The top 20 CS:GO players of 2018

- as voted for by the community

Introduction

The annual unveiling of the top 20 players by HLTV.org is an event that the whole CS:GO community discusses for months, all the way up until the release of the #1 player in January. It doesn't stop there, however, as there is naturally some disagreement about some of the positions of players - EliGE getting the #12 spot comes to mind from 2017. It's always made me wonder what the community actually thinks the top 20 should be, and if these disagreements are just made by a vocal minority or there's a genuine gulf in opinion between the HLTV.org staff and the public.

This year I decided to make a poll (results are slightly disfigured, apologies) and post it both on reddit and the HLTV forums for people to fill out. It collected 278 responses (once the obvious trolls and the massive outliers were filtered out) and I've compiled the results into a simple points system - 20 points for a #1 vote, 19 points for a #2 vote and so on. The results were as follows:

#20 - Håvard 'rain' Nygaard - FaZe Clan (562 points)

Out of the 5 players initially acquired by FaZe in January 2016, rain is the only player that has remained. That was certainly helped by his incredible performance in 2017, where he managed #4 on the HLTV list, assisting NiKo (who secured #2) in finally making FaZe into a world class team on more than paper. 2018 wasn't as good a year as 2017, both for FaZe and rain. He did manage a big event rating of 1.09, which is still certainly above average, with only two of those events ending in a rating below 1.00. He didn't have any particular stand-out performances, with his best event being ESL Cologne - an event FaZe crashed out of in the semi-finals against the home-crowd favourites of BIG. A solid year for the Norwegian rifler, picking up 3 tournament wins, but both him and FaZe will definitely be looking to fulfil their full potential next year. He'll also be hoping to not eat any more cigarettes...

#19 - Johannes 'tabseN' Wodarz - BIG (571 points)

One of the most exciting players to watch with his aggressive playstyle, BIG's tabseN narrowly beat out rain for the #19 spot. He didn't make an appearance on last year's HLTV list, but that was made impossible due to him only having one big tournament appearance. This was a stunning 1.30 rating at the Krakow major, where BIG made legend status. In 2018 he helped BIG once again attain that status in London, as well as make it to the final of the aforementioned ESL Cologne, beating the likes of FaZe and MIBR in Bo3 series. He was key in those performances, collecting a rating of 1.18 across the 18 maps played.  He's also made quite a few highlight clips this year, such as this stunner. A 1.12 big event rating shows that he's more than capable of handling the biggest of teams in the game, and that his main challenge has been getting to those big stages, as qualification through the EU qualifiers are more difficult than ever. The German star will be hoping their new international lineup continues to pay off in 2019, as they add in even more firepower with the turkish beast that is XANTARES. 

#18 - Özgür 'woxic' Eker - HellRaisers (819 points)

Speaking of turkish talent, the 3240edpi-using woxic makes his appearance in this list. The FPL star only came into his first relevant professional team in September 2017, where he joined HellRaisers in a surprise move alongside his old teammate ISSAA. Both immediately made a splash, but it's woxic who's had a particularly impressive year. With a 1.14 rating in big events, woxic's biggest downfall has been HR's lack of big finishes, with them not making a single semi-final at a big event this year. Their biggest result was making legend status at the London major, where woxic was instrumental in getting them through their final Bo3 against fnatic to end their streak of top 8 finishes. Individually, he had a ridiculous EPICENTER performance, getting a tournament rating of 1.26 as they reached the quarters after defeating NaVi. The CIS minor was another high point for him, as he dropped a 40-bomb in regulation against Spirit in their final map to make it through to what was eventually a top 8 finish. The AWPer did have some VISA issues, most notably causing him to miss out on IEM Shanghai. These issues hopefully won't plague him too much as HellRaisers try and build on their new English-speaking core into 2019 with their new addition Hobbit. 

#17 - Timothy 'autimatic' Ta - Cloud9 (831 points)

Cloud9's sensational major-winning run in front of the American crowd seems like a long time ago, but it was indeed this year. One of only two players that have remained on the roster, autimatic has had a great year despite Cloud9's later decline. A 1.12 rating across big events this year could have been even higher - it started out strong with a 1.20 rating at the Boston major, where he lost out to tarik for the MVP only due to his pivotal last-map performance. Tim's great showings still kept coming despite the roster changes and worsening finishes, with only one sub-1.00 performance this entire year at a big event; BLAST Istanbul was a poor tournament for all of Cloud9 so that can probably be somewhat excused. It was only a couple of weeks ago when we saw the first encouraging signs from the new-look Cloud9 with refrezh standing in at BLAST Lisbon. Whoever is standing in for them at the major has a tough job to do if they want to get back to the top 8, but it seems Cloud9 can certainly rely on autimatic to provide a good performance regardless.

#16 - Tomáš 'oskar' Šťastný - mousesports (956 points)

It seems like ages ago that NiKo left mouz for FaZe, but I still remember how the consensus was that they were going nowhere after his departure. However, mouz have slowly grown from a team hovering on the edge of the top 10 to a team winning the occasional T1 tournament. Admittedly, the lineup has changed, and the addition of Czech AWPer oskar in particular has propelled them into the dangerous squad they are now. Once known as an onliner, he's proved himself as the real thing on LAN time and time again (although he does still do nasty things online...). Coincidentally, he also placed #16 on the HLTV list in 2017. He started this year off hot, decimating Astralis (who still had kjaerbye at this point) in the first match of the January Major with 26 frags in 18 rounds. He picked up another 2+ rating against Vega in round 3, too. However, consistency has always been the problem for the 27 year-old,  as he largely went missing in the quarters - resulting in mouz's exit from the Boston major. The London major was shocking for both oskar and mouz, finishing 0-3 and being kicked down to the minor system, where they've got a tough task ahead to qualify for Katowice. He finished the year with an MVP from V4, a 1.12 big event rating and two tournament victories in StarSeries and ESL New York. A year of ups and downs but a decent year nonetheless for oskar.

#15 - Jonathan 'EliGE' Jablonowski- Team Liquid (1204 points)

The highest-placing American continued his excellent play into this year. A surprising #12 entry on the HLTV list last year, the rifler has arguably improved on his performance in 2017. EliGE has been on Liquid for almost three years now, and has still not won a single big event, which is an astonishing 'achievement' considering he's made eight finals now. This has hampered his chances of an MVP, but his continued form has meant that he maintains his status as a top 20 player. With his worst event only a 0.95 performance, he's been potentially the most reliable Liquid player this year. His event highlight was probably the ECS Season 4 Finals, but even then his 30-bomb against Astralis in the last map wasn't enough to deny the Danish side another victory. His big event rating this year was 1.12, but against Astralis it was only 0.94. That summarises Liquid's year quite well. They'll need even more from him in 2019 if they're going to break the curse.

#14 - Miikka 'suNny' Kemppi- mousesports (1570 points)

Considering his massive blunder against FaZe to help choke the lead on Nuke at the start of the year, suNny has recovered to have an impressive year. He's kept a remarkable level all through the year, with thirteen tournaments in a row from the beginning of the year with a 1+ rating. The Finn joined this roster from PENTA in August 2017, and has been performing ever since. He was mouz's best player for their second big victory of the year in New York, only missing out on the MVP because of twistzz's incredible performance.  The same could arguably be said for their other tournament win, where s1mple claimed the MVP - but who can do anything against that? His big event rating this year is 1.13, making him statistically the best player on mouz this year - which is quite an achievement with oskar and ropz on the team (the latter barely missing out on this list at #21). Some suggest a move to ENCE to join his countrymen if this team collapses, but suNny can realistically join almost anywhere he likes if that were to happen, considering the superb year he's had.

#13 - Ladislav 'GuardiaN' Kovács - FaZe Clan (1621 points)

Becoming the only player to appear in the top 20 every single year, FaZe's GuardiaN was voted as #13 after scoring a 1.12 rating in big events. If FaZe were to have won that spectacularly close inferno match in the major final, GuardiaN would have surely kicked off his year with an MVP, as he posted a 1.24 rating over the whole tournament and delivered a great performance to win them the first map of the series. FaZe found their first victory in Sydney with Xizt, beating Astralis in a Bo5 with three incredibly close maps. GuardiaN claimed the MVP there after another great performance in the final and a 1.22 rating overall. After that point cromen was standing in instead, but the Slovakian didn't seem to mind, posting a 1.30 rating in Belo Horizonte to pick up another win. He also had a great performance in EPICENTER with a 1.18 rating, where FaZe won another - you're probably starting to see the point. GuardiaN's form seems to be the key to victory for FaZe, who have dropped down the rankings after some poor placements towards the end of the year. Whoever the new fifth and/or IGL is, they've got to get GuardiaN to find his form if they want to win tournaments again, especially since he does crazy things like this in finals. 

#12 - Freddy 'KRIMZ' Johansson - fnatic (1669 points)

The legendary cyborg is the only Swedish player on this entire list, which shows the year that Swedish CS has had (also shown in this gif). There was some hope in the beginning of the year - IEM Katowice ended in a surprise win over FaZe, where flusha went insane with KRIMZ not far behind with a 1.24 rating. He had already shown signs of brilliance, fighting tooth and nail to keep fnatic's legend status in Boston, delivering two 2+ rating maps in the group stage and then still bringing out a 1.21 rating despite going 0-3 in StarSeries. After picking the MVP for fnatic's victorious WESG 2017 (yes, that's right, the finals were in 2018, don't ask) and pulling out another great performance to get fnatic to the semis of DH Masters Marseille, KRIMZ was looking at a mouth-watering rating of 1.27 across four LAN tournaments. He looked like he was in serious contention for player of the year with those numbers. Sadly, the rest of the year didn't continue in the same way, as fnatic cut Golden and Lekr0 for Xizt and draken and never really got the same results. KRIMZ, despite this, still never dropped below 0.98 for the rest of the year. After adding twist and Brollan to remedy the ever-worsening situation KRIMZ did have a great IEM Chicago with a 1.24 rating, leading fnatic to the semis. Even with the poor results, KRIMZ still managed an excellent 1.16 big event rating.  Now back into the top 10 again, fnatic are really going to need him to find early-2018 form again if they want to bring back the glory the fnatic name demands.

#11 - Marcelo 'coldzera' David - Made In Brazil (2540 points)

The undisputed #1 of 2016 and 2017 is #11 (1+1 = 11 confirmed?) on this list. The Brazilian was typically consistent throughout the year, if not as dominant as last year. He'd won a couple of MVPs last year, especially towards the end of the year, but didn't win any at all this year - mainly due to the lack of results from MIBR. They added the two Americans from Cloud9 at the beginning of the year, first Stewie for TACO after IEM Katowice. Up until that point, cold averaged 1.22. Afterwards, he did seem to struggle more - at least that's what the HLTV forums say. They didn't make a single final until after adding tarik for boltz, which was Istanbul, where they took Astralis to all 30 rounds on the final map. That seemed to be the turning point, because even after two awful tournaments, they again made the finals at ECS and took Astralis pretty close once more - although that was more due to FalleN waking up than anything. Honestly, there's not a lot of correlation between coldzera's performances and MIBR's placements - he plays well in the good times and bad; he only dipped to 0.99 once and averaged 1.16 in big events. He showed glimpses of his 2016-2017 self with a 1.31 rating at Lisbon to end the year, including a demolition of NaVi in the final game. He definitely needs to be at this level in 2019 and produce important clutches like this if the full-Brazilian reunion is going to be as successful as it once was.

#10 - Andreas 'Xyp9x' Højsleth - Astralis (2667 points)

Starting off the top 10 is the famed 'clutch minister' himself. He's undeniably earnt this title, picking up a 65% 1v1 clutch rate and winning 29 1v2s in big events. He's also won a 1v5 clutch this year, but for North's sake we shouldn't mention that.. oh dear. From one point of view, he's been the worst player on his team this year - but that speaks more about the domination from Astralis than anything else. They did have a tough start to the year, with an elimination revoking their legend status in Boston and then a exit in the quarters in their first tournament with Magisk. After those two sub-1 performances from Xyp, he's been the dependable player we all expect of him. Those times where he's dipped below that threshold have been Astralis victories; he can't be left in the clutch situation when his team have already killed everyone! A 1.10 big event rating doesn't show the true impact of Xyp9x on Astralis, who produces time, time and time again. With him as a constant source of beautiful clutches, Astralis will be aiming for an even better year in 2019 - if that's even possible. 

#9 - Russel 'twistzz' Van Dulken - Team Liquid (2756 points)

The anime-haired Canadian only seemed to get better at the year went on. He started at a more reasonable pace, being good if not spectacular as Liquid alternated between losing to Astralis in the final and bombing out early. His incredible form started at EL Premier in July, where they were stopped by Astralis again in the final. The next event was the London major - where they were stopped by Astralis in the semi-final. Finally, ESL New York came around, a big event without the Danish menace. This was Liquid's chance at a big event win and twistzz's chance to show that he was one of the best NA players. Well, twistzz certainly lived up to the hype, with a ridiculous 1.34 rating in the Bo5 final against mouz, with a 1.36 rating overall. Although mouz edged them out in five maps, twistzz claimed the MVP as a member of the losing side: a feat only achieved before by s1mple. To be put into a league with s1mple in 2018 is truly something special. After a couple of good performances more (and the disastrous ECS finals, but we'll ignore that) he finished the year with a 1.13 big event rating, establishing his reputation as one of the most mechanically skilled players in NA. If he can keep his late-2018 form up, maybe one day they'll be able to beat Astralis in a final. One day...

#8 - Lukas 'gla1ve' Rossander - Astralis (2876 points)

For an IGL, gla1ve has had a ridiculous year. In their new lineup with Magisk, he didn't finish a single event below a 1.00 rating. He ends the year with a 1.13 rating in big events, up there with the best aimers. Not only has his individual performance been outstanding, he's helped revolutionise the game with his nade usage. Famed after consistently shooting through smokes with remarkable accuracy and doing 7.6 points of damage per round with HEs, gla1ve has changed the game's meta. Strats like this have made Astralis so difficult to play against this year: with so much insane skill out there these days, they need a tactical edge to achieve domination and gla1ve seems to provide just that. Astralis have won 10 of the last 14 big tournaments this year, including the London Major. With the Grand Slam secured in Odense at the EPL S8 finals, gla1ve will have to keep the motivation up to succeed again in Katowice, especially if they want to do it in as dominant fashion as they did in London. He's also been a very underrated clutch player for the Danish side, with 72% success in 1v1s and massive moments like this. All in all, as long as no players suddenly decide to desert him, gla1ve looks like he's going to set up Astralis for another successful year.

#7 - Keith 'NAF' Markovic - Team Liquid (3037 points)

NAF's first big event of 2018 was also his first with Team Liquid, after leaving the boys over at Renegades. Despite this, he started off strong with a 1.23 and a 1.20 rating in his first two tournaments. His adaptability was remarkable, and his performances kept coming. Most notable was the second final Liquid made it to, the ECS Season 5 finals. Despite losing to Astralis (of course) in the final he dropped 29 frags to keep it close on mirage, after a stunning start to the tournament which saw him average a 1.30 rating. He has drawn some criticism for not being the beast he usually is in the moments where Liquid need him, but that's a problem all of Team Liquid have seemingly been having. In fairness, that wasn't true the last time they were in a big final at the ESL S8 finals, although his 1.09 rating in the final was nothing compared to his 1.31 performance over the entire tournament. The Canadian has gained a reputation for the lack of emotion being shown on his face, but perhaps it's the cold-hearted machine instinct that's allowed him to get a groundbreaking 1.17 rating across big events this year and even an MVP at SuperNova. It has cemented his place as the best player in NA for now, but with twistzz gaining ground recently that might be in danger. For now, Liquid fans will be ecstatic with their new signing and hope the rest of the roster can follow his lead.

#6 - Emil 'Magisk' Reif - Astralis (3508 points)

After kjaerbye's surprise departure following the Boston major, Astralis turned to OpTic's Magisk for their fifth. Many Astralis fans wanted k0nfig instead - i'm sure they're alright with how things panned out though. Magisk had already shown his insane talent on North, most famously in a major quarter-final on cobblestone where he dropped 29 frags in a single half against Virtus.Pro. He soon fitted in perfectly and as you all know, Astralis unleashed one of the most dominant eras ever seen in CS:GO. Magisk averaged 1.17 over the year in big events and didn't once drop below a rating of 1.06. The cherry on the top was his performance at BLAST Lisbon, where his 1.39 rating allowed him to pick up his first ever MVP. His performance in the pit on Inferno has especially stood-out, and he's now renowned as the best there is in that position. He's certainly come a long way, even from just one year ago, where he was stuck on a dysfunctional roster that really wasn't going anywhere. He's now won almost a million dollars for himself in prize money. At the age of only 20, there's surely plenty more to come from him in the next few years. North will surely be regretting kicking him, that's for sure.

#5 - Denis 'electronic' Sharipov - Natus Vincere (3558 points)

Narrowly squeezing his way into the top 5 is the Russian prodigy electronic. The 20 year-old was signed from Flipsid3 back in November 2017 and was touted as the next great CIS talent thanks to plays like this. He first turned heads in Marseille with a 1.36 rating, with only Astralis in the way of them winning their first tournament of the year. That came later at StarSeries and then again at Cologne, with 1.19 and 1.31 ratings respectively. The only obstacle to getting an MVP was of course s1mple, who somewhat overshadowed him for a lot of the year. Regardless, electronic's high level (1.17 rating in big events) definitely gave s1mple the help he needed to at least try and challenge Astralis for the number one spot this year. His future is certainly bright on this roster, and if more firepower is brought in to support them then they're looking very dangerous indeed. The young electronic becoming a father in 2019 might hinder him, but hopefully he can balance it all well. There's definitely lots of exciting things to come for him, both inside and outside the game.

#4 - Peter 'dupreeh' Rasmussen - Astralis (4057 points)

Entry-fragging doesn't always give a player the best stats, but dupreeh managed a 1.17 rating in big events this year. Considering he's playing in such a crucial role, he was the obvious pick for the #4 spot. Astralis won 81.8% of the rounds where he has made the entry, while he had a 1.24 opening kill ratio. He started the year as the main AWPer for Astralis, as he stuck with the role after device's absence. Although he still managed to be the only decent performer at the Boston major for them, it wasn't the role he was needed in, and so he soon switched back to his old job. He does still occasionally pick it up however, with 8% of his kills this year coming from the AWP. Although device won the majority of Astralis' MVPs, dupreeh did pick one up at the EPL S7 finals, where his 1.31 rating was enough to secure it. After a consistent year, he ended on a high in Lisbon with a 1.39 rating to show that the #10 of 2017 is still one of the best players in the world. Astralis have got possibly the world's best entry-fragger and finally a good second AWPer in dupreeh, so it's clear to see he'll be crucial to their success in 2019.

#3 -  Nikola 'NiKo' Kovač - FaZe Clan (4765 points)

After a #2 placing last year and a disappointing year for MIBR, this was NiKo's year to claim the top spot. In a way, he performed like someone that was worthy of it: a 1.25 big events rating, with the lowest of those ratings, excluding BLAST tournaments, being 1.16. That's positively ridiculous, and if it wasn't for the dominance of Astralis or the monster that is s1mple then he might have taken it. NiKo's year started in disappointment as the Boston major alluded them, which wasn't helped by his lacklustre performance in the finals compared to the tear he was on for the rest of the tournament. NiKo won two MVPs this year, the first being in Belo Horizonte and the second in EPICENTER - two tournaments where Astralis were not in attendance. NiKo made ScreaM proud this year with his of tapping ability, as he's given us gems such as this, this and this. Oooof. With NiKo starting to call, the effect on his individual play will come into question. FaZe's fifth may be an IGL yet, but if NiKo has to carry the burden of calling he might never be able to replicate the stats he's produced this year - time will tell.

#2 -  Nicolai 'device' Reedtz - Astralis (5305 points)

It's device that takes the #2 spot, with exactly twice as many people voting for s1mple for #1. He still takes the #2 spot with ease, due to not only Astralis' performance but also the 7 MVPs he's won this year - 7 more than last year when he finished as #5. We weren't even sure he'd fully recover from his health issues at the start of the year, which caused him to miss out on some tournaments in late 2017. After the Boston major, his first tournament back, he quickly got back into the swing of things again, averaging 1.24 in big events across the year and never dipping below 1.11. His most dominant showing was a 1.44 at the EL Premier in July, closely followed by a 1.39 in BLAST Istanbul. Some of those 7 MVPs were up for debate, as some feared that they were only being given to him to further his chances of being named #1, but he often did edge it in terms of rating and it's always going to be difficult to decide which Astralis player should receive the MVP. He's been excellent at finding opening picks with the AWP - which he did take back after the Boston major - with an opening kill ratio of 1.64. For a player that isn't flashy at all, #2 on this list is quite an achievement, and if there were only mortals on this list he probably would have managed #1. For now, he'll likely have to do with #2 (#1 is still possible of course, but it's looking controversial for HLTV to give it to him), but if the health issues stay away he can certainly challenge for it again next year.

#1 - Aleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev - Natus Vincere (5411 points)

Not only is s1mple the best player in the world right now, he's potentially the best player in the history of CS:GO. His big event rating of a whopping 1.34 is certainly the highest there's ever been. He won 4 LAN events and 6 MVPs this year - both at StarSeries S4 and Marseille he didn't even need to lift the trophy to claim the MVP. The latter was a stunning 1.52 performance, possibly the best individual performance at a big event ever. He's done crazy wallbangs, ridiculous clutches and absurd aces while making it all look easy. There were reports of him and flamie joining the SK trio of coldzera, FalleN and fer earlier in the year, but the talks broke down. For NaVi and electronic's sake that was certainly a good thing, but we're yet to see s1mple on a team that looks like it can make and maintain the number one spot; we can't help but be left wondering what might have been. Regardless, this year has been absolutely incredible from s1mple, and there's probably more to come from him too at only 21 years of age. With Zeus potentially retiring in 2019, it opens up the possibility of a roster shuffle - bringing more firepower into NaVi might push them over the line. As it stands, only s1mple and electronic are performing like top 20 players. If NaVi are going to succeed in 2019, they might need more than that - maybe not getting all of the players in the top 10 like Astralis, but at least one or two more. The future is certainly bright for the Ukrainian, and we'll all be looking to him to try and single-handedly dethrone Astralis.

Summary and acknowledgements

Above is the graphical representation of this data - as you can see, some positions were very close and some were miles apart. Now, all there's left to do is wait and see what the HLTV list says, and if your predictions line up with what they say. Thanks for voting, and thanks for reading :)

Big thanks to HLTV for the images and statistics. This article is not for a commerical purpose and will not produce any revenue. This article was written by u/frickityfrackityfuck, feel free to use the data but the written article is my own and not to be used for commercial purposes without my consent. PM me on reddit if you have any questions :)