From CS 1.6 through CS:GO to CS2: our top 10 of the best Counter-Strike players ever, plus five honorable mentions, with the titles, MVP medals and HLTV rankings behind every pick.
Ranking players from three versions of the game against each other means comparing very different eras: the game, the format and the level of competition have all changed several times since 2000, and HLTV has only named a Top 20 of the year since 2010. So the list weighs five things together:
- Titles: Majors first, then Grand Slams and other big wins.
- Individual honours: HLTV MVP medals and placements in HLTV’s Top 20 of the year.
- Peak: how far ahead of everyone else a player was at his best.
- Longevity: how many years he stayed at the top.
- Influence: whether the game was played differently because of him.
The ranking at a glance
| # | Player | Majors | MVPs | Slams | Best Top 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  ZywOo | 3 | 34 | 2 | 1st (4x) |
| 2 |  s1mple | 1 | 21 | 1 | 1st (3x) |
| 3 |  donk | 1 | 13 | 0 | 1st (1x) |
| 4 |  device | 4 | 19 | 1 | 2nd (1x) |
| 5 |  NiKo | 1 | 10 | 0 | 2nd (2x) |
| 6 |  ropz | 3 | 6 | 3 | 3rd (2x) |
| 7 |  GeT_RiGhT | 1 | 10 | 0 | 1st (2x) |
| 8 |  FalleN | 2 | 4 | 0 | 2nd (1x) |
| 9 | apEX | 4 | 0 | 2 | 15th (1x) |
| 10 | f0rest | 1 | 8 | 0 | 2nd (1x) |
| HM | dupreeh | 5 | 2 | 1 | 5th (1x) |
| HM | kennyS | 1 | 10 | 0 | 6th (2x) |
| HM | coldzera | 2 | 8 | 0 | 1st (2x) |
| HM |  NEO | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1st (1x) |
| HM | m0NESY | 1 | 7 | 0 | 2nd (1x) |
The top 10
11. ZywOo
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut has won more HLTV MVP medals than anyone in the history of the game, and he is the only player to finish first in HLTV’s Top 20 four times (2019, 2020, 2023 and 2025). He has three Majors with Team Vitality, Paris 2023, Austin 2025 and Budapest 2025, and was named MVP at all three.
His nickname comes from his birthday: he was born on 9 November 2000, the day the original retail version of Counter-Strike was released. He skipped the usual years in the second tier, joined Vitality in 2018 and has been there ever since. In seven years in the Top 20 he has never finished lower than third, and across 1,736 maps he has a kill-death difference of +10,525 and a 1.33 rating, according to HLTV’s career stats. Many AWPers struggled with the move to CS2, while ZywOo became just as dangerous with a rifle. His 2025 brought eight MVP medals, back-to-back Majors and ESL Grand Slam Season 5, and Vitality added Season 6 in April 2026.
22. s1mple
BC.GameFor most of the second half of CS:GO, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev was the measuring stick. He finished first in HLTV’s Top 20 in 2018, 2021 and 2022 and collected 21 MVP medals. In 2021 he won the PGL Major Stockholm with Natus Vincere without dropping a map, was named Major MVP, and completed Intel Grand Slam Season 3 with the team.
Where ZywOo is control, s1mple was chaos with a plan: aggressive AWP peeks, no-scopes and solo plays that made opposing in-game leaders avoid his side of the map altogether. He was in the Top 20 every year from 2016 to 2023, and his kill-death difference of +10,453 across 1,944 maps on HLTV is level with ZywOo’s. CS2 has been harder, with loans to Falcons in 2024 and FaZe in 2025 before a move to BC.Game, but no one has matched his peak in pure aim.
33. donk
Team SpiritNo one has started a career like Danil “donk” Kryshkovets. Promoted from Team Spirit’s academy in 2023, he won the Perfect World Shanghai Major as Major MVP in 2024 and finished first in HLTV’s Top 20 for that year. He was 17, and no one has done either at a younger age. In 2025 he was second.
He turned the entry role into a star role. Instead of dying first to create space, donk swings wide and fast and takes the first kill himself, and teams have had to rebuild their defensive setups around him. At IEM Katowice 2024 he became the youngest MVP of a big event, 17 years and 17 days old. He has 13 MVP medals at 19 and a career rating of 1.32 across 831 maps on HLTV, almost exactly ZywOo’s level. The only thing keeping him below the top two is time.
44. device
100 ThievesNicolai “device” Reedtz was the AWPer of the Astralis team that won four Majors (Atlanta 2017, London 2018, Katowice 2019 and Berlin 2019), three of them in a row, and the first Intel Grand Slam. He has 19 MVP medals, nine Top 20 placements and the record for most playoff appearances at Valve Majors, 15.
His game rarely produced highlight clips. device took the opening duel, fell back to a second angle and punished every mistake, inside a system built by in-game leader gla1ve and coach zonic. That style became the template for a generation of AWPers. He later played for Ninjas in Pyjamas, returned to Astralis and joined 100 Thieves in 2026.
55. NiKo
FalconsNikola “NiKo” Kovač has been in HLTV’s Top 20 ten times, every year from 2016 to 2025, more than any other player. For most of that decade he also carried the label of the best player never to win a Major, after the double-overtime loss to Cloud9 in the Boston 2018 final and the defeat to Natus Vincere in the Stockholm 2021 final.
That ended in June 2026, when Falcons swept FURIA 3-0 in the IEM Cologne Major final with NiKo next to karrigan, m0NESY, TeSeS and kyousuke. His crosshair placement, counter-strafing and Desert Eagle have been the reference point for riflers since his MOUZ days, and through FaZe, G2 and Falcons he has dragged teams into finals they had no business reaching.
66. ropz
Robin “ropz” Kool is the only player with three Grand Slams: Season 4 with FaZe and Seasons 5 and 6 with Vitality. He has also won three Majors (Antwerp 2022, Austin 2025 and Budapest 2025) and has eight Top 20 placements, with third place in 2023 and 2025 as his best.
ropz came up through FPL before MOUZ signed him, and his value has never been fully visible on the scoreboard. He lurks with precise timing, punishes fast rotations and wins late rounds by reading what the opponent can afford. Both FaZe in 2022 and Vitality in 2025 became title-winning teams in the year he arrived.
77. GeT_RiGhT
Christopher “GeT_RiGhT” Alesund was the best player in the world in the first years of CS:GO, first in HLTV’s ranking in 2013 and 2014. He had already been second in 2010 and 2011 in CS 1.6. He won ESL One Cologne 2014 with Ninjas in Pyjamas and was the central figure of the team that opened CS:GO with 87 straight map wins on LAN.
He shaped the modern lurker role: leaving the pack, using timings to catch rotating defenders and winning rounds his team looked to have lost. He did it while managing Crohn’s disease, retired in 2021 and was inducted into the HLTV Hall of Fame in January 2025.
88. FalleN
FURIAGabriel “FalleN” Toledo led Luminosity and then SK Gaming to back-to-back Majors in 2016, Columbus and Cologne, while also playing the AWP, and finished second in HLTV’s Top 20 that year. Few in-game leaders have ever ranked that high. Ten years later he took FURIA to the final of the IEM Cologne Major 2026.
His influence goes beyond the server. Through Games Academy and his own businesses he built much of the base that Brazilian Counter-Strike grew from, and as a caller he broke the mould of the passive captain by hunting opening picks himself. Almost every in-game leader from 2016 stopped long ago. FalleN has announced that he will retire at the end of 2026, with the PGL Singapore Major as the last stop of his farewell tour.
99. apEX
Dan “apEX” Madesclaire is one of very few players with four Majors: Cluj-Napoca 2015 as an entry fragger with EnVyUs, then Paris 2023, Austin 2025 and Budapest 2025 as Vitality’s in-game leader. Vitality also won ESL Grand Slam Seasons 5 and 6 with him in charge, and his more than $2.8 million in prize money is the most any Counter-Strike player has earned.
Few careers have changed shape like his. The wild entry fragger of Titan and EnVyUs took over the calling at Vitality in 2020 and built the team around ZywOo, giving up his own numbers to do it. He has no MVP medals, and he does not need them to be on this list.
1010. f0rest
Patrik “f0rest” Lindberg turned pro in 2003 and played at the top level for two decades, across CS 1.6 and CS:GO and mostly for Fnatic and Ninjas in Pyjamas. He won ESL One Cologne 2014, collected eight MVP medals and finished second in HLTV’s ranking in 2013.
f0rest is remembered for how easy he made it look: smooth movement, clean aim and a rare sense of timing. Next to GeT_RiGhT he formed one of the longest-lasting duos in esports, and he switched between rifle and AWP whenever NiP needed it. He announced his retirement in August 2024, now makes content for NiP and was inducted into the HLTV Hall of Fame in January 2025.
Honorable mentions
Five players came close to the top 10.
dupreeh
Peter “dupreeh” Rasmussen has won more Majors than anyone: four with Astralis and a fifth with Vitality in Paris 2023. He is the only player to attend all 19 CS:GO Majors, and his selfless entry play was one of the foundations of the Astralis era. He retired in 2025 and now works as an analyst.
kennyS
Kenny “kennyS” Schrub was the face of the AWP for a decade with Titan, EnVyUs and G2. His aggressive peeks and flicks won him the Cluj-Napoca Major in 2015, where he was Major MVP, and 10 MVP medals before he retired in 2023. At his peak he was so dominant that Valve slowed down movement with the AWP to balance the weapon.
coldzera
Marcelo “coldzera” David was the best player in the world in 2016 and 2017 and Major MVP at both of Brazil’s Major wins in 2016. At his peak, his spray control and positioning made him almost impossible to kill in a clutch.
NEO
Filip “NEO” Kubski was the star of Poland’s Golden Five and HLTV’s best player of 2011, in the CS 1.6 era. He carried that into CS:GO, won EMS One Katowice 2014 with Virtus.pro and has coached Astralis since July 2026.
m0NESY
Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov came through NAVI Junior, became a star AWPer at G2 and moved to Falcons in 2025, where he won the IEM Cologne Major 2026 as Major MVP. He has seven MVP medals and has finished in the top four of HLTV’s ranking in 2023, 2024 and 2025. A place in the top 10 looks like a question of when.
The Grand Slam winners
The Intel Grand Slam, now the ESL Grand Slam, goes to the first team to win four of ESL’s biggest events within a run of ten. It is the clearest measure of a team that stayed on top for a long time. Season 7 is still open: Vitality, Falcons and Natus Vincere have one title each.
| Season | Completed | Winner | Players from this list |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2018 |  Astralis | |
| 2 | 2019 |  Team Liquid | |
| 3 | 2021 |  Natus Vincere | |
| 4 | 2023 |  FaZe Clan | |
| 5 | 2025 |  Team Vitality | |
| 6 | 2026 | Team Vitality |
Frequently asked questions
Who is the best Counter-Strike player of all time?
Our pick is ZywOo. He has the most HLTV MVP medals (34), the most first places in HLTV’s Top 20 (four) and three Majors, all of them as Major MVP.
Who has won the most Counter-Strike Majors?
dupreeh, with five: four with Astralis and one with Vitality. device and apEX are among the players with four.
Who has the most HLTV MVP medals?
ZywOo, with 34. s1mple is second with 21.
Who has been HLTV’s best player of the year most often?
ZywOo, four times (2019, 2020, 2023 and 2025). s1mple has done it three times (2018, 2021 and 2022).
