Reykjavik 2021 - TenZ
Berlin 2021 - nAts
Champs 2021 - cned
Reykjavik 2022 - yay
Copenhagen 2022 - shao
Champs 2022 pANcada
LOCK IN - Leo
Tokyo 2023 - Alfajer
Champs 2023 - Demon1
Madrid 2024 - Zekken
Shanghai 2024 - Meteor
Seoul 2024 - ???
Is this the most lukewarm take possible? It seems like outside of maybe yay vs nats at Berlin and champs 2022 with everyone on LOUD popping off every event has had an obvious best player
meteor solo won Lotus in the game vs G2, solo won map 3 vs FPX, almost dropped 30 vs 100T on Ascent, started the comeback on Lotus by getting 2 with the Sheriff on mound, and won the most important pistol round on Split with a 4k clutch
t3xture was consistently a top tier player and he really shined vs FNC but imo meteor came up clutch way more and on a less fragging agent. statswise meteor was also similar to t3xture.
statswise yea but nAts had the most unbelievable plays eye-test speaking. his impact on agents like cypher/viper at the time was completely revolutionary. he singlehandedly changed the way the game was played and his setups are still used today. to this day i don't think a single individual has been able to redefine and innovate such a fundamental aspect of the game like he has.
like i cannot stress how good this guy was on what the community thought were the most mid agents (for fragging) at the time. the only players that got the numbers nAts got were the top duelist players (Jett, mostly)
Heavy disagree, the 2-3 of the 4 support players are usually more than just 'solid'. The duelist player needs to be exceptional yes, but without exceptional support it's impossible for them to frag/win. yay -> y0y is literally the best example of this. So it's more valuable to have someone like Marved (in Iceland 2022) who's fulfilling his role + fragging. It's why Leo is widely accepted as the best player in 2023 (arguable with demon1, but most people agree its Leo)
2022 was a fraudnatic year, we had to play with subs most the time too so that didn't help, not to say we wouldn't've choked anyway
nvm you were talking about marved, I just realised fnc never played zeta on haven lol.
But that game was definitely the best. But that doesn't mean the other games weren't really good too
i agree with the marved take. him dropping 35 vs zeta and winning FOUR fucking 1v1 clutches on haven, his clutches vs DRX and GUARD were map-winning. That ace on Fracture vs the Guard completely shifted the momentum and turned what looked like a 1-2 loss into a 2-1 win. bro was cold in the clutch and had so much impact on so many crucial rounds.
MaKo looked like the more consistent player and his performance was the best Smokes performance of all time statistically, but Marved had arguably the best individual performance by a smokes player of 2022. Does that make sense? Like in terms of doing what a smokes player is supposed to do, the util and the overall philosophy, MaKo was the best. But Marved individually peaked the highest i think.
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