The best players to have never won a CS:GO Major before Paris

From legends who will never be able to claim a Major title to the up-and-coming players who will have to wait until CS2 to get their hands on the prized trophy, these are some of the best players who have not lifted the big one before the last chance in Paris.

CS:GO Majors will stop at 19 when the BLAST.tv Paris Major champions are crowned on May 21 in front of a crowd of cheering fans at the Accor Arena. Their names will be etched into the history books along with the 60 previous winners, or perhaps some of those previous champions will add another tally to their Major-winning record.

Some, like the legendary Astralis core of Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz, Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen, Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth and Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander have four each, while some of the best players to ever touch the game have a single one to their name. Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, for instance, who finally lifted the trophy at PGL Stockholm in 2021, or Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen who did so the following year in Antwerp. Other heroes of the game got their hands on a Major trophy early on, such as Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg or Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski, and never managed to repeat the feat.

The final CS:GO Major is a chance for players who have had storied careers in the game, but no Major title to their name, to put the cherry on top before switching to CS2. At the same time it will also be the chance for a new generation that came up during the pandemic to make their mark at the top after circling the waters in what we now know are the late years of Global Offensive.

The title could also go to a group of players that already have a Major to their name from the recent past, such as FaZe or Natus Vincere. But for others, like one of NAVI and FaZe’s most iconic players, it will be the closing of a chapter that had been long coming. The end of CS:GO Majors and thus the chance of winning one.

Top Four

The longest standing superstar with no Major title to his name is, without a doubt, Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač. The Bosnian rifler has 11 Majors to his name, played under three different banners: MOUZ, FaZe and G2. It took some time for NiKo to find his place in the early days as a member of a struggling mousesports squad; at times he led, others he even AWPed in secondary roles, and did anything to try and sort the flailing team out. In the end, after four missed playoff runs at Majors from 2015 to 2017, he went on to the greener pastures of FaZe.

NiKo’s first Major with FaZe was a fiasco and it came not long after the then 20-year-old lifted his first big event trophy and was awarded his first of seven career MVPs to date at SL i-League StarSeries Season 3. The team bombed out of PGL Major Krakow in 15-16th place with three straight best-of-one losses.

The young rifler then got as close as he ever would to hoisting a Major trophy, in Boston, where FaZe were defeated in one of the most exciting finals of all time. The plucky hometown underdogs of Cloud9 took out the star-studded international squad, from 11-15 to a 22-19 on the Inferno decider, to mark one of the most memorable upsets in the game’s history.

NiKo, who has a second-best player of the year award, two third-best player of the year awards, a fourth, a fifth, and two eleventh place finishes, once again got within reaching distance of being one of the elite few to lift a Major trophy in front of a packed arena. This time it was at the first post-Covid Major, PGL Stockholm, where alongside his cousin Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač he made it all the way to the grand final.

Unfortunately for NiKo, he was up against the top player on this list if it were made before that night: s1mple. The Ukrainian superstar and his Natus Vincere claimed the throne. Adding insult to injury, the grand final in Sweden is remembered for a Desert Eagle whiff by NiKo, on map point, which allowed s1mple and company to reach overtime and claim the map to win the series 2-0.

Since then NiKo has failed to make the playoffs in Antwerp and missed out of the Major altogether when it traveled to Rio de Janeiro. The tides are changing for G2, however, who have become one of the frontrunners heading into the BLAST.tv Paris Major with a proven system around in-game leader Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen and young star AWPer Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov.

One of the biggest names in CS:GO history and a legend of the game in his own right, Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács, is the best player from the early days of CS:GO to never hoist a Major trophy. The Slovak outgrew his scene in the early days of the game and made a name for himself in the Russian-speaking Natus Vincere dating back to 2014. He only missed the very first CS:GO Major, DreamHack Winter 2013, and after that became a staple by playing at 14 Majors straight without missing a single one.

Guardian had one semi-final appearance in his first year, at DreamHack Winter 2014, where NAVI lost to the eventual champions, LDLC. After parting ways with Sergey "⁠starix⁠" Ischuk they then went out in the quarter-finals twice, but bounced back and made it all the way to the championship games at DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca and MLG Columbus. Sadly, both of those finals were lost, the first to crown Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub and Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire champions for the first time, and the second time to a burgeoning Luminosity squad that went on to win back-to-back Majors with two-time Major MVP Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David leading the way.

GuardiaN then had to wait two years for another perfect opportunity. Following two quarter-final appearances and a group stage exit, the Slovakian sniper landed in FaZe alongside NiKo and, in his first Major with the international outfit, suffered the devastating comeback loss to Cloud9 alongside the Bosnian star.

GuardiaN never recovered from Boston. He didn’t play any of the three next Majors to the same standard and was transferred back to NAVI, but after an unfruitful two months which ended up with s1mple taking over the AWP, the Slovak was removed from the team. Then in his late 20s, GuardiaN's career slowed down to the point in which he never qualified for another Major after Covid. The second best player of 2015 and six time top 20 player of the year will therefore not have a shot at lifting the coveted trophy at the last CS:GO Major in Paris and will go down as one of the best players to never make it.

North America celebrated a Major triumph in 2018, but the players that lifted the silverware in Boston have either retired or are struggling in lower rungs of competition. Liquid, whose trusty stalwart is one-club man Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski, took the reins in the international scene and have since been the top North American side after becoming big event winners — they were even crowned Intel Grand Slam Season 2 champions in a lightning-quick 68 days —, but the Major always remained elusive.

EliGE has played 11 Majors, all of them in the eight years he spent in Liquid, and has been a finalist and two-time semi-finalist on the biggest stage. He first made it to a Major in Cluj-Napoca 2015, where he went out in the group stage, but at the turn of the year is when Liquid would really start to shine. Alongside a rising superstar in s1mple, EliGE and the rest of the North American side went on to make a semi-final on home soil, at MLG Columbus 2016, before reaching the grand final of ESL One Cologne 2016.

The tournament in Germany was EliGE’s first big jump on a Major stage, as he went from a 0.92 rating in Cluj and 1.02 in Columbus to a staggering 1.15 on the shores of the Rhine. Liquid completely deflated in the grand final, however, with s1mple posting a server-low 0.63 rating in the 0-2 defeat as the Brazilian SK team upped their Major tally to two. They had been knocked out of MLG Columbus by the Brazilians in match rememberred as one of the biggest chokes in CS:GO history, but this time were completely blown out of the water.

EliGE reached one more final four, at the FACEIT London Major in 2018, but Liquid bowed to the hegemonic Astralis on that occasion. The last two pre-pandemic Majors were quarter-final finishes and after Covid Liquid has failed to make the playoffs on three occasions.

EliGE has four MVPs to his name and has been a top 5, top 10 and three times top 20 player of the year. He has added IEM and ESL Pro League trophies, among others, to Liquid’s cabinet, and he is one of 19 players to have conquered an Intel Grand Slam. Going into the Paris Major as one of the most decorated North American players and the most decorated without a Major trophy to his name, this will be his last shot at engraving his name on the title before the switch to CS2.

Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut is of a newer generation, but already deserves to be mentioned among the greatest of the decade to not have won a Major as he has twice been the best player in the world, once in the year before the Covid pandemic hit and then in the online era, and was only superseded by s1mple in 2021 and 2022. He has 14 MVP awards to his name despite only having claimed eight trophies — a testament to his ability to be a one-man army.

Since the French AWPer broke out in 2019 he has played five Majors, four of them starting in the Challengers Stage. Twice he made the playoffs, at the last event before the online era, StarLadder Berlin 2019, and the first after opening back up, PGL Stockholm 2021. ZywOo boasts an incredible 1.26 rating, although it is somewhat bloated by his dominating performances in Challengers Stages. He was no slouch at the Majors in which he reached the playoffs, however, sporting 1.22 and 1.30 ratings, which shows how dependent on him Vitality have been in the past.

This time around, with more players stepping up ahead of the organization’s home Major in Paris, the French star will hope the team’s good form after winning IEM Rio will continue in order to add a Major trophy to his collection. Next to him is an equally hungry and a rising star of his own, Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi, who also has no Major to his name, and three of the longest-tenured Major players. apEX, who has a Major victory of his own, and the Danish duo of Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif and dupreeh, who have seven between the two. On top of that, the latter will be the only player left standing after 19 Majors to attend every single one of them.

Honorable mentions

Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella has been a longtime stalwart of Liquid, having played alongside EliGE for most of his career with the exception of his first Major, which he played with iBUYPOWER at DreamHack Winter 2014. The American captain did make a pause, however, and took to VALORANT for a brief period before returning to Counter-Strike, which made him miss PGL Stockholm right after the online era, in 2021.

Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic is also one of the players, along with nitr0 and EliGE, to have been part of the dominant Liquid side that won the Grand Slam in 2019 and is yet without a Major. The Canadian rifler made it to the Majors for the first time with ELEAGUE Premier champions OpTic in 2016, but he didn’t make it to the playoffs at any of his two Major events with them, ESL One Cologne and ELEAGUE Major Atlanta. He then played the Boston 2018 Challengers Stage with Renegades, but it wasn't until the FACEIT Major, his first with Liquid, that he hit the playoffs and made the semi-finals, his furthest run to date at a Valve-sanctioned event.

A beacon of stability, NAF’s career 1.09 rating is exactly the same as that of his Majors. The five-time MVP has been a top 20 player of the year three times, coming in sixth in 2018, seventh in 2019 and fourteenth in 2021.

Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman was always a player that could be counted on as a solid foundation — especially in pistol rounds and at times even as a leader. The Swede played ten Majors, reaching the semi-final four times with three different teams. He came up with Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer and Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson in LGB, then went on to play on Kinguin and G2’s international squad — the precursor of FaZe —, and eventually reunited with his Swedish compatriots in fnatic.

It was during his time in fnatic that dennis was most prolific as a part of the squad that won six consecutive titles at the tail end of 2015 and early 2016, which helped him squeeze into the top 20 players of 2016. The first event that broke the win streak was a quarter-final finish at MLG Columbus after which dennis and company then made two semi-finals at ESL One Cologne and ELEAGUE Major Atlanta, but the Swedish side would not lift another trophy with that five. dennis gave it a go at the Majors two more times, in 2018 and 2019, with Ninjas in Pyjamas, but to no avail.

The Belgian duo of Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom and Kévin "⁠Ex6TenZ⁠" Droolans was a staple in the best French sides during the dawn of CS:GO — they were the brawn and the brains, respectively. ScreaM, whose crisp aim made him world famous as the headshot machine, was a real threat and came up as an early star of the new game due to his mechanical talent, while Ex6TenZ was one of the most respected tacticians.

The Belgian IGL put forth early systems that dislodged Ninjas in Pyjamas from the throne just in time to make a bid for the first Major, DreamHack Winter 2013. Alas, the Swedes got one over Ex6TenZ's VeryGames just to stumble at the final hurdle in the grand final against fnatic.

ScreaM and Ex6TenZ were always on the wrong side of French shuffles and in the end it riflers Nathan "⁠NBK-⁠" Schmitt and Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey, along with the in-game leader of the moment in 2014 and 2015, Vincent "⁠Happy⁠" Schopenhauer, who ended up tallying two Major victories to their names. After VeryGames, Ex6TenZ played five Majors with Titan and two with G2, but was cursed to never make it out of the group stage.

ScreaM played three with Titan, sandwiching an ESL One Cologne 2015 attendance with Kinguin. Oddly enough, after returning to the French scene, ScreaM never made a Major playoff appearance again following the quarter-final run with the first star-studded international squad to make it big, which included dennis from this list.

Modern day challengers

Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller has been playing CS:GO forever and was even present at the first Major with Xapso, a Nordic mix that also featured Philip "⁠aizy⁠" Aistrup. Then in 2014 he played Majors with MOUZ and CPH Wolves before disappearing from the elite circles and in 2018 made a brief reappearance with Rogue, reaching the FACEIT Major’s Challengers Stage while grinding to get his career back in shape. But it wasn’t until he joined HEROIC that his time at the top started in earnest.

He teamed up with Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund in 2019 to make one of the most dynamic duos actively playing. The young rifler was the perfect sidekick to cadiaN's leading and AWPing as a rising star that has been turning heads since his early teens with Fragsters. Fast-forwarding to the pandemic, HEROIC won big online events, hit the top of the world ranking, and the only question was if they would be able to reach the same heights when LAN play returned.

Right out of the gate HEROIC made top four at the PGL Major in Stockholm, knocked out after a tight series against G2 in the semi-final. In Antwerp they weren’t able to make it quite as far and fell off in the quarter-finals, this time to Natus Vincere, but it was easy to see the Danish side becoming one of the most stable in Counter-Strike — perhaps not in terms of winning trophies, but surely in terms of making deep runs at events. Finally, at the IEM Rio Major, HEROIC had their best shot at the title. Now with Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard in the ranks, the team made it all the way to face dark horses Outsiders in the final. It wasn’t to be, however, and HEROIC went weak at the knees, proving they were not yet ready to take home the title.

Now, with jabbi well folded into the team and HEROIC sporting the top spot in the world ranking, it could well be the time for cadiaN and stavn to claim their next summit after reaching the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and grand final of the three post-pandemic Majors.

Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov and Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov are part of the new generation of talent that spawned during the tough days of the Covid lockdowns, when play was moved online and teams grinded interminably from their homes and bootcamp facilities. Under the tutelage of Konstantin "⁠groove⁠" Pikiner, Gambit sprung to claim the top spot in the world ranking, and although they are not yet legends of the game and have the same claim as players like NiKo or GuardiaN, they have made inroads to one day stake a claim on the throne. So far, however, they have been outshined by the likes of s1mple and karrigan, who recently made their ways to their own first Major victories.

It hasn’t all been easy since the world reopened, but the team, since acquired by Cloud9, made it to the first three post-lockdown Majors. They started off hot with a top four finish at PGL Stockholm, but were then knocked out in the groups at PGL Antwerp and then in the quarter-finals of the IEM Rio Major.

There has been doubt on how far this team can go as they only won one trophy of note on LAN, IEM Dallas, and the team’s two star players — who will no doubt bid to win Majors in the future — will close out their CS:GO chapter without a victory on the biggest stage. Cloud9 fumbled their qualification to the Paris Major at the RMRs and were taken out by FaZe in the Last Chance Qualifier, which means the earliest they could win the big one is the first on Counter-Strike 2 in 2024.

Despite their youth and Cloud9's recent missteps, sh1ro and Ax1Le have more than shown that they are players of the caliber to be fighting to put a Major in their collection. The AWPer has been the fourth and third best player of the year in 2021 and 2022, trailing only s1mple and ZywOo the last time around, while Ax1Le was right behind him both years, in fifth and fourth place.

Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato rounds out the list with a similar timeline to stavn. He started to make waves not long before the Covid lockdowns, but really brought his game to a new level in the past three Majors. The Brazilian rifler, now easily the best player from his home country, broke into the top 20 players of the year for the first time during the online era, in 2020. He improved in 2021, going from eighteenth to fifteenth, and then broke the top 10 barrier in 2022, finishing ninth.

Before the online era FURIA struggled at the Majors, reaching only the Challengers Stages in Berlin and Katowice in 2019. That changed in 2021, however, as they made it out of the Legends Stage and into the playoffs, where KSCERATO lost to sh1ro and Ax1Le in their first Major arena match. Then FURIA repeated the feat in Antwerp, but this time bowing out to the tournament's darlings, Spirit. Russian squads were, twice in a row, the Brazilian team's kryptonite at the Majors.

Finally, on home soil, KSCERATO showed what he is capable of. Playing at the peak of his abilities he carried FURIA to the IEM Rio semi-finals with a 1.33 rating and 1.43 impact at the event. He was the highest-rated player against Natus Vincere in the quarter-finals. He was then even the highest-rated player on the server in the lost semi-final match to HEROIC, above both stavn and cadiaN, with a 1.36 rating to their respective 1.27 and 1.17. KSCERATO has not lifted his foot off the gas since the summer of 2022 and, if he continues in this form, will no doubt be a force to be reckoned with at the BLAST.tv Paris Major.