, I had Brollan as the 10th best player. This month, he broke into my top 5. There were two reasons for this. There were a few reasons for this. Both CeRq and Brehze fell out of the list, which naturally shifted him up. The bigger reason is his elevation in performance. At ESL Proleague Season 10, he was the superstar player for Fnatic’s run to the finals. Brollan now feels like the primary superstar of Fnatic.

That along with the format and competition of EPL 10 is why I edged Brollan over Magisk. Magisk is more consistent than Brollan, but Brollan’s ability to be the primary star of his team and consistently play at such a high level through the entire run of EPL 10 was enough for me to edge Brollan over Magisk, if just slightly.

4. Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev [+1] DreamHackDreamHack LANs:

Top 4 - DreamHack Malmo 13-16th - SLi 8 3rd - BLAST Copenhagen Top 4 - EPL 10 Top 6 - EPICENTER Na`Vi finally attending more events has given s1mple the platform to prove why he is still one of the best players in the CS:GO world. Unfortunately for s1mple, Na`Vi is a flawed team so they aren’t making deep tournament finishes. This hurt s1mple a bit, but if you look at s1mple’s body of work, he’s continued being a superstar player (albeit with a rifle). He isn’t as impactful as he was in his primary-AWP days, but he is still a force to be reckoned with. If Na`Vi can fix their problems, I think s1mple will break into the top 3. Even in a diminished role, he is still a superlative player that the eye test tells you should be the best in the world.

3 - Robin “ropz” Kool [New] ESLESL Ropz says he believes the Odense victory has lifted the pressure off mousesports' shoulders. LANs:

5-6th DH Malmo 9-12th StarSeries i-League Season 8 1st - CS:GO Asia Championships (CAC) 1st - EPL 10 Finals 1st - CS Summit 5 2nd - EPICENTER 2019 Mouz breaking into the top 5 is also indicative of one of their players breaking into the top 5. Among their trio of young stars, Ropz has been a revelation. At the end of Mouz, ropz was in static decline. His game had stopped evolving and other teams and players had figured him out. In the Finn “karrigan” Andersden system, he has evolved.

From tournament to tournament, we’ve seen Ropz pull away from his passive style and start to mix in new aggressive plays and setups. This alongside his game sense and mechanics has made him an absolute monster. In Mouz’s run, he was the MVP of EPL 10, their best player at EPICENTER, MVP of Summit 5 (albeit a much smaller LAN), and second-best player at CAC. The only knock against him is that we’ve only seen ropz play at the highest levels in the month of December. It just happened that December was packed with LANs, and his performance was so incredible that he jumped straight into my top 3. We will have to see if he can continue this form coming into the new year.

2 - Nicolai "dev1ce" Reedtz [-]

LANs:

3-4th DreamHack Malmo 4th -BLAST Copenhagen 1st - IEM Beijing 1st - ECS 8 Top 4 - EPL 10 1st - BLAST Finals Dev1ce remains eternally consistent. While the MVP at StarLadder Berlin Major no longer counted, he just went to ECS 8 to pick up another one. He continues to be the most consistent player in history and it’s no surprise that he is the centerpiece behind Astralis' success in the last few years.

1 - Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut [-] StarladderStarladder LANs:

2nd - DreamHack Malmo Top 8 - SLi 8 Top 4 - IEM Beijing 1st - EPICENTER ZywOo remains the best player in the world. He’s added another MVP to his cabinet. What’s surprising about ZywOo is that Vitality hasn’t attended many of the LANs in the December sprint, but it didn’t matter. That might be the only mark against him, but if you look at the content of his games, he exceeds every marker. No one is as consistent, plays at such a high level, or is required to deliver at such a prominent level as ZywOo does in CS:GO. So while he may not have the raw game amount, he more than makes up for it in every other category. ZywOo is the best player in the world.