This year, the main peripheral esports event has changed its format: instead of the usual player-per-day announcement somewhere in mid-December, HLTV will host a full-fledged ceremony a la Oscar. On January 14 in Stockholm, journalists, players, teams, talents, and everyone CS:GO-related will gather in a huge hall where the presenters will announce the winners in various categories. As the media itself recently reported, the list will traditionally be unveiled partially two weeks before the award ceremony, but its top 3 will be revealed only in Stockholm.
In October, before the ESL Rio Major, we talked about the leading contenders for the title of the best player of the year, but a lot of things, good, bad and surprising, have happened since that moment, taking an unexpected turn. Now that all the 2022 tournaments are over and it remains only to sum up the results, CS.MONEY Blog runs through the best players of the year and tries to predict what could HLTV’s top look like.
Player Of The Year
Let’s start with the most obvious option. Even considering the decline in game form and lack of trophies, it is unlikely that anyone will be able to beat s1mple. His individual performance is way too good, and competitors could not get around him due to team achievements and titles.
It’s simple: zywOo did his best to catch up with Sasha, but all the chances for Mathieu to take the top 1 ended alongside Vitality’s failure at the BLAST Premier World Finals. Statistically, it’s very tight: Rating 2.0 differs by only 0.02, where s1mple has 1.26 against zywOo’s 1.24. So close, yet so far. And the Frenchman couldn’t take EVP at the last BLAST, so there is definitely no chance. In addition, many in the community have no doubts about Sasha’s victory.
Besides, there is no one else to compete with these two: sh1ro wasn’t able to get a trophy in Rio (although, to be honest, he was closer than ever in the post-COVID era) and therefore will not compete for the top line. In addition, he didn’t play much against top 20 teams, so his stats include opponents at a lower level, and only due to this he has high numbers.
Denmark’s Universal Soldier
This is where the fun begins. The top 3 will include s1mple, zywOo, and sh1ro. These are absolute favourites. But it takes a lot of work to choose two more players in the top five.
Let’s start with one of this year’s best and unfairly left-out players: BlameF. Here, the team’s results are wholly and entirely to blame, although the Dane himself outperformed everyone in his team and in most comparison cases. He gets into all the tops at once, according to various statistics:
- Fourth in Rating 2.0
- Fourth in KD-diff
- Fourth in average damage per round
- First in damage per round
- First by total number of kills
- Fourth in average kills per round
- Second in total assists (!)
- Second in clutches
- Second in opening kills
- Fifth in impact rating
Interestingly, there are not so many overlapping players between these nominations. All this data suggests the following: BlameF is an outstanding player, one might even say indispensable, and he is the core player of his team. It’s a pity that Astralis completely failed this season; otherwise, Benjamin could clearly claim the top 3. On the other hand, if not for him, where would they be?
Therefore, BlameF might jump into the top 5. It is difficult to say what exact place he will take, fourth or fifth, but he deserves recognition and getting into the list of the best players in CS:GO in 2022.
Last And Least
The most difficult and non-obvious choice. Anyone can become the number five, because in 2022, teams and players had a fever, and only Faze and NAVI showed relative stability. But taking into account the fact that there is no prominent star in Faze and all players interact as a whole, sacrificing personal statistics, it is unlikely that anyone from Karrigan’s team will be able to break into the top 5. For example, Maniac thinks it would be a miracle if even Broky made it into the top 10.
Promo code for XMAS DROP: XMAS-81DVUIKH.
Among the best players, there were two options for the top 5: Ax1le from Cloud9 and Niko from G2. Both with the highest personal indicators, and both are stable in their form, but one single factor separates them.
Niko won the BLAST Premier World Finals, while Ax1le was left without a trophy this year. You know, they say that more often all kinds of awards are taken by things that come out closer to the ceremony. That’s why the late autumn-early winter film season is so dense, right before the Oscars.
And here we have Niko, winning the year’s final tournament, and not just any, but the most serious one. And while all the attention was on the other two players, HooXi and m0NESY, Kovac Jr. played his typical tournament: a powerful one. Plus, he got an EVP medal and that’s very important.
No Heroic or Faze?
As we noted above, the phenomenon of Faze, as well as Heroic, is that these teams are functioning like a mechanism where all gears are equal. It’s too difficult to single out an individually bright one: they clutch all together, win all together, and if one falls out, the other gets up in place.
Despite Cadian’s first title, Twistzz’s consistency throughout the season, stavn’s brilliance, ropz being a mindgamer, Jabbi’s accuracy, and simply legendary karrigan and all the other great players, their individual play fade for the sake of the team’s success. This is the price the winners pay.
So, here’s what our estimated top players of 2022 look like:
- s1mple
- sh1ro
- zywOo
- blameF
- Niko
What do you think? Write your options in the comments below!
By the way, our New Year’s event is in full swing. You can win one of literally a hundred of skins, including a knife, gloves and some decent rare patterns. Just log in to XMAS DROP and wait for the results!
