Don't pick your favourites, pick the one who you think has the best combo of longevity, clutch gene, best prime and titles
nAts vs Yay
Mako vs FNS
Suygetsu vs Shao
Chronicle vs Derke
nAts and Yay have both survived since 2021, but nAts is still performing against franchised teams
nAts > yay
This one is hard since on one hand I feel like FNS can become 40, survive any meta, and still be a world-class IGL, but MaKo is the kind of player that can survive many metas despite not IGLing--he used to be the main jett for one of his former teams. My OpTic bias says FNS tho.
FNS > MaKo
Okay Shao is cracked but suygetsu just has such an unreplaceable affinity with getting multi-kills. From a role perspectice, It's rare to find a sentinel anywhere that's the same caliber as him, while there are plenty of cracked initiators--so im going with suygetsu for this one
Suygetsu > Shao
Lastly, it's hard to find a superstar duelist, especially in this meta where almost all the old awp gods seem to have fallen off. So, when you find people like Aspas, Leaf, and Derke, who can still put out kill montage after kill montage on this nerfed agent, you know you have a keeper. I feel like from a team perspective, a flexible player is more valuable for the sake of the team, but if we are to look at things ideally, then a perfect team would already include players all on their comfort roles, and in such a team Derke would be the most valuable asset among them.
so, controversially:
Derke > Chronicle
Nats (legit pioneered lurking strat vs a chamber 1trick that isnt viable anymore)
fns (just one of if not the best igl that val has ever had so far)
shao (just because of clutch potential while suygestu just has crazy aim)
chronicle (most decorated player who is currently the GOAT that's how it works, however it yes he did have amazing teammates both trophies but he is an amazing player in general)