Ax1Le wins ESL Pro League 13 MVP award

11-4-2021 23:32

The young Russian beat a string of other top players to the award with some stellar performances in his team's second-place finish.

Gambit talent Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov has been named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of ESL Pro League Season 13 by HLTV.org. The 18-year-old won the race for the award thanks to his remarkable consistency and impact throughout the tournament, which he finished with a 1.28 rating, the third-highest overall.

Ax1Le was the clear favourite to scoop the honour leading into Sunday's grand final, and while he wasn't the top performer in the best-of-five marathon against HEROIC - teammate Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov put in a series-high 1.24 rating -, and Gambit had to settle for second place, he still acquitted himself well enough in the match to win the award, the first of his career.

Ax1Le was Gambit's best player in ESL Pro League with a 1.28 rating

Ax1Le had only one bad map in the entire tournament (0.71 rating against Cloud9), and had a whopping 13 maps with ratings equal to or greater than 1.25, breaking the 2.00 rating mark on two occasions. He was featured in the tournament's stats leaderboards in eight categories, including rating, kills per round (0.81), KDD (+137) and KAST (75.3%)

sh1ro, Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller, René "⁠TeSeS⁠" Madsen, and Abay "⁠HObbit⁠" Khassenov were some of the other standout performers of the tournament who were also in the running for the MVP honour.

2021 MVPs by HLTV.org:

BLAST Premier Global Final - Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev
cs_summit 7 - Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali
IEM Katowice - Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov
ESL Pro League 13 - Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov

noise

2021-04-11 23:33

17 replies

cadian won the mvp-worth clutch

16 replies

Maybe finals MVP. Ax1le was destroying everyone

2021-04-11 23:38

13 replies

+1 throughout the whole tournament, just not in the finals

2021-04-12 00:18

9 replies

Fuck me cis era is here Pls mibr come back and hire s0mple and flamie

2021-04-12 05:20

8 replies

Hahaha esl is sooo dumb Ax1le boosting his stats against c9 and 3 brazilian teams....he choked hard in the finals when it mattered the most CadiaN deserved to win the mvp in my book

2021-04-12 06:18

7 replies

Ax1le going 62-29 against Astralis. Boosting stats against low teams :DD

2021-04-12 06:45

2 replies

Astralis not even top5 so yes.

2021-04-12 07:17

+1111

2021-04-12 09:15

Sergey 'Ax1Le' Rykhtorov 103-100 +3 74.2 68.2% 1.08 - doesn't seem choking to me

2021-04-12 08:33

Cadian IGL Axile baiter

2021-04-12 11:01

1 reply

-Plays entry most of the time -Baiter Yeah logic checks out

2021-04-12 11:07

You just prove that you are a DUMB.

2021-04-12 16:52

2021-04-12 01:55

I agree with you bro

2021-04-12 14:58

#218

2021-04-13 12:33

No he didnt. The game was 15-6. If it was like 15-14 then yeah.. Otherwise it's just another one of those ballsy plays where you are up so much that you will go for a knife because you know that you still have 10 rounds to make up for a eco death.. I don't understand what the hype is.

2021-04-13 07:22

Winners deserve MVP, losers don't - simple as that HLTV likes to give fake MVPs

deserved

Deserved

Thats right

DESERVED GOD

Deserved but at the same time cadiaN deserves it too. It was hard to pick the correct winner.

His rating was 0.10 below Ax1Le during the whole tournament. Still sick performance from him.

2021-04-11 23:35

Ax1le didn't win though...

2021-04-12 00:06

This is an award for an individual not a team tho

2021-04-12 00:09

2021-04-12 10:29

And?

2021-04-12 00:14

5 replies

team and flag checks out

2021-04-12 00:28

4 replies

NA lol

2021-04-12 00:43

Cry NA kid

2021-04-12 09:18

Same goes for you tho

2021-04-12 16:03

You got some great up and comers tho, gl in the future

2021-04-12 18:11

1.28>1.18

2021-04-11 23:36

3 replies

Sure but should it just be stats, how much is an igl worth, what if your team overall stats are all closer together. Axile was weak in this bo5 exept for onr map.

2021-04-11 23:40

I cant say he was WEAK in this bo5 but he wasnt as good as in previous matches, thats right. Still deserved mvp for him.

2021-04-11 23:43

cadian was mvp of the final but not the entire event

as I said they won the tourney and HLTV cares about that too much. I'm not hating on axile.

2021-04-11 23:37

the russian electronic

6 replies

Electronic is Russian too xD wtf

that's the yoke

2021-04-12 00:05

Ax1le is better than electronic ever was

2021-04-12 08:01

0/8. hltv.org/stats/players/compare/8918/elec.. and elec played only in big lan tournaments, unlike ax1le

2021-04-12 08:07

This has to be the funniest comment, I've read in a while xD. Will give you a 2/8 though ;)

2021-04-12 08:20

Calm down.....He hasn't shown consistency at the level electronic has.... Yet.. .:D

2021-04-12 13:23

nice

What's about caDADDYan?

175k$ and top 3 clutch by far )

2021-04-11 23:34

Top 3 clutch?

2021-04-12 09:06

idk men maybe there would be another crazy cluches in this year

2021-04-12 09:45

You mean of this year or of all time?

2021-04-12 11:05

He's not sure yet

2021-04-12 12:34

No doubt Cadians final clutch will forever stand as one of the greater clutches in the game. Match point, Grand Final, 1v4, eco.....All the stars align for this to stand out on top of almost all other clutches ever made in CS.GO.

2021-04-12 13:25

the clutch was 0 impact. They were up 15-6. It's one of those ballsy plays where you go for a knife because you're saving anyways and still have 10 rounds to make up for a eco death. If the score was 15-14 then yes, it would be a top 3 eco. This was equivalent to fallen getting 4 kills on the NAVI team trying to save his AWP. 0 impact.

2021-04-13 07:32

full deserved

less go

Pog

1st

serega ez

Very deserved, insane performance. #GoGambit

Deserved.

The guy is good, but Cadian was better.

Nice

honestly, this new trend of a player from the losing team winning mvp is kinda lame

25 replies

wym trend? are you dumb

12 replies

over the past 2.5 years, the amount of players receiving MVPs while losing has drastically increased. before 2018 it had only happened once on a small LAN. so yes, the new trend is this. I don't understand how I'm dumb for saying it's a trend, a completely objective statement.

11 replies

The player with the most impact overall will win the MVP, whether they happen to be on the winning or losing team does not matter nor give an advantage. Nt.

you didn't understand my comment at all, well done buddy.

it is not a trend- many times winning player does get mvp, many times they dont.

2021-04-11 23:44

What did you expect? This is hltv

2021-04-11 23:45

Yeah but a groupstage game and a final cant be compared in quality and impottance. Dont get me wrong axila had some banger games against good teams, but also multiple 1.5, 1.7 and even a 2.0 in the group

Dude he had his best performance in the tournament against astralis and NiP, play-ins and semi-final games lmao

2021-04-12 00:15

It happened with a lot of players actually. Flamie, kennyS, shox etc

2021-04-11 23:42

I do stand corrected my bad, it happened 3 times before but I still think it's an upward trend. especially considering the fact we went a long time with only players on winning teams receiving MVPs. Honestly, if they always choose for it to be the best player I think some events between 2018 and 2015 should be revisited lol (for example: hltv.org/events/2684/dreamhack-masters-m..)

2021-04-11 23:52

the entire cs meta has changed, ofc there will be some other changes alongside- it is not a trend

2021-04-12 01:05

imgur.com/a/8OALVCB

2021-04-12 02:26

It was going to happen more as the average level of players rose. You don't have such a clear top 5-10 players that can sweep MVPs anymore. More and more break out stars, players returning to form, and better team set ups facilitating talent. It's a shame that you aren't a fan because the current trend highlights how insane these players really are.

2021-04-12 09:23

His numbers were too good man, if it was closer it was probably going to cadiaN, but Ax1Le was better overall during the whole tournament. Also in Katowice, sh1ro won the race vs YEKINDAR

yeah I totally understand why but I feel like it under shadows what it actually means to be a great player. in the end winning is what matters for these teams and a player shouldn't win the MVP if he loses, since I don't believe you can really be the most valuable if you lose the tournament. i also think it makes newer players or people that don't understand the game that well look at stats too much, which means players with actual impactful roles are very much overlooked. of course, this is all my opinion, feel free to disagree, ax1le is an insane player and congrats to him.

This is a team game. Best team wins tournament. Best player wins MVP. You can't 1v5 your way to victory.

I mean that's a fair thing to say until you beckon the question of why a player who didn't reach the final can't win the MVP. Like you said a player can't 1v5.

2021-04-11 23:53

Yes, it is a flawed metric. But it's better than "Give it to the best rated player of the winning team". Note that as it is in footbal, this best player prizes work as a consolation prize for players that were insane. So it's kinda a motivator for them. To help them knowing it wasn't all for nothing.

2021-04-12 00:01

Yeah but cadian is an igl, how much worth do you give it to him. He is the one leading his team to victory in stats and strategie, stomps early on by a team can influence the stats.

2021-04-12 00:08

IGL get their worth measured in their team winning games. If you're going to put roles onto the desk those support players/anchors/decoys and entry fraggers need some love aswell.

2021-04-12 00:10

My point is mvp shouldnt be about stats, axile was just mediocre this final and if he had performed to the level prior to the final they might have won inferno or train . If he dropped a 1.4 series similar to shiro and still lost it might be different but he underpeformed in the final. If he was leading in multuple statistics like clutches, adr impact which he probably did he can be considered the mvp but his own teammate shiro is just behind him in stats and had a better final.

2021-04-12 00:21

Yeah, I understand your point, the thing is Ax1Le just played too good this tournament and got it 100% deserved. Is just how MVP's works, but I agree that cadiaN's effort is not praised enough, as well as other IGLs or players.

2021-04-12 01:56

I mean it's deserved, overall Gambit played better opponents than Heroic and he was insane on those matches.

2021-04-11 23:39

I agree that ax1le deserves it, I just think it's getting kinda lame and undermines the other team's effort.

2021-04-11 23:55

I agree, while i think it's deserved it's a close one with cadiaN having his good series on the final. Kind of unfortunate.

Unexpected and undeserved rip my boi cadian :(

Right choice. Sh1ro had a good claim to it too, he was the best performer in the final imo, but taking the entire tournament into consideration Ax1le was way too consistent not to get it.

Deserved but I thought for sure sh1ro would win it.

deserved, but i wish igl'ing could have a bit of impact too good player, some good stat padding against astralis :D

If going by stats, s1mple should be mvp every tournament almost Why always give MVP to losing team lol CadiaN has done really good, while IGL'ing... Should count for more

Zywoo gained the MVP's when vitality won their tournaments.

I said almost

No, you said always.

I did didn't i?

#47

2021-04-12 00:07

lol this Danish guy edited

2021-04-12 08:08

Most valuable player =/= guarantee it'll always be from the winning team

Deserved, but cadiaN was best in the end, where it counts the most

But when you're talking about the best player in the tournament, you can't really go off of the grand final alone. And it's stupid to say that the end counts more. You need to get there to win.

Group stage < playoffs

2021-04-11 23:46

The article up there considers the rating in playoffs too.

2021-04-11 23:47

And guess what? Ax1le had 1.25 rating in playoffs Cadian had 1.15 rating in playoffs Even in the grand Finals, Ax1le was only 0.06 behind Cadian. He's a big reason why Gambit was even there.

2021-04-12 08:24

2021-04-12 01:20

2021 MVPs by HLTV.org: BLAST Premier Global Final - Ukraine Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev cs_summit 7 - Russia Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali IEM Katowice - Russia Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov ESL Pro League 13 - Russia Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov CIS STILL STONKS

Cadian final MVP Ax1le all tournament

2021-04-11 23:41

2021-04-12 04:27

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

robbery, chadian deserves it

undeserved totally this is joke, Cadian robbed

2021-04-11 23:48

Deserved, congrats Axile

2021-04-11 23:50

Undeserved couldn't even win

DESERVED! CIS era is upon us, hold on to your butts

2021-04-11 23:54

deserved, baby electronic

cis pumping

2021 year of CIS

Totally deserved! Destroying teams...

Deserved!

2021-04-11 23:56

2021-04-11 23:57

MVP, Most valuable player, and the winner is a guy that had 1 good map in the final, rest average and bad what a joke. Cadian should have won it not for it to be given based on statpadding in the group stage

2021-04-11 23:58

sure lets give mvp awards for whole tournament based on one match up no one cares that axile destroyed previous god knows how many bo3 against hard opposition ranked much higher than heroic veze nemas

statpadding in the group stage when his best performances game in the playoffs 0/8

2021-04-12 00:16

0/8

2021-04-12 01:21

"the winner is a guy that had 1 good map in the final, rest average" cadian isn't a mvp winner lol

2021-04-12 01:37

lucky noob

2021-04-11 23:59

DESERVED

2021-04-12 00:17

cis power

CIS ERA WTF

2021-04-12 00:31

DESERVED!! /CLOSE

DESREVED

2021-04-12 00:33

2021-04-12 00:39

Undeserved This trash play like shit in grand final But farm kd against team one,C9 and Mibr And ofc game of life against astralis Shiro or cadian deserv it more

2021-04-12 00:42

How much you lost ?

ax1le 1.25 playoff ratings. cadian 1.15

2021-04-12 08:43

deserved so much

For me, cadiaN is the MVP of this tournament

they need finals mvp like in NBA for example, they cant just give cadian the whole thing for carrying finals but also its kinda unfair that he doesnt get an individual award for this great performance

2021-04-12 00:44

Deserved, can't wait for Blast!

2021-04-12 00:49

Well deserved mvp! GG Gambit and GG Heroic! Amazing tournament

2021-04-12 00:59

2021-04-12 01:01

Deserved. Ax1le God

2021-04-12 01:15

totally deserved, this dude's mechanical skills are insane. He's the next Electronic I swear. deffo gonna be well in the top 20 for this year.

Deserved I think. I would say overall he is pretty good, but this event he played out of his mind. GG for him.

2021-04-12 01:54

4 TOURNAMENTS IN 2021. 4 RUSKI PLAYERS WON MVP. CIS > WORLD

2021-04-12 02:19

S1mple is not ruski

2021-04-12 08:31

Why are Ukrainian players still playing cis minors?

because HLTV is dumb

2021-04-12 10:05

HLTV dumb, Valve - not. Learn basics, bro

2021-04-12 10:26

CIS dominating

2021-04-12 02:31

Deserved, but I would pick cadian. Poor Heroic lost two MVPs last year and now one more.

Because they either dont have good players or play like astralis - more tactics, less solo shining. Device could pump up his stats too if he didnt play like astralis needs him to play.

2021-04-13 00:46

bot

2021-04-12 02:33

2021-04-12 02:55

i think this is kinda flaw. we need an award far overal MVP and award for final MVP. an overal mvp can be given by hltv while the final mvp will be given by tournament organizer.

2021-04-12 04:38

Didnt cadian get the evp? Thats pretty much what you want.

2021-04-12 09:33

Everything green and then the final

2021-04-12 06:42

Deserved god

2021-04-12 08:06

2021-04-12 08:47

Good job, Mr. Exxile 🔥

2021-04-12 09:01

Gambit :(

2021-04-12 09:02

fair and square

They should have a seperate award for finals mvp and whole tournament mvp

Well then shiro would get finals mvp then. Without him it would be 3:0 heroic.

2021-04-13 00:44

well deserved

2021-04-12 09:47

2021-04-12 10:10

mvp should always go to the winner stop this shit..the whole tournament or the finals i dont care but the winner of the damn thing should always be mvp its a competition after all damn esports can't make it a sport.. its getting pathetic.

2021-04-12 10:41

Yes and MVP is a competition of individual performance. Get it?

2021-04-13 11:18

the most valuable person makes his team win first. i don't think you've ever played any sports in your life.. lol certainly not a team sport

2021-04-14 21:05

You sound so absurd with comments like that, really close to lower chart levels if you know what i mean. You dont have control over the rest of your team, you cant make them hit shots, all you can control is yourself and your own VALUE. There are PLENTY of times when ive won matches be it football or CS:GO where i know that someone on the enemy team played extremely well, arguably better than anyone on my team yet we won. If you can recognize that then you simply arent based in reality. The best performing player does not always win, plain and simple.

2021-05-08 06:20

FFS Can you stop giving MVPs to losers? MVP has to be from the winning team. Otherwise the other player did not able to do everything for the win. Stats do not mean everything. Heroic must have done some things better so they won. Did you ever see a NBA team who lost the final but a player from loser team wins finals MVP? Well the answer is no. (Only happened once but i wont count it since its 50's) HLTV proved once more that they are just playing for fan favorites. This is just amateurism and its getting harder every tournament with giving away MVPs to losers like this one or s1mple (he has many like this)

2021-04-12 10:59

So funny how you contradict yourself and dont even see it. “ Heroic must have done some things better so they won. “ EXACTLY. They did better as a team, they could swap a player and prolly do very similar since they didnt need anyone to carry them. Now swap axile for someone else and boom gambit prolly not even in playoffs. Jesus youre so dumb. Also this is tournament mvp, not finals mvp, fyi.

2021-04-13 00:43

So you contradict with yourself too. MVP should be always from the winner team, ALWAYS. Do you understand retardo? Its just fan feeding selections by hltv like simple or zywoo whenever they lost at semis and still won MVPs. Just look at axile's final performance its literally like shit. Only 1 map above normal ratings which was a 16-3 so nothing spectacular too. There is no such thing as tournament MVP or finals MVP at CSGO. Just MVP award for what fan wants. In a real world MVP award should easily go to someone on Heroic. Also you are a complete retard and i don't even wanna argue with you because you wont accept whatever i say.

2021-04-13 11:57

He didnt contradict himself at all, you're just stubborn and ignorant. #222

2021-05-08 06:21

was the cave good and warm? it was 1 month ago NA burger

2021-05-08 18:27

And that means you're right? No? Wrong 1 month ago and wrong now. Keep crying dweeb. You have 0 arguments, just insults. Incredibly weak

2021-05-09 02:12

i already stated my arguments if you were able to just read but it seems like even that is hard for you MVP means winner not loser period

2021-05-09 19:35

And i countered your argument, so now you have nothing? No where in the phrase Most Valuable Player does it say tournament winner. Try again bud.

2021-05-11 09:37

2021 a year of cis players mvp xdxd

2021-04-12 11:06

2021 is seriously the year of CIS. 4 MVPs and 4 CIS players. Duuuuuude

2021-04-12 11:12

Thank god gambit didn't win it... otherwise sh1ro would've robbed it.

2021-04-12 13:33

2021-04-12 15:30

Twistzz MVP picture from when they lost some event is the best losers MVP ever. He's holding a little trinket looking completely dejected. Shit is kind of funny.

2021-04-12 21:13