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Reviewed by Benjamin Barr
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive is one of the most popular competitive games in the world. Valve and Hidden Path Entertainment made it all the way back in August 2012, but year after year, we see its undiminishing popularity in the eSports sphere. In fact, it has more eSports leagues and tournaments than any other esports title.
There are 13,029 professional CS:GO players, meaning it has more players than any other eSports game in the world (League of Legends coming in second with 7,130). But which players are the best?
We decided to put together a list of the best CS:GO players of all time so that you can see some of the giants who have dominated this amazing game.
The Best CS:GO Players of All Time
Ready to see the best players in CS:GO? Let’s get started!
1. Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz
The best CS:GO player overall
Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz is a Danish pro player, and he’s our choice for the best CS:GO player overall. He plays for Astralis and primarily uses the Arctic Warfare Police Rifle.
dev1ce (also known as device or devve) has been competing at the highest levels of CS:GO since 2013, when he started with Fnatic. He and his teammates Xyp9x and Dupreeh formed Astralis after leaving TSM in 2015. They held the first team ranking globally for every year since 2018, a title they currently still hold.
He’s made HLTV’s top 20 list for the last seven years in a row. He’s won four major titles and has fourteen MVP awards.
dev1ce is a technically strong player, but he takes our number one spot because he also knows how to operate as an integral part of a strong team.
2. Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev
The best CS:GO player right now
Next up on our list is Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. He is a Ukrainian pro CS:GO player who currently plays for Natus Vincere, or Na’Vi, and favors the Arctic Warfare Police Rifle as his weapon of choice. s1mple started playing Counter-Strike when he was only four years old at the suggestion of his older brother. He’s been playing CS:GO professionally since 2014 and joined Na’Vi in 2018. They’re currently the third highest-ranked team.
In addition to his exceptional AWPer skills, he’s also casually one of the best pistol players CS:GO has ever seen. He’s just as deadly with a Desert Eagle as most players are with a rifle.
He’s one of the most skilled players in the game right now. He’s been named MVP in a dozen tournaments and hasn’t budged from the top ten players board in the last four years.
He’s also an active streamer on Twitch. You can check out his gameplay for yourself here.
3. Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
The best new CS:GO player
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut is French, and he plays CS:GO for Team Vitality. Like our first two picks, he also favors the Arctic Warfare Police Rifle. ZywOo is twenty years old, making him the youngest player on this list, but don’t let that fool you. He came into the spotlight in late 2018 and quickly became the highest-ranked player of the following year. He’s already racked up five MVP titles. He currently has a 1.33 HLTV rating, making him one of the best players in the game.
Vitality currently has the number two spot on the HLTV world ranking with ZywOo as their top-ranked player. He’s known for his quick decision making, his ability to keep his cool in a clutch situation, and his excellent crosshair placement.
Even s1mple, his greatest competitor, had this to say about him in an interview with ESL:
“For the best AWPer, I’d have to pick ZywOo. First of all, he’s a great player and he knows how to play with the AWP. He’s really smart, he changes his position, and he knows how [the] enemy plays against him. He can play aggressive if his team needs, he can play passive as well.”
4. Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander
The best in-game CS:GO team leader
Not every player is the best because of their K/D ratio. Teams need a leader, and Lukas “g1ave” Rossander is one of the best.
gla1ve leads dev1ce, Xyp9x, dupreeh, and Magisk on Team Astralis. You might argue that it isn’t difficult to win with a team that strong. Astralis has been called the best team CS:GO has ever seen, but even the best players need good leadership to succeed. He’s led Astralis in a record-breaking four major victories.
As he said in his interview with VPEsports, “I like to tell my teammates what to do most of the time. Of course, I want to give them freedom, but in the middle of the round, they need to listen to me because when I’m on point, I know what’s best for the team. I know how to get the best percentage to win a round.”
Don’t go thinking that means he can’t shoot, though. gla1ve is an uncommonly skilled rifler in addition to being an accomplished tactician. He ranked eighth on HLTV’s top players list in 2018 — a list bearing few team leaders.
5. Marcelo “Coldzera” David
The best CS:GO support player
Marcelo “Coldzera” David is a Brazilian player. He currently plays as a rifler and in-game leader for FaZe Clan. In addition to CS:GO, Coldzera also fields teams in Call of Duty, Apex Legends, PUBG, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege, FIFA, and Fortnite.
Coldzera made a name for himself with his top-notch fragging and his ability to play cleanup at the end of a match. He climbed the rankings until he held the number one spot for two consecutive years in 2016 and 2017 while playing for Luminosity Gaming and SK Gaming. Not only has he racked up tournament wins and MVP awards in CS:GO, he also won the eSports Player of the Year in the 2016 Game Awards.
He hasn’t been topping the charts quite as much lately, but he’s still a fantastic player.
6. Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund
The best former CS:GO player
Christopher “GeT RiGhT” Alesund is a former Swedish CS:GO player who stepped down from Ninjas in Pyjamas in 2019 after playing as a rifler for them for over seven years. He just announced two weeks ago that he is making the switch to Valorant. This was big news, since GeT RiGhT has been a fixture in the series since the early days of Counter-Strike.
Ninjas in Pyjamas dominated the early days of CS:GO with GeT RiGhT as their not-so-secret weapon. One of their more infamous moments was a record 87-win map win streak on LAN — a record that remains unbroken. This was largely due to GeT RiGhT’s unmatched skill as a lurker.
He’s won dozens of international titles and ranked second on HLTV’s best Counter-Strike player list in 2010 and 2011, before taking the number one spot in CS:GO in 2013 and 2014.
We don’t know what VALORANT team GeT RiGhT will be playing for yet, but CS:GO players have had a lot of success in transferring to the Riot Games shooter. His career continues to be one to watch.
7. Olof “olofmeister” Kajbjer
The best early CS:GO player
Before Astralis, 2015 Fnatic was considered the best team ever to play the game. Olof “olafmeister” Kajbjer was their rifler and the core of their team for a little over three years, though he is known for his adaptability to virtually any role in the game. Together, they were the first team to win multiple successive major titles. They won eleven LAN events, during which olafmeister earned four MVP titles. He currently plays for FaZe alongside coldzera, rain, Kjaerbye, and broky.
olafmeister earned the nicknames “boostmeister” and “Tec9meister” due to his deadly skill with the Tec-9 accounting for nearly a quarter of his total kills at ESL One: Katowice 2015 and for his infamous boost in the Overpass game at DreamHack Winter 2014 against Team LDLC.com.
olafmeister was the number one ranked player in 2015 and has made the top twenty list four times. He holds twenty-five trophies from notable events — more than any other player in the game’s history.
Unfortunately, he’s been struggling with a wrist injury on and off for years, which seems to affect his performance. That doesn’t discount any of his achievements, but it’s likely why he hasn’t hit the top twenty in recent years.
8. Kenny “kennyS” Schrub
The best CS:GO sniper
Kenny Schrub, AKA kennyS, is a French pro-CS:GO player who currently plays for G2 Esports. He primarily uses the Arctic Warfare Police Rifle. Sniping is notoriously tricky in competitive CS:GO, but it also pays out some of the highest dividends. That’s why having a good AWPer is essential to a good team. kennyS is one of the best, having logged more AWP kills (and total kills, period) at official CS:GO matches than anyone else.
Some of kennyS’s most impressive playing was during his time with Titan Esports. This was where he earned his reputation as the most lethal marksman in the game. He’s been somewhat outshined by his teammate NiKo in recent years, but kennyS’s ability to quickly line up his crosshairs, even at difficult angles, continues to be invaluable to G2.
In an interview with Red Bull, he said, “It’s really important that in order to master the weapon you have to know it perfectly, to have the knowledge, to know how to play with it, how to be in every situation with it. Like to have the reflex with AWP. For example, if you have really close combat, and fight, you’re gonna tend to quickscope, and that’s all about the knowledge of the weapon. You have to be aware, how you can do it, what you can do with it. As long as you have the knowledge, you’d be able to get out of every situation.”
9. Zainab “zAAz” Turkie
The best female CS:GO player
Zainab “zAAz” Turkie is a Lebanese/Swedish pro CS:GO player on the XSET team, Originem. She’s been playing Counter-Strike since back in 2002 when she was eleven years old and her brother let her play on his computer. She’s been playing competitively since 2008 as an expert rifler.
Originem is an all-female team. zAAz, mimi, juliano, Petra, and kr4sylya are all accomplished pro-gamers, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that you could pick the best female CS:GO players in the game from their ranks. zAAz currently holds an impressive 1.14 rating with a 1.18 K/D ratio.
Originem is considered the best female CS:GO team. That isn’t their end game, though. They want to face the best players in the world — a goal they’re getting closer to with every win.
zAAz is also an active streamer on Twitch. You can watch her play here.
10. Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski
The best NA CS:GO player
Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski is an American pro-CS:GO player. He got his start in StarCraft II. He switched to CS:GO in 2014 with SKDC, switching to eLivate in 2015, and finally landing as a rifler for Team Liquid. The name EliGE comes from the Spanish word “elige,” meaning “to choose,” or “select.” This is because SeleCT was Jablonowki’s favorite StarCraft II player.
2018 and 2019 were big years for Team Liquid as they were the third and fourth highest-ranked team, respectively. They’re ranked ninth right now, but don’t let that fool you. They’re still the best NA CS:GO players, and EliGE is still one of the best riflers in the game.
He’s won four MVP awards and was the fourth highest-ranked player after ZywOo, s1mple, and dev1ce in 2019, making him the first North American player to crack HLTV’s top five.
Lock and Load
Thank you for reading our list of the best CS:GO players of all time! If you’re a Counter-Strike fan, be sure to check out our other articles on how to get the best CS:GO settings and how to fix CS:GO stuttering.
Happy gaming!
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