It’s difficult to discern precisely who the best player of 2020 would be for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive as the title as it’s played professionally has seen a monumental shift in 2020, thanks to the pandemic and a cheating scandal that rocked the world of CS:GO more so than any other scandal currently.
This is to say nothing of the slew of players that are dealing with match-fixing allegations within the Mountain Dew League for CS before jumping ship and attempting to make it into Valorant – might as well go out with a fistful of dollars, apparently.
Yet as heavily as the coaching scandal weighed on the fandom of Counter-Strike while organizations seemed to taunt Valve and their consistent inaction, HLTV’s top-20 players of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has been an opportunity to highlight perseverance during a time when CS:GO has arguably looked its worst.
Players burning out, legends retiring en-masse, online competitions bringing about latency and disconnects that otherwise disappoints and frustrates what should be highlight-reel worthy matches.
2020 was a bit rocky, although 2021 isn’t going to noticeably better, either, based on the idea that a calendar shifts little of reality – we can cross that depressing bridge later in the year.
The current talk is who HLTV will ping as their #1 player of 2020, and it’s down to two legendary players that have been neck-and-neck for the vast part of 2020. ZywOo notably took the leaderboards earlier this year as he became the statistically best player within Counter-Strike, although how much weight you give to statistical analysis likely depends on your anecdotal perspective.
We'd like to remind you that the last players in 2020's Top 20 will be unveiled tomorrow (January 20).
The race for #1 came down to ZywOo and s1mple. Who do you expect to take the crown? pic.twitter.com/pazDJN6KD0
— HLTV.org (@HLTVorg) January 19, 2021
Statistically, there are differences that ebb and flow between the two – Matthieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut has a 1.34 rating against Aleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev’s 1.24, with ZywOo edging out over S1mple with a KAST of 74.9% versus 73.7% and an ADR of 89.7 versus S1mple’s 86.1.
Everything seems to pop up for ZywOo statistically speaking, although S1mple currently offers a lifetime 41.9% headshot percentage versus ZywOo’s 41.6% – even if we’re to look solely at team ranking, Vitality is Global 2 (right behind the once-again present Astralis) with Natus Vincere close on the heels at # 3.
The two teams have been as close as possible throughout events, often meeting each other to determine who would be sent home. IEM-Beijing-Haidian 2020 Europe saw NaVi lose to Vitality that had the Russian team heading home with second place, while the more recent IEM Global Challenge 2020 saw Vitality taking 5/6th while NaVi took 3/4th.
If we’re going by statistics, ZywOo edges out S1mple in every category, bar none. If we’re going by impact within the team, it’s likely that S1mple is simply better positioned. The good news is that HLTV will drop both reports tomorrow – let the fanboying commence.
