Best five of IEM Rio 2023

KSCERATO and stavn join a Vitality trio in our all-star team of the event.

IEM Rio concluded with Vitality getting the perfect boost of confidence ahead of the organization's home Major, and it was star man Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut who clinched the HLTV x 1xBet MVP.

With the event now behind us, it is a good time to take stock and decide on the best five of the event, a squad built up of the best player in each role. In terms of the roles themselves, we will be using the same system as HLTV's end-of-year Award Show.

Click here for more methodology behind defining which players are eligible for each category.

The IGL and AWPer are self-explanatory, with the opener being the team's aggressive pack rifler and closer its lurker. The final position is the anchor, where players become eligible after playing at least three small or big site anchor positions.

Anchor

For many, IEM Rio 2023 cemented Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato as the best rifler in the world right now. The Brazilian averages a 1.28 rating since the summer player break last year, and has not recorded an event below 1.20 since then.

That means this 1.20 rating is actually low for his standards, with a fairly average series against Cloud9 dragging his average down. It was against FaZe and HEROIC that we saw the true strength of FURIA's sharpest fang, with a 1.44 series rating against the former and 1.30 against the latter.

His is not a name that immediately comes to mind when we think of anchors but he is eligible for this award thanks to holding B on Vertigo, A on Ancient, Monster on Overpass, and A on Anubis.

AWPer

ZywOo, like KSCERATO, has barely put a foot wrong since the summer of 2022. The one event where ZywOo did struggle in this period was the Rio Major, so there may have been an added sweetness to clinching the title in the same city.

It also helped that this time round his teammates were there to help. "It's less pressure on my shoulders because I don't have to think 'I need to perform, I need to perform' every time," the French star said in his MVP interview.

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ZywOo was lucky his teammates did perform, too: He was off-color as Vitality slumped to a 1-12 scoreline on Vertigo against Cloud9, just four rounds from elimination. Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen led a historic comeback, posting 127.4 ADR as Cloud9 collapsed just for ZywOo to deliver a 1.96 rating on the decider.

It was not the domineering MVP performance of ESL Pro League Season 16, but that may be a good sign for a Vitality that has sorely lacked firepower. ZywOo is still their superstar, but this was no one-man show.

Closer

Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi was signed to be the second fiddle to ZywOo, but only showed flashes of the brilliance that Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer and Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha extracted from him when he came up in ENCE.

Now, though, the Israeli looks to have got into his groove. A 1.91 rating against FaZe proved that, by far his highest series rating since joining Vitality.

He could not quite maintain his group stage level in playoffs, falling from a 1.41 rating before the arena to a 1.25 as Vitality raised the trophy. Yet, it was that group stage form that saved his side as they ran the gauntlet in the lower bracket.

Spinx remains a diamond in the rough, but plenty of bright is shining through.

IGL

The winning captain is not guaranteed a place in the best five, but it is hard to look past Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire on this occasion. The Frenchman finally looks to have found a balance between his style of calling and that of the ex-Astralis trio, and — at Rio at least — we are seeing the fruits of such a marriage.

Vitality sported the best T side round win percentage of the event at 57.7%, and won 83.3% of their 5v4s on the attacking half. A lot of things went right for apEX in Rio, but we should give him and Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen a solid amount of credit for not only the boost in performance from Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif, Spinx and dupreeh, but also for the improvements made to the system overall.

apEX, as ever, was a master of utility at the event with 0.14 flash assists per round (2nd), 9.0 utility ADR, and he even stepped up with a 1.46 rating on Inferno in the final. Vitality go into Paris rejuvenated, and now it is apEX's task to make it stick.

Opener

Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund was HEROIC's highest-rated player in playoffs with a 1.11, starring on Ancient against FURIA (1.32 rating) and Natus Vincere (1.71). He is elevated to a 1.18 rating overall thanks in part to his demolition job of The MongolZ in groups, although it is true that he struggled to find his usual level on Overpass against Natus Vincere and on Inferno against Vitality.

But there were also flaws in the campaigns of his competitors for the opener category. Yuri "⁠yuurih⁠" Santos, Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov, and dupreeh also showed a strong level, but dupreeh and electroNic had low lows to match their high highs.

yuurih had the same overall rating as stavn, but was below KSCERATO in map wins against FaZe and Rafael "⁠saffee⁠" Costa against Cloud9. His two top-fragging maps actually came in losses to Cloud9 and HEROIC, meaning stavn is the only one out of the quartet to be their team's most important piece.

There we have it — our best five of IEM Rio. There may be a few more role clashes in this lineup than our previous best fives thanks to KSCERATO's star status, but we have still built a fairly balanced team. It is basically Vitality with stavn in for dupreeh and KSCERATO in for Magisk, players they are not a world away from in terms of role.

Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov is unlucky to miss out in the ultra-competitive AWP spot after putting up a 1.39 rating in playoffs and 1.29 overall, but other than that we have managed to reward most of the best performers of IEM Rio.

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