CS:GO‘s skill ceiling has never been so high. Many up-and-coming players burst into the scene in 2019, but not all of them are proper rookies.
Some of these players already played full seasons before, but all of them are unarguably talented and had the best season of their lives.
Here are the 10 best CS:GO young players in 2019.
10) Heroic stavn
The 17-year-old Martin “stavn” Lund signed with Heroic in March 2019 and played well in the multiple roster iterations’ Heroic has had during the year.
The Danes were close to breaking into HLTV’s top 10 in midseason as they had great campaigns at ESL Pro League season nine finals, ESL One Cologne, both in June, and IEM Chicago in July. Most recently, stavn helped Heroic to win DreamHack Open Atlanta in November.
9) CR4ZY SHiPZ
Although the 19-year-old Georgi “SHiPZ” Grigorov is currently playing for CR4ZY, he made his name with Windigo Gaming.
SHiPZ helped Windigo to win WESG Finals in March 2019 and was awarded the MVP of the tournament. He joined CR4ZY in October and already won a trophy, the DreamHack Open Rotterdam in the same month, where he was the second-best rated player according to HLTV, just behind stavn.
8) FURIA yuurih
Yuri “yuurih” Santos and FURIA didn’t win a tier-one championship in 2019, but they played some of the most entertaining Counter-Strike during part of the season.
The 19-year-old helped the Brazilian squad to win minor LAN tournaments such as EMF CS:GO World Invitational in July and Arctic Invitation in September. He was also one of the best players at ECS season seven finals, which FURIA lost to Vitality in the grand finals.
7) FURIA KSCERATO
The comparations between Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato and yuurih are natural as both players are so talented.
He and yuurih were reportedly targeted by MIBR during the season but chose to stay in FURIA and signed a new contract with the organization. KSCERATO is above yuurih in this list because he showed more potential to hard-carry FURIA in tough games.
6) Complexity poizon
Valentin “poizon” Vasilev shined alongside SHiPZ in Windigo and assured himself a big contract with North American organization Complexity.
Poizon is reportedly to have one of the best salaries in North America together with his teammate Benjamin “blameF” Bremer. Will the aggressive Bulgarian AWPer deliver good performances for Complexity next year?
5) Complexity blameF
BlameF not only led Heroic to great campaigns in 2019 but he also top-fragged in most of the matches.
He is the oldest player in this list (22 years) but deserves to entry as he made his name in 2019 after he signed with Heroic in January.
4) Mousesports frozen
The 17-year-old is truly honoring the chance that Finn “karrigan” Andersen gave to him in mousesports.
Frozen is already carrying mousesports in some matches against tier-one opposition and helped mousesports to win DreamHack Open Tours in May, CS:GO Asia Championships in November and most notably ESL Pro League season 10 finals in December.
3) ENCE sergej
Another 17-year-old and the youngest player on this list. Jere “sergej” Salo is one of ENCE’s best players.
The Finns had an amazing run in 2019, starting with the surprising campaign at the IEM Katowice Major in February, reaching the grand finals of the event. Although sergej and crew lost the Major to Astralis, they ended the Danes 31-game win streak on Nuke as they defeated Astralis at BLAST Pro Series Madrid grand finals.
2) Fnatic Brollan
Ludvig “Brollan” Brolin finished the year as one of the most impactful players in Fnatic. It wasn’t always easy for the Swedes in 2019, though. They failed in both Majors and Brollan even cried after Fnatic were eliminated by G2 at the IEM Katowice Major New Challengers stage.
But Fnatic got better in the end of the season as Maikil “Golden” Selim and Robin “flusha” Rönnquist were signed. They won their first tournament together, at DreamHack Masters Malmö in October, and Brollan single-handled won the final round for Fnatic against Vitality with a miraculous CZ-75 play.
1) Vitality ZywOo
It’s impossible to not put Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut on top of this list. Not only the 19-year-old is the best young CS:GO player, but he is already a top-five player in the world.
ZywOo was Vitality’s best player in all championships. He helped Vitality win two tournaments in a row, cs_summit four in May, and ECS season seven finals in June. Vitality also were runners-up in two occasions, ESL One Cologne in July and DreamHack Masters Malmö in October.
