Soon, HLTV is once again summing up the year and picking the top twenty players. And once again, the game community finds itself on the verge of a fierce debate. So who is cooler: Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev or Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut?
CS.MONEY is here to brew the strongest coffee possible to read the coffee grounds and determine the best player of 2020.
Why These Two?
The Ukrainian and French players are the main contenders for first place in the rankings. Both have been there before: S1mple grabbed the title in 2018, and ZywOo achieved it a year later. This year, they’ve both shown great, even outstanding performance.
There are quite a few cool players who can get into the top 20. To mention a few, arT, Ropz, or dev1ce can compete for a place in the top three. However, it’s easy to draw a line between the above-mentioned pair who are in the post’s title and these three guys. S1mple and ZywOo are the locomotives of their respective lineups with great stats and a bunch of MVP awards. They’re definitely sharing first and second places in the rankings again.
Personal Skill
We know for a fact that HLTV ranks players based not only on KDA or their own rating but also on the players’ overall performance. To receive first place, a player must show both excellent individual play and decent team performance.
On the individual level, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut have displayed very similar peformance. Very much so. They have the same rating: 1.29. They have similar KAST rates: 74% and 74.8% respectively. Even their headshot rates are the same: 39% and 39.3% of all frags.
Over the year, the Ukrainian player has performed more stably. His competitor dropped the plank a little in spring but quickly returned to top form. In terms of personal stats, it’s a solid draw.
Team Standings
In terms of team standings, the difference is much more pronounced. The team Natus Vincere where Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev plays, has only won at WePlay! Clutch Island over the year. On top of that, there are three silver medals under the guys’ belt: Intel Extreme Masters XV – Beijing Online: Europe, ESL Pro League Season 12: Europe, and ICE Challenge 2020.
Vitality’s standings are much better. Over the year, the French club has won BLAST Premier: Fall 2020 and Intel Extreme Masters XV – Beijing Online: Europe. In the top 3, their situation is better as well. Vitality has lost four times in the finals. This happened at DreamHack Open Fall 2020, ESL One: Cologne 2020 Online – Europe, cs_summit 6 Online: Europe, and BLAST Premier: Spring 2020 European Finals.
In team standings, Vitality had a noticeable advantage. Unfortunately, there was no Major this year and no LAN tournaments with teams from several regions. Vitality’s performance can’t be called a record. For instance, the team BIG had an equally good season.
In last year’s ranking, s1mple failed to claim first place due to the lack of awards and matches in the playoffs of major tournaments. This year, the situation is different: Natus Vincere and Vitality made it to the playoffs with approximately the same frequency. Note, however, that the French team still has a performance advantage. That can be the decisive factor.
Best Player
Over the previous year, HLTV hasn’t given any MVP awards to Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut and just one to Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. The latter was the best player at IEM Katowice 2020. After eSports events went online, the title of the best player according to HLTV wasn’t awarded at all. Consequently, while s1mple has more MVP awards, this barely has any impact on the ranking.
So who will be the best player in the top 20 according to HLTV? We believe it will be Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. He showed a stable and impressive performance level throughout the year. While the two’s KAST and Impact values are almost equal, s1mple’s made frags a bit more often and, even if it doesn’t matter eventually, he has the IEM Katowice 2020 Best Player Award.
However, this race for first place aside, we are delighted and amazed that there are two CS:GO players of this high caliber in the world. It’s just phenomenal. And who would you choose as number one in the top 20 players of 2020?
