Mad Catz: Top players - Part 3

As we enter the top ten of our Mad Catz: Top players ranking, we present you the best AWPers of the event, we show you the most aggressive players and a list of those who were the true stars of their teams.

With parts one and two behind us, we have now arrived to places 6-10 which contain two Danish and two French players, as well as a Ukrainian giant who was once the best player in the world and is looking to get back to that place in CS:GO.

HLTV.org's Top players of Mad Catz Invitational (#6-#10)

10 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire LDLC.com 0.91 0.64 1.33   1st by rating in the team (+22%), 2 x Top rated

Best performance: 33:20 vs. 3DMAX (1.66 rating, +55%) - Group stage #1 Additional notable stats: #2 in kills per round (0.91) #3 in rating above team average (22%) #1 in domination meter (0.29) #4 in headshot rating (0.50 hspr with 55%) #5 in rounds with at least one kill (54%) #5 in consistency (80% of maps above team avg and above 1.00) #2 in pistol round rating (1.82) #3 in entry rating (1.38) #1 in entry kills per round (0.20) #1 in rifle kills per round (0.71)

LDLC.com's stock is rising fast following their 5th-8th place finish at Mad Catz, and their main star on that journey has been Dan "apEX" Madesclaire. His play in Vienna was exactly what you would expect from your team's mad-fragger, as he put up an impressive 0.91 KPR and was one of the best entry killers of the event.

The former VeryGames player was LDLC's top or second best fragger in each of their five maps, and none stood out more than their opening clash against 3DMAX. In the match that came down to the very last round, Madesclaire practically willed his team to a 16-14 victory, posting a 33:20 score (1.66 rating, 55% above team avg) with match-high 8 entry kills and 7 assists. Out of those 8 entry kills, an incredible 7 led to a round win, including one in the very last round, while he also recorded highlight-worthy 4 kills in the all-important second pistol round.

He followed up that Man of the Match performance with another one against Lemondogs, finishing top rated in a 16-13 win with a 29:19 score (1.50 rating) which helped make him the best player of the first group stage (1.58 rating). As we can see in the table below, those two MotM displays both earned a spot among the best performances in close matches at the event:

The criteriea for a close match was one that came down to the last one or two rounds. Result is shown on the far right.

Overall, he stood out with his aggressive play style as the one who was involved in the most entry duels in the tournament (36%). And while such aggression rarely pays off in the long run for most players, it did for Madesclaire as he won 57% of his duels to end up as the 3rd best entry killer among playoff participants and the one with the most entry kills on average (0.20).

And he didn't only get that done in the group stage, as in addition to those 8 against 3DMAX, he had a total of 17 entry kills in two quarter-final maps versus ESC Gaming.

These are the six players who were involved in over 30% of their teams' entry kills. The blue part of the cilinder denotes how often they got the first kill, the gray part represents their entry deaths. The number at the top is the ratio between the two, or rather their success rate in entry duels.

Another interesting stat is his Terrorist side rating of 1.19, which ranks 6th among playoff participants, only behind the five NiP players. While the Swedes were by far the best T-side team, LDLC.com struggled quite a bit being in the lower echelon of teams with only 41% success rate on the attacking side, meaning his impact was more than valuable.

Speaking of impact, Madesclaire was the most dominant player among those who reached the knockout stage, having a domination meter of 0.29.

Nicknames in italic denote players who didn't reach the playoffs. DM = domination meter, an average value calculated from player's 3+ kill rounds (based on the fact that almost 90% of times that leads to winning the round)

Last but not least, he was also the best rifler on average (0.71 rifle KPR) and one of the best headshooters. All in all, we witnessed a near perfect star player performance from Madesclaire, but on the other hand we have to take all of his impressive statistics with a pinch of salt, because even though he did help his team to reach the playoffs, he didn't play against any of the top three teams and he only played 5 maps. So for that reason he is slightly lower ranked than then numbers would justify, at 10th.

9 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Nathan 'NBK' Schmitt VeryGames 0.74 0.65 1.12   2nd by rating in the team (+7%), 2 x Top rated

Best performance: 34:10 vs. e-Sports.rs (2.41 rating, +91%) - Group stage #2 Additional notable stats: #1 in rounds with 3+ kills (25) #2 in total kills (301) #1 in clutch points (12)

France is seemingly overflowing with individual talent in CS:GO, represented by five players in our ranking, highest of all being Nathan "NBK" Schmitt. Although VeryGames somewhat disappointed with a 3rd place finish after being used to making the finals, the French team still left a mark on this event.

Their longtime member Schmitt wasn't the team's best player, mainly due to the lack of consistency and underperforming in the semi-final loss to Anexis, but he did end up being the best clutcher of the event and he played an important role on VG's road to the semis.

He was the team's most dominant player overall and their best rated in both group stages. His standout performance came in the last match of second group stage, in a 16-8 win over e-Sports.rs, when he put up a 34:10 score for the best match-rating of the event (2.41). In that match he displayed his dominance by securing 6 rounds with his individual actions (4x 3K, 1x 4K, 1x 5K).

He was also top rated on one more occasion, which was perhaps less flashy but far more important – the incredible first map marathon of the quarter-final against Natus Vincere. He came out as by far the best fragger of his team with a 57:45 score (1.19 rating) in a 34-30 victory which paved way for VeryGames' 3rd place finish.

After that, he had just one more map with more kills than deaths (out of 8), particularly disappointing in the semi-final loss to Anexis as the team's worst with a 44:58 score. Because of that cold streak he couldn't go higher on our ranking than 9th, but he is still considered as one of the best players at the event for his contributions on the way to the semi-final.

8 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Jacob 'Pimp' Winneche Anexis 0.67 0.60 1.04   2nd by rating in the team (+4%), 2 x Top rated

Best performance: 30:12 vs. TCM-Gaming (1.76 rating, +57%) - Quarter-final (map 2) Additional notable stats: #5 in pistol kills per round (0.15) #1 in P250 kills per round (0.12)

The biggest surprise of the event was Anexis' 2nd place finish, which came on the back of two big victories against VeryGames, first in the group stage and then in the semi-final. The Danes, who in the meantime changed organizations to become Western Wolves, were in fact the team with the most even distribution of kills at the event, as only 12 frags separated their best and worst player.

That was mainly a result of different players standing out all the time, so they didn't have clear stars as some other teams. Nevertheless, a couple of their members did contribute a little more than the rest.

Jacob "Pimp" Winneche had already displayed his talents at DreamHack Winter, when he played amazingly (1.32 rating) in spite of his team's failure to reach the playoffs, and he was once again one of his team's best players and one of the main reasons they made it as far as they did.

Although he was quite inconsistent, Winneche led the team in frags during the playoffs and was their best rated overall in both the quarter-final versus TCM-Gaming and the semi-final against VeryGames. That eventually gave him a 1.08 playoff-rating and made him the only one in the team to play above average in the latter stage. Furthermore, that ranks him 6th in that category among all the players who reached the semi-finals, meaning his contribution was immense.

Stats only from playoff matches, disregarding players whose teams didn't make it to the 1/2 final.

During that five map span against TCM and VG, he had a rating of 1.00 or more every time, while his performance in the second map against the German team was one of the best in the playoffs. With a 30:12 score he earned a 1.76 rating, which ranks 4th among the best playoff performances. His highlight round from the event also took place in this match, as he started the map with 4 P250 kills, eventually ending up as the best player with that pistol in the tournament.

However, after that he was the worst rated player of the grand final, which coupled with being the team's worst in the group stage explains his inconsistency, and it resulted in just a 1.04 rating, tied lowest in our ranking.

Despite that, it has to be recognized that he stepped up during the two key steps for his team which led them to the final, so because of that playoff performance he was bumped to 8th place.

7 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov Na`Vi 0.81 0.58 1.24   1st by rating in the team (+13%), 3 x Top rated

Best performance: 29:13 vs. VeryGames (1.64 rating, +42%) - Quarter-final (map 2) Additional notable stats: #1 in AWP kills per round (0.49) #2 in total AWP kills (95) #6 in kills per round (0.81) #4 in rounds with at least 1 kill (55%) #7 in deaths per round (0.58) #7 in K-D difference (+49) #8 in playoff rating (1.11) #2 in entry kill rating (1.48) #2 in consistency (83% of maps above team avg and above 1.00)

One of the most eagerly anticipated CS:GO LAN debuts was certainly Yegor "markeloff" Markelov's, who was the world's best player back in 2010. As him and Na`Vi finally took their chances at Mad Catz Invitational neither disappointed, but Markelov even surpassed the expectations.

With 0.49 kills per round he topped the charts as the best AWPer of the event, with an average that tops all previous best AWPers from major events. Although he didn't have the most total kills with the big green in Vienna, he is still cemented as the best due to using it less than his rival (for 61% of kills) and still having a better average.

He had double digit AWP kills in five of his six maps, two of which were in the quarter-final against VeryGames and both of which rank among the top3 performances by total kills. Especially impressive was his display in the second map, de_dust2_se, when he led Na`Vi to even the result with 23 AWP kills and a 29:13 score overall (1.64 rating). During the first map of that match up which the Ukrainians lost 30-34 he had an impressive 1vs3 clutch, which we recorded here.

He also ended up top rated in their opening match versus TeamCRG (21:8, 1.48 rating) and in the draw against ESC Gaming (26:18, 1.48 rating), which in total makes 3 Man of the Match performances out of six maps. In the clash against the Poles, he had a couple of highlight rounds as well, 4-kill in the pistol round and an AWP ace later on.

As always in the past, he was one of the most consistent players of the event, but he also led his team in entry kills (0.15 per round), domination meter (0.21) and frequency of kills (55% of rounds with at least 1 kill). That made him one of only 7 players to be such clear stars of their team by leading in all of those categories, and he was the only AWPer to achieve that.

The only players who led their team in rating, entry kills per round, domination meter and frequency of fragging.

Although Markelov's team was stopped in the quarter-final, and in such cases the other stars of 5th-8th placed teams were dropped in the ranking due to lack of team success, the Ukrainians were the only ones who won a map in the playoffs and who played a significant amount of rounds against the top4 teams. Add to that the fact that Markelov was the best AWPer of the event with an incredibly high average and the 2nd best entry killer, 7th place fits perfectly for him.

6 Player Team KPR DPR Rating Nicolaj 'Nico' Jensen Anexis 0.69 0.58 1.06   1st by rating in the team (+6%), 2 x Top rated

Best performance: 31:12 vs. logiX (1.66 rating, +53%) - Group stage #1 Additional notable stats: #1 in total AWP kills (122) #2 in AWP kills per round (0.46) #7 in deaths per round (0.58)

The best fragger from the surprise 2nd finishers Anexis was Nicolaj "Nico" Jensen, the team's main AWPer and the player who was responsible for a total of 122 kills with the big green, an amazing 16% of all AWP kills at the event.

He used the most lethal weapon for an incredible 67% of his kills, more than anyone else, which means that he barely used any other weapons. That makes his 7th best 0.58 deaths per round average seem more important because of the team's economy, as it means that he succeeded in surviving with the AWP quite often.

Although his average with the AWP ranks second (0.46 kills per round), he does hold two of the four best performances in that regard. Both of them came in the group stage and they were his standout displays overall. First he led the team to a 16-12 victory over logiX with 22 AWP kills and an incredible 9 entry kills for a 31:12 individual score in the end (1.66 rating).

He followed that up with 14 AWP kills against VeryGames and another Man of the Match performance (22:8, 1.61 rating) in a 16-4 victory that secured Anexis the top spot of the group.

In the playoffs he was less consistent overall, ending up with a few more deaths than kills, but his AWP was still making a difference by having double digits with it in 5 of 7 maps for a total of 77 frags. Those included 15 and 11 AWP kills in the two map wins over VeryGames and 19 total in the loss to NiP in the grand final.

It's also worth noting that out of the players from top 4 teams, only one was involved in a higher percentage of his team's round wins than Jensen (67.6%). Additionally, he was the team's most successful entry killer (61% of duels won), so he was a very important part of the ex-Anexis machinery.

His overall rating of 1.06 was actually third lowest in our list, but we have to take into account that his team played 6 of their 10 maps against either NiP or VeryGames. All of that outweighs the fact that his 0.93 playoff rating was the lowest of all the players in our ranking, same as his 0.08 domination meter, but it doesn't outweigh it enough to get him higher than the 6th place.

With places 6-10 now revealed, most of you can probably already guess which players will be in the top 5. But can you guess the correct order and who will be the best player of the event?

Check out the other articles from this series here:

Mad Catz: Top players - Introduction
Mad Catz: Top players - Part 1
Mad Catz: Top players - Part 2

Stay tuned to HLTV.org for Part 4 and if you have any questions regarding these stats don't hesitate to ask.