Best Five: ESL Pro League Season 18

frozen and torzsi star in our role-based team of the event.

MOUZ stunned everyone at ESL Pro League, running through four top 10 teams in succession to take the trophy home. It was a true team effort too, with all five players chipping in to help them overcome on-paper firepower deficits time and time again.

Spots in the team are decided the same way as MVPs, but within each role. Here's a recap on how those work:

Anchor: Supportive players on CT Side. Players get points for each spot; e.g. B Mirage is 0 points, A Connector is 10, and other spots scale between that. Anchors must average below 3 points overall.
Closer: Lurkers on T side. Points are awarded like for Anchor, but on T spots. Full lurk spots are 0 points, roaming pack spots are 10. Players' averages must be below five to qualify for the Closer category
Opener: The inverse of Closer: Pack riflers on T side. Their average must exceed five points.

So did MOUZ claim all five spots in our Best Five? Keep reading to find out.

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Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo was a force to be reckoned with in the playoffs, averaging a 1.24 rating against some of the best teams in the world. Doing so at just 17 years of age only makes his feat more impressive, but perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that a Finn was ice-cool on stage.

He was a late-round force, winning 13 clutches (1st) and dying even less than David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský with a survival rate of 48% (2nd). Stats also might not tell the full story of Jimpphat, who would come alive when teams tested his bombsite or his nerves in a late-game clutch.

It was in the biggest moments where he raised his level, justifying MOUZ's bold decision to slot him in over Jon "⁠JDC⁠" de Castro.

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Stat check: MOUZ go for firepower over comfort

Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy came into the final as a heavy favorite in this category but finished the event with a 1.04 playoff rating, a full 0.20 behind Jimpphat, pushing the award the Finn's way.

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MVP Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás takes the AWPer prize, ahead of strong competition from Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García, and Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov.

We are finally seeing success from the aggressive style torzsi used in WePlay Academy League, starting most CT rounds with some sort of a plan for a pick. His active game plan is shown clearly on his radar, scoring highly in openers and multi-kills but lower in clutches.

While most teams have their AWPer as their late-round player, torzsi is comfortable leaving frozen and Jimpphat in clutches to get the most out of the $4750 weapon in the early round.

torzsi's playoff form was what clinched him both this award and the MVP, being MOUZ' best player on four of their last six maps in the tournament.

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frozen has been one of the most consistent players this year, and he was ever-present as a deciding factor for MOUZ at Pro League.

He epitomizes the closer category, making the role his own since Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool's departure and ending the event with a 46% survival rate (2nd in his category) and 11 clutches (3rd) — 9 of which came in playoffs.

Highlights included a 1.73 rating against G2 on Inferno, but his floor was staggeringly high throughout the event. torzsi narrowly pipped him to the MVP but frozen had no such competition in the closer department.

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Kamil "⁠siuhy⁠" Szkaradek wins his second IGL award of the year after achieving the same feat at the BLAST.tv Paris Major, but this time he takes home the tournament trophy as well.

MOUZ had a whopping 62.8% round win percentage on T side in the playoffs, and were one of the best offensive forces throughout the tournament (59.3%, 3rd).

Doing this against teams as strong as Natus Vincere, ENCE, G2, and FaZe is a testament to siuhy's leadership and put him beyond Aleksi "⁠Aleksib⁠" Virolainen and Volodymyr "⁠Woro2k⁠" Veletniuk in this category.

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Starting to detect a theme yet? Well, it's not quite a MOUZ full house — thanks to Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş.

Dorian "⁠xertioN⁠" Berman had a strong event, and would have had the form to take the opener prize home in the vast majority of tournaments with a 1.22 playoff rating.

But XANTARES was on another level, putting in four maps above a 1.52 rating and spurring Eternal Fire to a top-eight finish. XANTARES ended the playoffs with a 1.29 average rating, hitting astronomical peaks on multiple occasions and providing the x-factor that Eternal Fire so often needed. For context, none of his teammates, even the impressive Ali "⁠Wicadia⁠" Haydar Yalçın, averaged above a 1.03 in playoffs.

It's unfortunate for xertioN, but XANTARES hit his peaks in close matches and was more important to Eternal Fire's underdog run than xertioN was to MOUZ's superb team effort.

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There we have it: Four MOUZ players (a new record) make it into our team of the event, but they're denied the full set by the superb XANTARES.

It says it all about siuhy and company that this could easily have been five out of five for MOUZ: Every single player excelled within their role in one of the best team performances of the year. The young international squad was more than fitting victors for the last Big Event in Global Offensive history.

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