On Saturday, HLTV held an award show to announce their top three players of the year, along with the team of the year.
To the surprise of no one who watched any tier 1 tournament last year, s1mple and Natus Vincere claimed top honors. s1mple had eight MVP awards on a team that won nearly every major tournament they attended, including a flawless run at the only Major last year.
According to HLTV, he ended the year with:
They even went on to compare him to the GOAT:
An argument can even be made that this was the strongest year anyone has ever had in the history of the game...this was likely the most convincing #1 placing in Top 20 history, surpassing Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund's dominant year 2013.
The bigger question came one rung lower, where NiKo and ZywOo faced off for second place in the rankings.
Niko ended up improving on his #4 ranking from last year with third place while ZywOo claimed second, just behind s1mple. It was a strong year for both players, with NiKo’s G2 getting second place at the major, second place at IEM Cologne and a string of 3rd-4ths over the spring. But it wasn’t enough to beat ZywOo even as Vitality struggled through much of the year.
Vitality’s only real win of the year came late, with a victory at IEM Winter over the likes of NIP and G2, but ZywOo himself was incredibly good throughout the year. He ended 2021 with a 1.29 rating, below s1mple but above NiKo’s 1.21.
With an MVP from IEM Winter and eight EVP awards, ZywOo put up an impressive campaign that would only have been bolstered by the kind of team support s1mple finally got last year.
CS:GO is s1mple’s game right now. Everyone else is just living in his world.
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