Over the course of the game’s eleven-year history, many of professional players have made their impact on CS:GO esports. Maybe that’s why there isn’t agreement among the community as to who had the finest prime. It’s difficult to choose between legendary players like GeT_RiGhT, kennyS, olofmeister, dev1ce, coldzera, NiKo, s1mple, and ZywOo because they all put in outstanding performances over the course of CS:GO’s existence. FACEIT started this conversation on Twitter earlier today, and it resulted in a lot of debates on Reddit.
While it’s hard to deny that s1mple is the CS:GO GOAT as he has been a dominant player since 2016 and was even named the player of the decade by ESL in 2022, fans are not sure if he had the highest peak. A lot of fans, for example, also mentioned olofmeister’s form in 2015 and kennyS before the AWP was nerfed in the same year.
“Olof was so scary, he would often be so decisive with just one or two kills and the round was over,” one fan wrote. “KennyS had easily the highest high, borderline unstoppable at peak,” another fan wrote.
This is an endless discussion because it depends on many factors, let alone bias. I wasn’t following CS:GO until 2016, so I missed a bunch of players’ peaks. Although I recognize what GeT_RiGhT, olofmeister, kennyS, and flusha did for the game, it’s hard for me to put them up there with coldzera, s1mple, NiKo, and ZywOo because I followed these guys playing live rather than just watching YouTube clips.
Based on what I’ve seen since 2016, I’d put s1mple and ZywOo at the top next to each other. The French AWPer started playing professionally only at the end of 2018, but he’s on his way to winning his third HLTV best player of the year award.
If I had to throw another player in there, I’d lean toward coldzera or NiKo because they’ve had jaw-dropping performances playing mainly with the AK-47 and M4A4.
This debate shows how impressive CS:GO esports has been in the past 11 years and I’m sure other great players will come up when CS2 launches this summer.