With just one trophy and five second places in 2025, NiKo’s move to Saudi Arabian organization Falcons has not delivered the results many expected. The only title Falcons secured came before m0NESY joined the roster at PGL Bucharest, where degster claimed a controversial MVP.
Last season NiKo lifted three trophies with a weaker G2 lineup and he performed strongly in the finals. This year the pattern has flipped. Falcons reach finals consistently, but they struggle to finish the job. Far too often, the drop-off arrives when NiKo steps into the server for the last series.
How bad can it be?
I will answer the question immediately: it is brutal for a player of his status. From 2017 to 2024 NiKo averaged a 1.15 rating across 86 grand final maps.
In 2025 he sits at a 0.98 rating in finals, with losses to MOUZ, G2, Vitality and FURIA. For a franchise rifler who is supposed to be a star, that is the kind of split people use when they talk about choking.
Falcons cannot keep giving him high impact star positions if he is not delivering when the pressure peaks.
If kyousuke is meant to become the next star alongside m0NESY, there is an argument for handing him the demanding positions now and letting him grow into them.
Putting him on connector on Mirage or outside on Nuke would give him the time he needs, without asking NiKo to fill roles that currently are not working.
| Year | NiKo’s grand final rating |
| 2017 | 1.13 (871 rounds played) |
| 2018 | 1.17 (532) |
| 2019 | 1.19 (165) |
| 2020 | N/A |
| 2021 | 1.14 (154) |
| 2022 | 1.08 (173) |
| 2023 | 1.24 (207) |
| 2024 | 1.21 (301) |
| 2025 | 0.98 (552) |
Letting down the team
Falcons struggle collectively in grand finals, but the individual rating drop from regular matches to finals paints a very clear picture, as the table below shows.
| Player | 2025 pre-playoffs rating | 2025 grand finals rating |
| TeSeS | 1.05 | 1.03 |
| m0NESY | 1.25 | 1.17 |
| kyxsan | 0.93 | 0.97 |
| kyousuke | 1.27 | 0.88 |
| NiKo | 1.13 | 0.98 |
Kyousuke’s numbers look rough, but the context matters. He has only played seven grand final maps against top twenty teams this year: four versus FURIA at BLAST Rivals and three against Vitality at ESL Pro League. And his pre-playoffs rating is also skewed by his time on Spirit Academy
The eye test shows a young player with strong mechanics who is still learning. Some volatility is normal.
NiKo’s situation is different. In several crucial moments he has chosen the wrong option, and those choices have dragged rounds away from his teams at the worst possible time. Most people remember the famous Deagle miss on Nuke against NAVI, but situations like that have kept appearing throughout his career.
Most recently against FURIA he found himself in a position where a single kill could have set up TeSeS for a round winning play. Instead of stabilising the round, a quickswitch opened the door for FURIA. It may well have been the mistake that cost Falcons the map.
The quickswitch situations shown in the video underline the point. One misplay is random. When the same type of error keeps showing up in the big moments, it starts to look like a habit that holds both NiKo and Falcons back when trophies are on the line.
The solution
This is the most difficult part of the conversation. Without NiKo, Falcons probably do not reach nearly as many finals in the first place. His influence as a secondary caller and experienced voice is still a core part of how this team functions.
He might not post top five numbers every event anymore, but he contributes in plenty of ways that do not show up in a rating column.
Changing kyxsan and handing NiKo the in game leadership role feels too early and would create a new set of risks. Replacing TeSeS is also complicated. His rating isn’t good, but he gets the least support on the team and still provides structure and is pretty reliable. Anyone who watches his B anchor play on Mirage knows how much heavy lifting he does with very little help.
m0NESY is untouchable as the star. kyousuke is an expensive long term investment who needs time, not the bench.
That leaves NiKo. Finding a veteran rifler with experience, discipline and some comfort as a secondary caller is not easy. FURIA’s players seem out of reach. Vitality’s stars are even less realistic. Names like frozen, Senzu after his return, XANTARES or Twistzz fit some of the profile on paper.
Twistzz in particular would have been close to ideal if he had not just moved teams. He has a proven record of contributing to calling structures on FaZe and even served as the primary IGL for Liquid for a stretch.
Realistically, NiKo still looks like the most logical piece for Falcons if they want to stay balanced instead of fielding five pure stars. The challenge is forcing an honest conversation about his finals record and then finding a way to protect his value while preparing the next generation of impact players, so that when the next trophy chance comes around, Falcons do not relive the same script.
