Stuchiu: Best CSGO Players by Role in 2019 With the 2019 season of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive all wrapped up, it\u2019s now time to take stock of the year in CSGO and decide who the best players were by role, and which players had the biggest impact on the server. This list was made to acknowledge and celebrate the best players of CS:GO in 2019. Unlike a few of the other listings where there is a hard ranking, this will recognize the best players by role. In this list, I name the winner and the runner-up of each category. As there are no real set roles, I\u2019ve divided it into supportive, lurker, wildcard, versatile rifler, AWPer, leader, and hardest carry Criteria: Consistency \u2013 How much a player turned up tournament after tournament. – Path taken \u2013 The performance the player gives against what kind of team is taken into account. To lesser degree results are mixed into the performance\/path, though there are games where the best player was on the losing side of the equation. – Mitigating circumstances \u2013 As this is an individual role, things like having better teammates or a better team count against players. This is because I find it more impressive when a player performs under more adverse conditions. – Only LAN results were taken into account. – Best Support \u2013 Xyp9x While the support role has entered the common lexicon, it\u2019s validity is still argued by experts to this day. The way I use it is the player, given the least resources, the one that helps facilitate the other teammates. It is dependent on the team, the style they are running, and who is getting the resources to do what. In this case a supportive end player is someone who isn\u2019t focused on by his team to be the pivotal player in their style or strategy. For that reason, none of the Liquid players were nominated for this role as none of them truly fit the categorization. Without further ado, The best support player this year is: Winner: Andreas \u201cXyp9x\u201d Hojsleth – Runner-up: Chris \u201cchrisj\u201d De Jong – This year, multiple support players stood out to me. I suspect this is because support players get more shine in tactical systems, and in 2019, we saw more tactical teams in general. The overall winner, though, was Xyp9x. He is the best support player in history and continues to be a rock for Astralis while giving them the extra luxury of winning way more 1v1s than anyone should expect. The runner-up was a closer race. The five other notable support players for me were: Chris \u201cChrisJ\u201d de Jong, Nathan \u201cNBK\u201d Schmitt, Sami \u201cxseveN\u201d Laasanen, Jay \u201cLiazz\u201d Tregillgas, and Epitacio \u201cTACO\u201d de Melo. Among the five, ChrisJ and NBK stood out above the rest. In terms of consistency, ChrisJ was a bit more up and down than NBK, but I still favored ChrisJ. ChrisJ had to shuffle his roles to accommodate his teammates but continued to put a good had the consistency and the ability to carry. Best Lurker \u2013 sergej The lurker role has changed a lot over the years. The way it was played and conceptualized during Christopher \u201cGeT_RiGhT\u201d Alesund\u2019s prime has died. In those days, the lurker was given the most resources and attention. While you can still be a star player from the role, you can\u2019t construct an entire strategy and identity around the role. Lurkers have to switch between aggressive and passive stances, and sometimes help on entering into the site or helping their teammates. Winner: Jere \u201csergej\u201d Salo – Runner-up: Emil \u201cMagisk\u201d Rief – There were three standout lurkers this year: Sergej, Magisk, and Robin \u201cropz\u201d Kool. This was reasonably competitive between the three. Both Sergej and Magisk had somewhat comparable peaks and consistency across 2019. Overall though, I had to favor sergej as he was the primary star of ENCE during their 2019 run while Magisk is the secondary star of Astralis. Ropz got a nod as the third. Like sergej, he is the central star of Mouz but didn\u2019t come into his own till the end of the year. Best Wildcard \u2013 JW The wildcard role is strange. Unlike the support role, everyone agrees that the role exists. The wildcard player is the X-factor. There is something about their playstyle that makes them different from your ordinary playmaker as they have a chaotic style or pull out the play in the exact right moment to turn the match. They are unpredictable, rarely the primary star, but they are the catalyst to some of the most exciting plays in the game. Winner: Jesper \u201cJW\u201d Wecksell – Runner-up: Keith \u201cNAF\u201d Markovic – JW was the obvious winner of this award. He was the original wildcard of CS:GO history, and unlike the other nominees on this list, always plays the wildcard role. What\u2019s more, JW reached vintage levels of play as he started to make surprising aggressive plays with AWPs and rifles. Outside of JW, the runner-ups were NAF and Lukas \u201cgla1ve\u201d Rossander. Both NAF and gla1ve have moments where they pull out ridiculous wildcard plays. Between the two of them, I felt that NAF did it more often and at a higher consistent level across the year. Gla1ve gets the nod as third for some of the ridiculous plays he made in New York and Beijing. Most Versatile Player \u2013 s1mple For the versatile player award, it was given to the player who did a multitude of different roles for his team to succeed. Players that were impactful for their team and had to do it at any moment of a round, whether it was early round, mid-round, late-round, whichever side, whichever map, or whichever role they had to do in each round. Winner: Oleksandr \u201cs1mple\u201d Kostyliev – Runner-up: Jonathan \u201cEliGE\u201d Jablownowski – This year a lot of the superstar players had a good overall game. The three that stood out to me were s1mple, EliGE, and Freddy \u201cKRIMZ\u201d Johansson. Among the three, s1mple played the most roles. In the Danylo \u201cZeus\u201d Teslenko period, he was the primary AWPer who took on aggressive picks and won the post-plant\/clutches. When Na`Vi moved on to their current lineup, s1mple became a rifler who played on the wings of the map. Considering the dramatic role change, s1mple didn\u2019t lose much of a step in his new role and continues to play at a superstar level. So even though Na`Vi didn\u2019t play as many LANs as Liquid or EG, I had to give s1mple the nod here as the most versatile player of the year. EliGE was my runner-up as he was the superstar player for Liquid. While he specialized in the entry-role, his overall game was still excellent as he could play whatever roles or style was needed. KRIMZ got a nod for third, as he was the best player for Fnatic throughout the year. Best Entry \u2013 EliGE The entry role is a hard role to define as it can be broken down into different categories. There are entry players who take map control and look for the first duels of the game. Second guys in are the entry players who have to ensure the trade kill. However, they can sometimes be the players who help set up the first player in with a flashbang (a notable example of this was the Johannes \u201ctabseN\u201d Wodarz-Fatih \u201cgob b\u201d Dayik dynamic back in 2018). While not as common, it can also denote entry duelists on the CT-side. Ludvig \u201cBrollan\u201d Brolin, in particular, is an excellent example of a modern-day CT-side entry. What\u2019s more, it\u2019s hard to pin down a player into a subset of these entry-fragger roles as they often switch out of them depending on form, situation, or strategy. As that\u2019s the case, I picked out the two best players across the entire spectrum. Winner: Jonathan \u201cEliGE\u201d Jablownowski – Runner-up: Denis \u201celectronic\u201d Sharipov – In mid-2019, EliGE rocked the world as Liquid\u2019s superstar player. His tandem with Jake \u201cStewie2K\u201d Yip let him rip open any team on the T-side of the map. Stewie2k\u2019s space-making alongside EliGE\u2019s consistent spray made the two a nightmare to stop. While not as often, EliGE could also be equally aggressive on the CT-side. His overall consistency throughout the year made him the natural pick for this category. Read More: Thorin\u2019s Take: The Immovable ELiGE – My runner-up was electronic. Outside of EliGE, no other entry-fraggers had some of the ridiculous peaks that electronic had throughout this year. Electronic was also reasonably consistent, given his role as well. Unfortunately, team success and Na`Vi\u2019s decision to play in less LANs meant that he had fewer chances to shine compared to EliGE. Best AWPer \u2013 ZywOo This is relatively straightforward. Who was the best at wielding the big green gun? Winner: Mathieu \u201cZywOo\u201d Herbaut – Runner-up: Nicolai \u201cdev1ce\u201d Reedtz – The big three AWPers of the year were ZywOo, dev1ce, and s1mple. ZywOo was the clear winner as he had the highest peak and best consistency. As for dev1ce and s1mple, I favored dev1ce as he was an AWPer for the entire year while s1mple switched roles later on in the year. That along with Na`Vi playing fewer games than Astralis favored dev1ce more. Other notable AWPers in this category were JW, Kenny \u201ckennyS\u201d Schrub, and Aleksi \u201callu\u201d Jalli. JW was never consistent enough to challenge s1mple\u2019s spot. I feel that kennyS was underrated this year as G2\u2019s superstar. While G2 suffered, kennyS hit extremely high peaks with surprisingly high consistency. As for allu, he was good for most of the year and in the first half was a top 10 player, but once he became the in-game leader, his form fell off, so I couldn\u2019t put him over s1mple either. Best Leader \u2013 gla1ve This year, the in-game leadership role was the most packed. It is also the hardest to judge. We don\u2019t know what the leaders are saying or doing behind the scenes or how much we attribute to them can be attributed to their teammates or coach. Leaders also require multiple skills, whether it\u2019s tactical, social, strategic, or a teacher. For this one, I measured it based on a combination of those factors. Winner: Lukas \u201cgla1ve\u201d Rossander – Runner-up: Aleksi \u201cAleksib\u201d Virolainen – While I have gla1ve and Aleksib as the winner and runner-up, it was a close three-man race as Finn \u201ckarrigan\u201d Andersen was right behind them. The reason I had gla1ve at the top was for three reasons. His overall tactics were still some of the best in the world. I was particularly impressed by how Astralis sprang a tactical trap to win the StarLadder Berlin Major. While it required some luck, Astralis pulling out the Vertigo pick against Liquid was right out of a sports movie script. The second reason was that Astralis resurrected their form by shifting their map pool. In 2018 they were playing Inferno and Nuke as their home maps. While Inferno is still a calling card for Astralis, they started to use Overpass, Train, and Vertigo. They\u2019ve also started to rebuild their nuke. The final reason is that he was able to resurrect Astralis and lead them tactically and emotionally back to being the best team in the world again. While they aren\u2019t peak Astralis, they are still the best in the world. Aleksib is my runner-up as he also pulled out a historically great run. ENCE didn\u2019t have considerable firepower or great experiences (outside of Allu), but he was still able to lead his team into a top 3 spot in the world for a prolonged period. ENCE were at best a plucky darkhorse before 2019 started. By the middle of the year, ENCE looked like the best tactical squad in the world. So even though he didn\u2019t play for the last part of the year, I had to give him the nod as the second-best leader of 2019. Karrigan did a fantastic job building up Mouz across the board, whether it\u2019s tactically, emotionally, strategically, or through their map pool. By the end of 2019, he made Mouz a top 5 team in the world. While Karrigan only made third on this list, this is still one of the most impressive runs I\u2019ve seen a leader make in all of CS:GO history. Outside of those three, there were multiple honorable mentions. The three that come to mind are Nicholas \u201cnitr0\u201d Cannella, Alex \u201cALEX\u201d McMeekin, and Aaron \u201cAZR\u201d Ward. Nitr0 did a great job with Liquid this year. ALEX shined as another rookie in-game leader, and the Vitality system made the most of ZywOo\u2019s talents. AZR did a great job with 100 Thieves considering that the team didn\u2019t have prodigious amounts of firepower, but they had reliable results. Those results came mainly from their tactics and team play. What\u2019s more, 100 Thieves rebuilt their playbook after it had gone stale. While AZR\u2019s raw results don\u2019t rank up with the rest of the list, the quality of the work he did was worth an honorable mention. Hardest Carry \u2013 ZywOo This award isn\u2019t so much a role as it is a recognition of players that went far beyond the call of duty. They were the players whose individual performance shone so bright that they were a force of nature unto themselves. This year, the winner and runner-up were quite clear. Winner: Mathieu \u201cZywOo\u201d Herbaut – Runner-up: Oleksandr \u201cs1mple\u201d Kostyliev – ZywOo\u2019s K-D differential is so ridiculous that every month, it gets reposted on social media, and I\u2019m still left astounded at the raw numbers. Beyond the raw numbers, there are other qualitative reasons why ZywOo wins the award. Neither iteration of Vitality have the same amount of firepower as a majority of their rivals, so ZywOo is often given the biggest burden to carry. His consistency, peak, and amount of games he played at those heights outshined everyone. While he was one of the most pocketed players in the year, he consistently delivered at levels far higher than should be expected. My runner-up is s1mple. There was no other choice as even though Na`Vi didn\u2019t play that many LANs, s1mple still did play almost half the year with both Zeus and Ioann \u201cEdward\u201d Sukhariev. He then played with Zeus for another three months. While people praise ZywOo as the best player in the world, it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if s1mple took back that honor in 2020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Stuchiu: Best CSGO Players by Role in 2019 With the 2019 season of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive all wrapped up, it\u2019s now time to take stock of the year in CSGO and decide who the best players were by role, and which players had the biggest impact on the server. This list was made to acknowledge […]<\/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-39065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39065","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=39065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39065\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}