HLTV's "Bold Predictions"
Interesting conclusions, tidbits, and facts drawn from the predictions made by pro CS:GO players who placed on the top 20 HLTV player ranking.
What exactly is this?
HLTV, the primary source for most CS:GO fans (and talent, players, you name it) to get their news and statistics, releases a ranking of the top 20 players of each year, which it has done so since the release of CS:GO (and before that, but that’s too far beyond me).
Barring the transitional weird year of 2012, and aside from 2014 and 2015, each player in the Top 20 gave their prediction(s) for who would be the next player to make the list. As the title suggests, this was supposed to be “bold” - of course, this didn’t stop players from choosing existing teammates, or obvious candidates (ZywOo, anyone?), who were already proven before they were predicted - but there were some good ones.
Bored and browsing the teams on the HLTV rankings, I ended up on Paytyn "junior" Johnson’s page (we’ll get to that later), and I noticed a few players predicting his success. I wondered what else I could find, and here we are! (P.S. if you want the full list, DM me on Twitter @backpackbrainMC and I’ll send it over).
Here’s a non-extensive list of some of the interesting things I found while perusing these “bold predictions”.
Playing with your player predictions
While predicting past and present teammates was common, predicting players who would go on to join your team, or vice versa, is much more interesting. Here’s quite a few examples of this:
Brollan predicted Plopski in 2019, and would go on to join NiP in 2022.
coldzera predicted felps in 2016, and felps would join SK in 2017.
device predicted Plopski and ztr in 2019 and 2020 respectively, and would go on to join NiP in 2021, playing with Plopski full time and ztr as a stand-in.
Interesting to note that device at the time was in Astralis, so his knowledge of the Swedish scene was already in place before his eventual departure.
dupreeh predicted Bubzkji in 2019 and Bubzkji would “join” Astralis in 2020, intermittently playing on the team throughout 2020 and 2021 with dupreeh.
FalleN predicted chelo in 2017, and chelo is reported to be joining Imperial in 2022(!), so FalleN has had his eye on him for quite a while.
fer predicted kNgV- and felps in 2016 - felps would join SK in 2017, and later, kNgV- would join MIBR in 2019. In both cases, fer was already on the team.
HEN1 predicted dumau in 2020, and would join GODSENT to play with dumau briefly in 2022 (before GODSENT and 00NATION merged players).
NiKo and huNter-, who were going to play with m0NESY in G2, predicted him in 2021, but they knew it already.
KRIMZ predicted Peppzor in 2020, and Peppzor would trial/stand-in for FNATIC with KRIMZ in 2022.
KSCERATO predicted junior in 2020, but he probably knew that junior would be joining him in FURIA in 2021 at that stage. Same goes for yuurih.
NiKo has a few hits - first predicting his cousin huNter- in 2017, way before NiKo joined G2 in 2020 to form the deadly cousin duo. He also predicted Bymas in 2019, and Bymas would trial for Faze in 2020 for a few months. He also obviously predicted m0NESY, read above.
s1mple predicted electroNic in 2016 - both players would join NAVI in 2017, and the duo are still going strong.
suNny did play with sergej in some qualifier(s) in 2017, but regardless, he predicted him in 2018 and played with him in ENCE in 2019/2020.
Xyp9x predicted blameF in 2019, and blameF joined Astralis in 2021 to carry them back into relevancy.
Popular picks that haven’t made it
Using an arbitrary gate of 4 votes or higher, here’s the popular picks that haven’t graced the top 20 rankings. Some of these are disappointments, some likely to make it eventually - I’ll give my opinion, but you can judge for yourself! Since this includes fewer players, I’ll give some context to their trajectory, but bear in mind I’m not quite a historian, so there is certainly hearsay at play.
Denis "seized" Kostin
Now known to some for his underperformances, potentially due to having the IGL role forced upon him, seized was a strong player when six players predicted in his favour in 2013 (pashaBiceps, Edward, Xizt, NBK, f0rest, GeT_RiGhT). These historic players were not too far off the mark - in 2014, seized would win two tournaments with NAVI and otherwise showed signs of developing into a star. These signs continued into 2015, after which he experienced a drop-off that would seemingly be sealed as his fate after taking the IGL role in late 2016 and onwards.
However, despite not making the list, seized still won tournaments and performed relatively well - he was part of a NAVI team which was definitely a bit up and down (Zeus, starix, GuardiaN, Edward, and ceh9 earlier on), and thus despite maybe not accomplishing as much as he could have had things turned out differently, seized still enjoyed success despite not directly fulfilling those predictions.
Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian
It would be a tragedy if I finished this list without mentioning the infamous KQLY. Predicted by 6 players (SmithZz, markeloff, kennyS, friberg, Hiko, ScreaM) in 2013, KQLY was a French player who showed great form in the early CS:GO years, justifying his presence on legendary lineups like Titan with kennyS.
Unfortunately, this story ends exactly how you would expect it to when you hear the name “KQLY”. For the majority of the year, KQLY enjoyed strong performances which likely would have landed him somewhere in the bottom section of the Top 20 - had he not received a VAC ban (justified, as he would later explain) near the end of the year. As you may imagine, this nuked any chance he had of a Top 20 spot. He was instantly booted from Titan, and in the following years, he quit competing in CS:GO. (He tried to return, but naturally, it was pointless).
David "frozen" Čerňanský
First predicted by Magisk in 2016, then by GuardiaN and rain in 2017, and finally by his teammates ropz and woxic in 2019, frozen’s story is quite different to the prior two players. Playing in domestic competition until joining NoChance, and then MOUZ (then mousesports) in 2019, 20 year old frozen still has plenty of years ahead of him to reach the top 20 ranking. A narrow miss in 2021 proves this, and his respectable trophy cabinet with MOUZ backs it up.
Overshadowed by fellow young superstar ropz for his tenure in MOUZ up until 2022, when ropz left to FaZe, 2022 may be his chance to break through and shine on his own. Unfortunately, aside from MOUZ making the IEM Cologne 2022 quarterfinal, his team has been struggling. Being the most experienced player on MOUZ, a team with young and inexperienced players, may affect his output - but I see no reason to believe that frozen can’t become a star in the coming years.
Ismail "refrezh" Ali
In what might be a surprise to some (including me) who know refrezh from his performance in Heroic, 6 players predicted that refrezh would be a strong player in 2018 (valde, autimatic, Xyp9x, GuardiaN, Magisk, dupreeh). Looking at the stats doesn’t tell you the whole story here - what influenced this was a strong stand-in performance for Cloud9 at Blast Pro Series Lisbon 2018, which was fresh in the minds of every player when they were asked about their bold predictions.
Nowadays, strong stand-in performances are a bit more common (jks and Snax this year alone), but to take the struggling Cloud9 and give them strong results (16-14 loss to 2018 Astralis, with their worst result being a 16-10 against NAVI) in a pinch? Despite the flimsy Blast Bo1 format of the time, this probably earned refrezh a spot in OpTic right away.
In the following years, refrezh would bounce around teams like OpTic, Copenhagen Flames, MAD Lions, all the while showing decent stats but results that reflected the teams he was in. His big break came when he signed for Heroic in 2021, in what seemed like a sidegrade move at the time. Immediately winning the online ESL Pro League didn’t seem so bad, and refrezh continued to post decent results in a team that would post good online results, and eventually, decent LAN results (2021 Major semifinalists).
His recent benching is but a symptom of the fact he was never a strong fragger on this team, and would have a small but noticeable drop in performance against strong teams. Everyone remembers a refrezh 1v5, but let’s remember the context of this article - top 20 players on HLTV’s yearly roundup. Maybe refrezh could have developed into a star in 2019 if he had found a team that gave him that push - but he was never given that responsibility in a team that looked for top placings.
This isn’t to say that refrezh is now done for - far from it, I think. I believe that refrezh is better off focusing on being supportive and clutch (a modern Xyp9x) while setting up his teammates to frag better. This kind of role won’t see him landing on the top 20 list in today’s landscape of CS:GO, but refrezh can find success and results in the future if he can accept being the 3rd or 4th best player on a team.
Paytyn "junior" Johnson and Shahar "flameZ" Shushan
These two newer players are less pertinent examples, but it’s still worth mentioning them.
The subject of 4 votes in 2020, all of whom played with or against him domestically (jks, KSCERATO, yuurih, EliGE), junior was known for tearing up the sub-top teams of the NA scene, most notably in Triumph. KSCERATO and yuurih had to believe in him the most - he participated in an experiment that involved one American AWPer joining a fully Brazilian team, changing the whole team’s language to English, and changing his AWPing style to better fit the wild team structure of arT’s FURIA.
This experiment, occurring during the first half of 2021, did not succeed. The second half of 2021 was more of a return to his old ways in the revolving doors of Bad News Bears, but after the high praise given to him in 2020, it wasn’t exactly inspiring to see him fail in FURIA only to go back to bullying NA.
In 2022, he was called up to fill the shoes of oSee in Complexity - and this would begin an unfortunate spell of poor performances that would result in the community running all over him in match threads and on social media (a little too much sometimes). However, despite his current status, there is still time for him to reinvent himself - and while it may not be in Complexity, I’d give him a few more years before I really write him off altogether.
On the EU side of things, in 2020 ropz, NiKo, syrsoN, and huNter- believed that flameZ showed potential. Part of an Endpoint team that heavily relied on him to produce any results, he was picked up by OG in 2021 and showed promise despite inconsistency. To his credit, it was a jump going from a team like Endpoint, who would grind against random European teams and didn’t have the players to stand out in bigger tournaments, to a team like OG where they would consistently face higher level opposition.
As he was only picked up in April by OG, flameZ did not have the whole year to find form - regardless, there seemed to be a pattern of decent online performances and mediocre LAN performances.
This is a simpler tale than junior - flameZ is simply young and is still finding his footing. Expecting him to hit the ground running and make top 20 in 2021 might’ve been a bit overeager (then again, it’s supposed to be bold). While I don’t think he’s going to make the cut this year either, with the new look OG shaping up to be decent with star AWPer degster and a solid IGL in nexa, I believe in flameZ as a prospect in 2022 and beyond as he gains experience.
General comments and favourite moment
Here’s some general observations:
As the years pass, and academy rosters/leagues are becoming commonplace, predictions are shifting from “here’s a good player I’ve seen play well recently” to “here’s a strong academy player/young talent that might take off”.
2018 saw 4 players predict sergej (who made it in 2019), which was clearly based on his performance in ENCE, whereas 2021 has mass believers on m0NESY (6 players) and xertioN (3 players), two academy players.
2013 only saw 6 unique bold predictions, and the only successful one was markeloff choosing byali.
Every other year saw 10 or more unique choices (some players did choose multiple).
Here’s a little celebration for the players who showed good foresight:
KSCERATO is the only player to choose m0NESY in 2020, whereas everyone latched onto his performances in 2021 after the G2 publicity.
NiKo and dennis both believed in ropz in 2016, trusting in his FPL performances years before he became a mainstay in the top 20.
s1mple believed in electroNic in 2016 and 2017, initially before they were teammates, before electroNic became a powerhouse who has never gone below #7 since 2018.
k0nfig believed in stavn all the way back in 2017 - when stavn was just a kid playing for Fragsters. stavn proved k0nfig right years later, by joining Heroic and now contending for the best Danish player of the modern era.
And to round it all off, here’s my ultimate dunce cap award:
Ethan’s bold prediction in 2019 was Brollan. Brollan placed #19 in 2019, and Ethan placed #20.
If you’ve made it this far, I truly commend you. This is my first attempt at writing anything resembling an article, and if you have any feedback (good or bad), direct it to my Twitter!
Banger article, this comment is totally unbiased