Mad Catz: Top players - Part 1

To start off our analysis of Mad Catz CS:GO Invitational, we will present you the first batch of Top players with spots 16-21.

As mentioned in our introduction article, starting with this event we will change the format of presenting our Top players. With the aim of ranking the players more accurately than usual and giving them more time under the spotlight, we will make an ordered list and announce it in four parts.

In the first part it will be places from 16 to 21, which will include a couple of players who starred for their teams but couldn't help them get to the playoffs, along with four others who weren't stars of their teams but played important roles.

Those of you with a particular taste for stats will probably like another addition, graphs and tables for each player with some of his interesting numbers.

HLTV.org's Top players of Mad Catz Invitational (#16-#21)

21 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Richard 'shoxie' Papillon Imaginary 0.99 0.72 1.36   1st by rating in the team (+57%), 1 x Top rated

Best performance: 33:17 vs. TCM-Gaming (1.68 rating, +56%) - Group stage #1 Additional notable stats: #4 in entry kill-death difference (+12) kills per round (0.99) headshots per round (0.61) rounds with at least 1 kill (61%) domination meter (0.33) consistency (83% of maps above team avg and above 1.00) entry kill rating (1.78) entry duel success (83%) rating in pistol rounds (2.21) Terrorist side rating (1.39) Pistol kills per round (0.27) AK47 kills per round (0.54)

Imaginary didn't make it past the first group stage due to finding themselves on the wrong end of a three-way tie with TCM-Gaming and Nostalgie. Since then the players have probably had nightmares about some of their 28 total lost rounds to those two teams, because if only one of them had gone the other way they would have been through to the next stage, as shown by the table below (excluding NiP's matches):

Group B

#	Team	W	T	L	RW	RL	RD	Points
2.	TCM-Gaming	1	0	1	28	25	+3	3
3.	Nostalgie	1	0	1	25	26	-1	3
4.	Imaginary	1	0	1	26	28	-2	3

Although in total his team lost 9 rounds more than they won (35-44), Richard "shoxie" Papillon ended up with a +21 kill-death difference (+7.0 per map). If we were to rank him together with all of the playoff participants, that average would make him 4th best in the tournament.

His +12 difference in entry K-D (15:3) actually does rank him at #4 in total among all players, and the rate of 83% entry duels won makes him the most successful in that area. That becomes even more impressive when we include the fact that he had a 6:1 entry score in the loss to NiP, and 8:1 in the win over TCM.

He has a number of other impressive stats, such as being one of the most dominant, consistent and best fraggers, and also one of the best aimers with 0.61 headshots per round (highest average at the tournament). Probably the most impressive fact is just how much he stood out in his team, and the following pie chart demonstrates that perfectly, as no other player was responsible for such a big percentage of his team's kills.

However, all that means is that Papillon was one of the best players in the first group stage. Although those averages could put him somewhere near the top of the list had he achieved some success, he didn't help his team make it any further than first group stage, so he can't be any further up our ranking either.

Nevertheless, Papillon confirmed that he is one of the most skilled individuals in the game and he should be kept under close watch.

20 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Nikola 'NiKolinho' Kovač e-Sports.rs 0.84 0.76 1.18   1st by rating in the team (+34%), 1 x Top rated

Best performance: 35:20 vs. TeamCRG (1.84 rating, +74%) - Group stage #2 Additional notable stats: #7 in rounds with 3+ kills (17) domination meter (0.36) consistency (75% of maps above team avg and above 1.00) rifle kills per round (0.75)

One of the most pleasant surprises of Mad Catz Invitational was the performance of, now former, e-Sports.rs squad. In their first two matches Serbian team upset Lemondogs and 3DMAX and secured passage into the next stage. Although they were unable to overcome VeryGames and Nostalgie afterwards, they ended up with a 3-3 record, best of all non-playoff participants.

Their star player and the only one in the team with a rating above 1.00 was 16-year-old Bosnian Nikola "NiKolinho" Kovač. More importantly, he had a rating above 1.20 in all 3 of their wins, including 5 or more entry frags on each of those occasions.

His performance against TeamCRG was one of the best individual matches of the entire tournament. With 35:20 score he had the most frags in a non-overtime match, while directly starting the big comeback with this round. In the match after that one, he had another highlight-worthy round when his team's back were against the wall.

Just how important for the team Kovač was shows the fact that he had 17 rounds with 3 or more kills, 7th most of all players including those who played over twice as many rounds as him. On average, that made him the second most dominant player of the tournament with a 0.36 domination meter.

Also, as we can see above he was well over the average of 20% of team's kills per player with the tournament's 3rd highest 27%. Last but not least, with 0.75 rifle kills per round he was in front of everyone else and just for that he can easily be proclaimed as one of the most talented young riflers in CS:GO.

However, his performance wasn't perfect as he was one of the worst players in pistol rounds, and while his entry fragging helped in the victories, it also damaged the team in their losses as he ended up with -3 entry score overall. All things considered, even though his rating of 1.18 ranks him as 11th, he didn't take part in the playoffs so he didn't play the biggest matches, and therefore we rank him at number 20.

19 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Sergey 'starix' Ischuk Na`Vi 0.77 0.63 1.14   3rd by rating in the team (+4%), 0 x Top rated

Best performance: 30:17 vs. ESC Gaming (1.46 rating, +42%) - Group stage #1 Additional notable stats:  #2 in clutch rounds won (6 - 6x 1vs1)

Natus Vincere's LAN debut ended with a quarter-final loss to VeryGames, but the Ukrainians showed glimpses of their old selves and proved that they are already among the best teams in the world. Before taking part in the unforgettable clash with the French team, they topped their group in front of ESC Gaming and n!faculty.

During that first group stage, Sergey "starix" Ischuk showed excellent form and recorded ratings above 1.20 in all 3 matches, culminating with a 30:17 performance against ESC Gaming in a draw that secured them the top spot of the group.

He also played very well in the six-overtime first map against VeryGames, topping the scoreboard for his team with 52:44 score. During that 30-34 loss Ischuk also showed the incredible composure that he is known for by winning all 5 of his 1-on-1 situations. In total, he won 6/6 during the tournament which makes him one of the best clutchers at Mad Catz.

Best clutchers ordered by number of 1vsX situations won, indicated by the value in parentheses next to player's name. On the right we assigned points based on type of clutch (1vs1 = 1 point, 1vs2 = 2 points, etc.).

Due to a slightly subpar display in Na`Vi's last two maps of the tournament, Ischuk ended up ranked 3rd in the team fragging-wise. Even though the Ukrainians showed a great level of play, ending up with the second best team-rating of the tournament (1.09), they were stopped at the first big step, so Ischuk as not even the 2nd best of his team has to settle for position 19.

18 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Filip 'Neo' Kubski ESC Gaming 0.71 0.65 1.04   2nd by rating in the team (+2%), 1 x Top rated

Best performance: 24:15 vs. 3DMAX (1.33 rating, +18%) - Group stage #2 Additional notable stats: #7 in clutch rounds won (4) #7 in rounds with 3+ kills (17) #1 in total kills with HE grenade (10)

CS 1.6 superstar Filip "Neo" Kubski still hasn't reached the level everyone was used to from him in the old game, neither in terms of his peak performance or in consistency, but nevertheless he managed to leave an impact in Vienna. ESC Gaming expectedly reached the semi-final, but they were stopped by NiP and later defeated by VeryGames in the 3rd place decider for an in the end slightly disappointing campaign.

All members of the Golden Five had their moments throughout the event, so the Polish team ended up with one of the most even distributions of kills, or in other words they didn't have any clear stars. For that reason it was a difficult task ranking their players, but the couple of them that we selected were the team's best in most of the categories.

Even though he wasn't exactly consistent, Kubski was ESC's most dominant player with 17 3-kill+ rounds. His form peaked in the late hours of day one when he was the team's best in wins over 3DMAX and TCM-Gaming, same as earlier that day in the draw vs Na`Vi.

Although he didn't excel in the playoffs afterwards, he had his moments such as the ace with 1-on-3 to clinch the first map over LDLC.com in the quarter-final. More importantly he put up a solid fight against NiP in the semis, especially in the second map when his team built up an 11-4 lead and came closest to anyone at the event to beating the Swedes.

Only six players were able to have non-negative scores against NiP

With just a 1.04 rating Kubski was still a must-pick due to being the most dominant player of one of the semi-finalists, but his lack of consistency prevented him from being placed any higher than 18th.

17 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Vincent 'Happy' Cervoni LDLC.com 0.80 0.57 1.25   2nd by rating in the team (+15%), 2 x Top rated

Best performance: 24:6 vs. e-Sports.rs (2.08 rating, +35%) - Group stage #2 Additional notable stats: #4 in rating above team average (+15%) #5 in deaths per round (0.57) #7 in playoff rating (1.12) #8 in kills per round (0.80) #1 in entry duel success (81%) #6 in entry kill rating (1.26) #3 in pistol kills per round (0.16) #1 in CT side rating (1.73)

LDLC.com came to the tournament with a last minute replacement in the squad which only lowered everyone's expectations about them, even though they were already considered underdogs. However, after a couple of incredibly close wins over 3DMAX and Lemondogs at the start, they secured a direct spot in the playoffs, where they later gave a good fight to ESC Gaming.

The team's in-game leader Vincent "Happy" Cervoni, formerly known under the alias "EMSTQD", actually had an impressive fragging display in addition to leading the team to playoffs. With 0.80 kills per round he ranks 8th among playoff participants and his solid display in the quarter-final gave him the 7th best rating in the knockout stage (1.12).

His best match though was in the first place decider in the group stage against e-Sports.rs when he posted 24:6 score and recorded the 3rd highest match-rating of the event (2.08). He also excelled in the tough 16-14 win over 3DMAX with 29:18, although he wasn't the team's best that time.

Top 5 match ratings

Cervoni actually had an amazing entry success rate of 81%, but when closely examined we see that he was the player who was involved in the least first duels. That means that his entry killing wasn't very influential, but on the other hand he only died first 3 times out of his team's 147 rounds, so he never put them at a disadvantage either.

He was one of the main culprits that LDLC.com made a name for themselves, but even with stats like these he actually wasn't the main star of the French team. Also it could be argued that they played in the easiest group, and for those reasons plus for his play being too CT-sided (which is the much easier side statistically; he had by far the worst T-side rating in our ranking), he was dropped down to the 17th spot despite his high rating.

16 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Danylo 'Zeus' Teslenko Na`Vi 0.83 0.70 1.14   2nd by rating in the team (+5%), 1 x Top rated

Best performance: 20:10 vs. n!faculty (1.56 rating, +15%) - Group stage #1 Additional notable stats: #4 in kills per round (0.83) #6 in playoff rating (1.13) #6 in rounds with at least 1 kill (54%) #7 in consistency (75% of maps above team avg and above 1.00) #1 in pistol round rating (2.03) #4 in entry kill rating (1.34) #4 in entry kill-death difference (+12) #1 in M4A4 kills per round (0.35)

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the Ukrainian team relied on its in-game leader Danylo "Zeus" Teslenko to also carry the heavy load of fragging in addition to making the calls. Although the latter didn't go perfectly seeing as they lost in the quarter-final to VG, his fragging was quite satisfactory.

Ranked 4th among all playoff participants with 0.83 kills per round, Teslenko was obviously the best fragger among all in-game leaders at the event, and the only one to be ranked 1st in the team in that regard.

In-game leaders who had above average KPR (0.67 or more). The column on the right shows their share of team's total kills with rank in the team in parentheses.

His most efficient performance was in the group stage in a 16-4 win over n!faculty (20:10, 1.56 rating), but he stood out more in the epic quarter-final against VeryGames. During those 3 maps that took 121 rounds to finish, Teslenko gathered 104 kills and ended up as the best rated of the clash despite his team's loss (1.13 rating).

Overall, it wasn't so much of a dominant performance, but he just did a great job of getting frags frequently, having at least one kill in 54% of his rounds (6th best). In addition to that he was the best rated in pistol rounds (2.03 rating, 16:5 score in 12 pistol rounds) and one of the best entry killers on average.

All those numbers might seem deserving of a higher placing than 16th, but even though he was the best fragger of Natus Vincere (by four kills), he wasn't their main star. And after all, they didn't make it past the quarter-final despite a great showing.

We will stop here for now, leaving the rest to be announced in three batches of five players, ending with who we think was the best player of the tournament. Here are the links to the other articles from this series:

Mad Catz: Top players - Introduction
Mad Catz: Top players - Part 2
Mad Catz: Top players - Part 3 

Stay tuned to HLTV.org for more stats from Mad Catz, as the next part of Top players will be announced in a few days.