flameZ’s explosive playoff performances earned him a #3 spot over m0NESY.
Top CS2 pundit, Mauisnake, posted his top 20 players of 2026 so far on his YouTube channel.
In a stats and eye-test-based analysis of the first four* tournaments of the year (BLAST Bounty, IEM Krakow and PGL Cluj-Napoca, ESL Pro League Season 23 Stage 1 & 2), he concluded that these were the top 20 players:
Nearly no PARIVISION players: poor fragging and nota’s dropoff
Out of the only team to pick up a trophy besides Team Vitality this year, Mauisnake only included captain and AWPer, Jame, at 18th place.
This is despite PARIVISION winning BLAST Bounty with nota putting up a 1.50 rating in the grand final against Falcons. PARIVISION also notably made the grand final of PGL Cluj-Napoca.
However, nota’s dip in form was too big for Mauisnake to include him. Besides him, only Jame and zweih have been consistent, and only the former made Mauisnake’s list due to his performance at the biggest events.
| PARIVISION | Jame | zweih | xieLO | nota |
| Rating | 1.07 | 1.07 | 0.99 | 0.98 |
flameZ second-highest Vitality player
Vitality’s entry and anchor player, flameZ, has had such a spectacular start to the year it edged him to the #3 spot for Mauisnake. His level against the best teams was too exceptional not to reward.
| flameZ against: | Top 20 | Top 10 | Top 5 |
| Rating | 1.22 | 1.24 | 1.31 |
Because m0NESY maintained a higher Kills per Round (KPR) stat than flameZ, and because he had to play against Vitality while flameZ did not, it was a close call.
The somewhat tongue-in-cheek but deciding factor for Mauisnake was flameZ’s server-high 1.37 rating against Falcons in the semi-final of BLAST Bounty.
The missing factor here is ropz, Vitality’s missing piece in 2025 that shaped them into a trophy magnet. His performance this year still got him a #9 spot on Mauinsnake’s list, but illness and poor starts to tournaments cost him.
| ropz | 2025 | 2026 |
| Rating | 1.16 | 1.06 |
Spirit kneecap themselves by skipping Cluj
Out of Team Spirit’s explosive firepower, only donk entered the top 5. There was even a brief consideration in Mauisnake’s eyes whether flameZ could overtake him, but donk’s pure fragging with 93 damage per round was too absurd.
Now, sh1ro was the one left out, despite his bonkers stats. The simple reason is Spirit’s choice to skip PGL Cluj-Napoca, possibly due to the organization’s relationsip to tournament organizers.
The result is that donk could not even challenge to be the best of 2026, despite his exceptional talent, and there was no conversation for Mauisnake that ZywOo was number one this year.
