2022 marked the return of a full LAN circuit to the CS:GO scene after a hybrid model in 2021. As in-person events with a crowd became the norm again and pushed teams to their limit, which players stood out the most during the year?
After a year that was largely dominated by NAVI, 2022 was a tale of two seasons. FaZe, fresh off picking up Robin ‘ropz’ Kool, were the undisputed No.1 in the world right until the player break, with the
CS:GO scene then becoming a wide-open race for the final stretch of the year as teams took turns winning titles.
But even though FaZe were the dominant team for most of the year, they do not have a single player in our top five — a testament to the collective strength of the team, where everyone is capable of taking over games. When it comes to individual performances, the usual suspects stood out the most, but the rise of Cloud9’s team could be pointing to a change of the guard in 2023, especially if teams like NAVI, G2 Esports and Vitality are unable to sort out their issues.
Here are our top five CS:GO players of 2022:
5 – Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač
In a way, 2022 was even worse than 2021 for G2 Esports and NiKo. Yes, the team finally ended their title drought at the BLAST World Final (an event that in the end felt a bit underwhelming), but if you take that away, you have a year when G2 were rarely in contention for titles, swapped in-game leaders, missed a Major and constantly had an air of dysfunction. And there are fears that G2’s title in Abu Dhabi may turn out to be more of a curse than a blessing.
With that in mind, it’s remarkable that NiKo managed to put in big numbers all year, which speaks to not only his amazing skill set but also his consistency and ability to perform, no matter what the circumstances around him are.
Despite some stellar showings, NiKo was not in the conversation for another top-three appearance because of two key factors: the IEM Rio Major that he missed, and his playoff struggles in certain key tournaments. At IEM Katowice, for example, he averaged a disappointing 1.01 HLTV rating after the groups, while at the BLAST Premier World Final, his playoff rating was just 1.09. Those were the most prestigious tournaments where G2 reached the playoffs, and it was his teammates who had to do the heavy lifting.
4 – Sergey ‘Ax1Le’ Rykhtorov
After a learning year when he and the rest of his Gambit team were only taking their first steps in major LAN competitions after the online era, Ax1Le hit a new level of performance in 2022 and became the best rifler in the scene.
Cloud9 won just one LAN title in 2022 — at IEM Dallas, a rather lackluster event — and were rarely in contention for the biggest trophies, but Ax1Le’s individual greatness was something to see. He came up big against all sorts of opponents (he even had FaZe’s number, averaging a 1.23 HLTV rating against them) alongside his partner-in-crime, AWPer Dmitry ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov, and picked up one MVP award
Every time Ax1Le played well, Cloud9 were spectacular, but he also had some troughs in form along the way that cost his team during key moments (think IEM Rio Major quarter-finals against MOUZ). He knows that he is held back by the fact that Cloud9 are not a BLAST Premier partner — which limits the number of premier events his team can attend every year — but if he is able to avoid the occasional off days in the latter stages of tournaments, he may well feature even higher in next year’s ranking.
3 – Dmitry ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov
Just like his Cloud9 teammate Ax1Le, sh1ro elevated his game even higher in 2022 and became more consistent at Big Events — the main thing that prevented him from being in the top three last year.
The 21-year-old added to his MVP resume at the start of the year, when he helped Gambit to win the Funspark ULTI 2021 Finals, an eight-team online tournament with $250,000 on the line. That was the sole MVP medal that he won this year, but he was in stellar form at LAN events as well, averaging a team-high 1.26 HLTV rating.
Whereas Ax1Le had moments of brilliance interspersed with occasional lapses when it came to playoff matches, sh1ro was consistency personified and at times the only player on the server for his team, like during the IEM Katowice quarter-final against FaZe or the IEM Rio Major quarter-final clash with MOUZ.
If Cloud9 are to overcome their issues and make more deep runs at the biggest events, sh1ro can make a strong case for being the best player in the world in 2023. But for now, he must watch as two giants occupy the top spots on the podium.
2 – Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut
Vitality were one of the biggest letdowns of 2022, but that did not stop ZywOo from continuing to hit peak levels of performance. Like many times before, it was him against the world, only this time he was playing on an international roster, using English to communicate with his teammates.
ZywOo ended 2022 with an HLTV rating of 1.24 at Big Events, with his next-closest teammate being Emil ‘Magisk’ Reif at 1.07. That alone explains how hard it was for Vitality to be a title contender without someone who could assist ZywOo and carry some of the weight load.
In 2022, the French AWPer won only one MVP medal, bringing his tally to 13, after helping Vitality to win the ESL Pro League Season 16 with a stunning 1.42 HLTV rating. That was one of just two events all year where Vitality were able to reach the playoffs. (They also made it out of the groups at the BLAST Premier World Final and placed 5th-6th, but HLTV.org does not consider that a playoff finish as it requires a team to be in the top 50% of event placings.)
ZywOo had by far the best Big Event playoff rating at 1.31, although the extremely small sample size takes away some luster from that record. Only time will tell whether Vitality will get any better in 2023, but ZywOo will certainly continue to be in the conversation for the best player in the world, 12 months from now.
1 – Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev
NAVI were unable to match the lofty standards set in 2021, but they were still a very competitive side for the majority of the year and picked up one title, at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals.
Despite the team’s struggles and the obvious impact of the war in Ukraine, s1mple was a solid performer all year long and added two MVP medals to his collection. (His second MVP award came at IEM Cologne, where NAVI finished runners-up.)
s1mple averaged an impressive 1.25 HLTV rating and 1.29 Impact at Big Events, with a 0.87 rating in the IEM Rio Major quarter-finals against home side FURIA one of the rare bad moments that he had in the playoffs of these top tournaments.
His numbers may have dropped significantly when compared to 2021 (1.45 rating and 1.55 impact, albeit from a small sample size of four LAN events), but s1mple was still an elite performer, one that was able to overcome extremely difficult circumstances to cement his status as the game’s greatest icon.
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