#5 DEVICE (Nicolai "device" Reedtz)

Makinf Top 20 for the fourth consecutive year, as one of the most consistent and impactful players at big events.

Astralis’ journey began in Atlanta at the ELEAGUE Major, where the Danish giants confirmed their status as the No.1 team in the world in the beginning of the year. They had to go through all five rounds of the Swiss stage to make it to the playoffs where device finished the group stage with an impressive +50 KDD. At the final agains VP devide could not leave the bottom of the scoreboard.

IEM Katowice brought Astralis their second title of the year and device performed at a very high level in every single game he played up until the final against FaZe, in which he was once again at the bottom of the scoreboard, device finished the tournament with a 1.16 rating.

At the ECS Season 3 Finals, paired with SK in the semi-finals, the 22-year-old put up solid numbers on all three maps but could not prevent the Brazilians from running away with the series. In London, he returned to being first ranked in his team, finishing with a 1.14 rating, five 1vsX won and a 1.26 Impact.

At PGL Major Krakow, Astralis were taken down by Gambit’s style in the semi-finals, with device best performance in the quarter-final match against SK with an impressive 1.62 rating.

ELEAGUE Premier, device was again one of the main reasons Astralis went as far as they. The Danish AWPer ended up with a 1.27 tournament rating.

device´s consistency secured him a spot in the Top20, only attended big events, averaging a 1.18 rating.

Bold Prediction

device went with a relatively safe, predicting a solid year for mousesports youngster Robin "ropz“ Kool.

#4 RAIN (Håvard "rain" Nygaard)

Big performances in big games and a number of individual awards secured him a high place in the Top20.

At the ELEAGUE Major 2017, rain was impactful in all of their group stage and the team made another playoff, losing in the quarter-finals against SK Gaming.

rain got into his groove at the SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 Finals where he had stand-out maps against SK in the group stage (1.50 rating on Train), G2 in the playoffs (1.49 rating on Train) and Astralis in the grand final (1.31 rating on Nuke).

ECS Season 3 Finals rain had above-average ratings on all of the maps played until the grand final, with a 1.13 rating overall.

In the PGL Krakow Major, the second best team in the world at the time crashed out of the groups with three straight defeats. With the majority of his teammates underperforming, rain's 1.13 rating was 28% above FaZe's average.

IEM Oakland, FaZe got eliminated in the semi-finals losing for SK, while NiP edged them out in the BO5 grand final, leaving rain with an EVP from a 1.21 rated event.

Stylistically, rain is an aggressive player, and he more often than not gets the job done.

Bold Prediction

rain named a player that he thinks could earn a place in the next Top 20 ranking, eXtatus' 15-year-old Slovakian, David "frozen“ Čerňanský.

#3 FER (Fernando "fer" Alvarenga)

He was one of the most consistent and impactful players in the world in 2017.

At the ELEAGUE Major, fer averaged a 1.18 rating - second to coldzera's 1.28 - in the Brazilian team’s semi-final run. FaZe ended up being fer’s best matchup of the event as he put in a 1.56 rating in the Swiss match and a team-leading 1.60 rating in the quarter-final series against the Europeans. SK Gaming made it all the way to the semi-final playing with Ricardo "fox"Pacheco that was replacing fnx.

At DreamHack Masters Las Vegas fer finished the tournament with a 1.39 rating and was featured in the top five in 11 different stats categories, leading the opening kills (45).

SK started to win a lot of tournaments with felps, while fer was always at the center of the action. It all started at cs_summit, where fer had the second-highest rating at 1.39, averaging a year-high 97.3 ADR.

At the PGL Major Krakow, Sk started with confidence, but a shocking defeat to BIG put the Brazilians and Astralis in each other's paths in the quarter-finals, with the Danes pulling away with the series. For his part, fer had a 1.15 rating, the second best on his team.

ESL One New York, fer had a 1.34 event rating, the second highest in the team, and was ranked first in terms of ADR (96.4).

fer had the third highest number of standout events in 2017 and was one of the most consistent players in the world, finishing all of his tournaments with 1+ ratings and averaging ratings of 1.14 or higher. He was always reliable at big events, where he averaged a 1.20 rating, and in the playoffs of tournaments of this stature, in which he delivered a 1.19 rating he attended.

Bold Prediction

When asked about a player he thinks that can reach Top20 next year, fer named 22-year-old Gabriel "NEKIZ“ Schenato, who plies his trade for Luminosity

#2 NIKO (Nikola "NiKo" Kovač)

Large amount of fragging, great play at big events and a high level of consistency secures him the second place in the Top20.

ELEAGUE Major 2017, NiKo was surely hoping to put a stop to his negative results on Majors. It didn't happen, as mousesports went out with a 1W-3L.

The last tournament that he made for mousesports was at DreamHack Las Masters Vegas, NiKo had a brilliant tournament, powering mousesports to a first-place group stage finish and a 5-8th overall with a 1.48 rated, 106.4 ADR performance—the best event he had played in his career to that point.

After that he moved to FaZe, playing for the first time on the IEM Katowice 2017 where he had great consistency throughout the event and an average rating of 1.21.

The second Major of the year, NiKo's team was one of the favorites to go all the way. The event didn't go as planned, though, and the superstar team crashed out with a 0-3 record, something that was below everyone's expectations. NiKo did put up a good effort, with his 1.12 rating.

At ESL One New York, FaZe introduced a new roster, with the potencial of being the best team of the world soon. NiKo went on to have the best showing of his career and the best one anyone had in 2017. The numbers he had at the event seem ridiculous: 1.37 was his lowest map rating and his best was a 2.13 show in the grand final. He also had six clutches, a 103.2 ADR, an 86.8% KAST and a 1.70 average rating over seven maps.

FaZe finished the year at the ECS Season 4 Finals, a tournament that the 20-year-old started with a record-breaking 40-kill regulation game against Liquid.

Bold prediction

NiKo named a player he thinks could join the Top next year and he picked out his cousin Nemanja "huNter“ Kovač who is currently playing Valiance.

#1 COLDZERA (Marcelo "coldzera" David )

For the second year in a row, he secures the number one spot on the Top20, after being an incredibly impactful and efficient player, with prodigious showings at big events.

At the ELEAGUE Major, SK played with Ricardo "fox" Pacheco, and the team made it all the way to the semi-finals. In Atlanta, coldzera ended the tournament with a 1.28 rating.

SK traveled to DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, this time with the full roster, coldzera was the highest rated player on the team, ending the tournament with an incredibly high 1.42.

SK won the first cs_summit, in California, with coldzera being awarded his first MVP medal of the year for his contributions as he had a year-high 1.49 rating, 95 ADR, 1.56 impact rating, and a 1.70 T-side rating.

IEM Sydney, in Australia, the Brazilian star ended with a 1.29 rating, to notice, particularly the final against FaZe, in which he had a team-high 1.32 rating across the four maps played in the best-of-five showdown.

At PGL Major in Krakow, SK fell short, going out in the quarter-finals to Astralis, but cold had an impressive 1.40 rating, as well as an incredibly high 94.4 ADR.

coldzera had one of his best events at ESL One New York, although his team were unable to go all the way, falling in the semi-finals. Coldzera got a record of 1.47 rating, a 94.1 ADR and a year-high CT-side rating (1.59) and KAST (84.3%).

At EPICENTER, coldzera bagged his fourth MVP award of the season thanks to a team-high 1.35 rating and 1.40 Impact.

Coldzera is the best player in the world because he really stood out from the rest of the pack in the finals of big events, in which he averaged a 1.20 rating.

Bold Prediction

coldzera went with his fellow countryman Gabriel "NEKIZ“ Schenato, who plays for Luminosity.

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