Top 20 players of 2017: Introduction

Exactly eight years since the inaugural edition of the series, we will begin another calendar year by presenting you our Top 20 players of 2017. As always, we will publish one article per player with a dissection of their yearly performance, but due to the earlier start of the ELEAGUE Major this year, there will be a slight change in the timing of our first four articles.

As the main portion of the Major is set to start on January 19, we naturally want to reveal our #1 player the day before the big action begins. In order to achieve that, we will have to speed up the process a little bit by revealing two players per day on January 1 & 2 (one earlier in the day and one later).

The list will be updated right here every time a player is revealed, and you will be able to find the full ranking once it's all over.

Top 20 players of 2017 powered by EGB.com

1.	Marcelo "coldzera" David
2.	Nikola "NiKo" Kovač
3.	Fernando "fer" Alvarenga
4.	Håvard "rain" Nygaard
5.	Nicolai "device" Reedtz
6.	Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo
7.	Kenny "kennyS" Schrub
8.	Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev
9.	Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács
10.	Peter "dupreeh" Rasmussen
11.	Abay "Hobbit" Khasenov
12.	Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski
13.	Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth
14.	Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke
15.	Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye
16.	Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný
17.	Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev
18.	Ricardo "boltz" Prass
19.	Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer
20.	Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski

Once again breaking the record in the number of "Big events" with 17, this was another year where it became extremely hard to select 20 of the very best, this way leaving out some names who would rightfully be considered stars in some previous editions.

Like last year, each player will receive a special medal with their name and placing on it

As this is a list of top performers over the year, putting up MVP-worthy displays has always been a way for players to stand out, which we recognized by selecting the MVP (who earned a medal) and a few EVPs (Exceptionally Valuable Players) of each noteworthy event and included that in our analysis process.

We continue to use individual statistics as a base for our ranking, thus only considering a player's measurable impact inside the server. In addition to the MVP and EVP recognitions, the ranking considers various parameters, such as how much damage players dealt, how much impact they made with multi-kills, opening frags or clutches, how consistent they were and how they performed in big playoff series and at the biggest events.

Without giving away many clues about who's on the list, we can say that DreamHack Masters Malmö was one of the two events where the most of our Top 20 members were in attendance, while each of them played at no fewer than 5 non-Major "Big events".

In case you're new to the series or you forgot who the stars of years past were, you can check out our previous editions here (2012 was not covered as it was a transitional year between CS 1.6 and CS:GO):

Top 20 players of 2016 (CS:GO)
Top 20 players of 2015 (CS:GO)
Top 20 players of 2014 (CS:GO)
Top 20 players of 2013 (CS:GO)
Top 20 players of 2011 (CS 1.6)
Top 20 players of 2010 (CS 1.6)

We would like to thank EGB.com, who are once again proud partners of the Top 20 series, and together with them we wish you a Happy New Year and hope you'll enjoy what's to come in the following 18 days.