The best CS:GO players of 2022 – NiKo

For the fifth time in his career, Nikola “NiKo” Kovacs was named one of the top five players of the previous season. He usually finishes second, third, or fourth, but this time he was ranked fifth.

Based on G2 Esports’ performance, it’s understandable why he received such a high rank. But it’s still a bit surprising to see him being ranked higher than Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov for a season in which the latter had a much more impactful performance.

NiKo’s 2022 season

NiKo’s 2022 season in CS:GO was impressive but also full of sad moments. It started well, with a second place at IEM Katowice, and ended even better, with a first place at BLAST Premier World Final. Apart from these two successes, G2 also had a few third-fourth place results at various S-tier tournaments.

At each of these tournaments, NiKo played a crucial role in the success of his team. Whether it’s his Deagle kills or his usual clutches, he constantly did a great job and was almost as impactful as other top players, such as Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut.

The fact that he was ranked fifth for 2022 makes perfect sense in light of his team’s achievements and of his personal performance. But his individual stats were quite poor. That has something to do with the role he played in G2’s strategies.

Right now, NiKo seems to have taken a step back from the spotlight. He has obviously allowed m0NESY to shine and enjoy his prime. NiKo’s role looks a lot more sacrificial these days than it was in the past.

We used to see him dominate servers in terms of K-D and rating 2.0. But now he’s constantly third, fourth, or even fifth even on his team. And in a lot of matches, he’s not in the top five on the server.

But, as we can all see, G2 Esports seem to play better this way. If NiKo does his thing well, everyone else gets to benefit. And players like m0NESY shine under such conditions.

Without NiKo to take care of key elements of G2’s strategy, which only he can fully take care of in a satisfying way, the team would not experience such incredible success. The people at HLTV certainly know this, which is why they chose to rank him so high for 2022 despite his average or even below-average stats.

Header: ESL