Best CSGO players going into IEM Global Challenge BLASTIEM\u2019s Global Challenge is the curtain caller to CSGO\u2019s 2020 calendar. With $500,000 on the line, there\u2019s plenty to play for as eight of the world\u2019s best teams coalesce in Europe. The online era of CS:GO has thrown a few curveballs into the mix. Remember when BIG was the world\u2019s best team? It feels like that was so long ago. Regardless of there being no international action, there\u2019s been plenty of stellar performances in the server. Now, all those theories will be put to the test at the IEM Global Challenge. The very best players will be looking to show they\u2019re worthy of the #1 spot. Here\u2019s the five you need to keep your eyes on starting December 15. Oleksandr \u2018s1mple\u2019 Kostyliev (Na\u2019Vi) Look, there isn\u2019t a flashier player to watch in CS:GO than s1mple\u2026 It\u2019s as simple as that. He is probably the best player in the world right now, and he\u2019s got the stats to back that up. He\u2019s got the highest rating in 2020 against Top 20 teams (1.29) \u2014 supplemented by a whopping 1.42 K\/D\/A. Na\u2019Vi\u2019s gameplan right now is \u201cno s1mple, no clue.\u201d When s1mple\u2019s been cold, they\u2019ve been wiped. But those cold spots are few and far between, and you can bet your bottom dollar s1mple will put on a show during the Global Challenge to cement his place above a certain French phenom\u2026 Mathieu \u2018ZywOo\u2019 Herbaut (Vitality) You can\u2019t talk about one without bringing up the other. If online CS:GO has given us anything in 2020, it\u2019s plenty of airtime between s1mple and ZywOo. The Vitality star has been neck-and-neck with his Na\u2019Vi contemporary the entire year \u2014 both have 1.29 ratings on HLTV. And while Na\u2019Vi started out 2020 strong, Vitality have clawed it back in recent times. It always feels like that if ZywOo has a quiet map \u2014 you know, anything below +5 KD \u2014 he will come out and drop a 30-bomb during the next outing. His explosiveness, as well as his consistency, makes him one of the most feared players in the world for good reason. He will be the key, once again, to Vitality\u2019s success if they want to maintain their mantle at the top. Yuri \u2018yuurih\u2019 Santos (FURIA) FURIA are the kings of NA CS:GO right now. While they\u2019ve had mixed results since flying across the pond, Yuurih has been their saving grace. He\u2019s not a chart topper, but you can\u2019t scoff at his ability to post better than average (1.0 rating) performances at 76%. He\u2019s also cool in the clutch, winning 56 1vX situations in 2020 alone \u2014 complimented by a positive 1v1 win rate. It speaks to the incredible run of form that he\u2019s managed to find in 2020, and the IEM Global Challenge is his chance to prove to the world that Brazilian Counter-Strike is well and truly alive. Florian \u2018syrsoN\u2019 Rische (BIG) Compared from the start of the online era to now, BIG themselves have slowly fallen off the radar. Heck, Chaos had to bow out (due to travel restrictions) for them to edge their way in. Yet, without syrsoN, they would have never reached #1 in the world. syrsoN is arguably the most lethal sniper in the world right now, and when he\u2019s on fire, there\u2019s no doubt about it. While the spark has waned recently, he still boasts a decent 1.10 HLTV rating. Leading into IEM Global Challenge, though, his stats are on the up, which means that we shouldn\u2019t count the German organization out just yet. Benjamin \u2018blameF\u2019 Bremer (Complexity) There\u2019s very few IGLs in CS:GO who manage to top frag while calling the shots\u2026 But blameF somehow does it. He\u2019s one of 2020\u2019s biggest revelations, and he\u2019s become the core of Jason Lake\u2019s juggernaut (not just because of his stature). He boasts the highest rating of his team, 1.20 \u2014 which is no easy feat when you\u2019re stepping into the server with Valentin \u2018poizon\u2019 Vasilev and Justin \u2018JKS\u2019 Savage. While Complexity might struggle without poizon \u2014 who\u2019s been ruled out because of surgery \u2014 blameF will need to step up again to really keep Complexity\u2019s hopes alive. They\u2019ve faltered as of late, having been on a downswing since taking home BLAST Spring, but a fired-up blameF has the potential to carry this team to a title to round out a relatively successful 2020. The IEM Global Challenge kicks off on December 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Best CSGO players going into IEM Global Challenge BLASTIEM\u2019s Global Challenge is the curtain caller to CSGO\u2019s 2020 calendar. With $500,000 on the line, there\u2019s plenty to play for as eight of the world\u2019s best teams coalesce in Europe. The online era of CS:GO has thrown a few curveballs into the mix. Remember when BIG […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}