NiKo finishes 2023 in 2nd place at the individual level

In Counter-Strike 2, many great players are consistently helping their teams obtain top results. Among them, Nikola “NiKo” Kovac is easily one of the best. And he has been, for the past eight years. At 26, NiKo is a highly accomplished competitor.

To finish the 2023 CS2 season in 2^nd place at the individual level is a great achievement, even for him. He hasn’t ranked so high since 2017. In 2018, he was 3^rd and in 2019, 11^th. Since 2020, he’s constantly been in the top five.

If it wasn’t for Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, he’d probably be regarded as the best player in Counter-Strike, along with Robin “ropz” Kool and Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz.

One interesting fact about NiKo’s career is that he spent most of his great years competing for just two teams: FaZe Clan and G2 Esports. He seems to enjoy the process of building a solid roster and then staying in one place. And it makes perfect sense. The other top players have done the same thing.

When you’re in a good relationship with an organization and get to dictate much of what is happening inside the team, it’s not hard to want to continue season after season. Especially if the results are excellent at least several times per year.

THE 2ND RANKED PLAYER IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Y1PwZPlAQm

— G2 CS (@G2CSGO) January 13, 2024

G2’s results in 2023

G2 Esports started 2023 with an S-tier trophy at the first event, IEM Katowice. This result came after another S-tier tournament win at BLAST Premier World Final.

Unfortunately for G2, the next six months were relatively unsuccessful and uneventful. By the start of August, another important trophy was won, this time at IEM Cologne. With this victory, G2 essentially won the two biggest ESL tournaments of the season.

Even when the team failed, the result was a top eight and often a top four. This happened at Gamers8, IEM Dallas, EPL S18, IEM Sydney, and Blast Premier World Final 2023.

In all of these tournaments, NiKo made an important contribution. He was often surpassed by his teammate Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, who finished the season in 4^th place. But his consistency was hard to beat. While M0NESY had weak matches or at least maps, NiKo was always a huge factor in the team’s success.

It remains to be seen for how much longer he can play at the highest level and not get bored with the same teammates. From what we see on G2’s social media channels, the atmosphere inside the team seems to be pretty good. The players clearly enjoy training with each other and that could lead to many trophies in 2024.

Header: ESL