Best Five: CS Asia Championships 2023

See who joins Jimpphat and ropz in our role-based team of the event.

FaZe are on a roll. They have won both major CS2 LANs, and, if we include online results, have won 15 best-of-threes on the bounce.

Key to that success is Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool, who just beat out Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo for the MVP and Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken hailed as the "best CS2 player in the world right now."

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ropz named CS Asia Championships 2023 MVP

To see who joins those two MVP candidates, we will apply the same methodology that we use for MVPs, splitting players into categories to create what should be a balanced Best Five. 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.
AWPer: Players who record more than 20% of their kills with snipers.
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
IGL: In-game leaders and captains. The primary strategic caller.
Opener: The inverse of Closer: Pack riflers on T side. Their average must exceed five points.

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Let's start with Jimpphat, who has taken to tier one LAN play like a duck to water. MOUZ's anchor missed IEM Sydney after visa issues, and upon his return to the side in Shanghai we saw exactly what MOUZ were lacking: He finished the event with an average of 82 ADR, a multi-kill in 20.3% of rounds, and a whopping 1.39 arena rating.

A 1.68 rating against Lynn Vision in the quarter-finals does boost his stats , but it was still only down to ropz's excellence that he missed out on his maiden MVP.

We can see from Jimpphat's radar that he is not your typical support player. He does not pick up many SMGs, or offer his life up to be traded. What he does provide is mind-boggling multi-kill potential as an anchor, giving MOUZ that extra bit of confident to divert resources away from his site that can make all the difference.

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Jimpphat on adapting to tier one: "It has actually been pretty easy"

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Primary snipers struggled in Shanghai, meaning we had to dip into the semi-finals to find our Best Five's AWPer. Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants ended the event on a 0.95 rating, Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García 1.02, and Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás 1.00.

But Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz, despite CS2's peekers advantage and increased aim punch while scoped, still managed to deliver his trademark consistency.

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device: "I like that the AWP is not as OP as it was in CS:GO"

Ending the event on a 1.30 rating, the Dane did not just win this award by default. He delivered 3.72 openers per 24 rounds (3rd overall) and though he excelled in survival and KAST, 78% of his kills still came in won rounds, the highest out of any AWPer.

device has spoken at length around his view on the importance of using the AWP aggressively given its price, and in MR12 that has only become more important.

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ropz's stock could not be much higher right now. His impact on the macro and micro of FaZe's gameplan is obvious, using his talent for new grenades and gimmicks to help fire them to No. 1 in the world.

That would be impressive on its own, but ropz's individual form has been just as stellar. He has a 1.20 LAN rating on CS2, two MVPs (while coming close to a third in Sydney), and re-defined his game to suit CS2 remarkably quickly.

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ropz: "I'm super happy to be performing like this"

He is still a passive player, but his playmaking mid-round has stepped up a notch with the advent of the new game. When FaZe make a play around breaking a smoke, it is ropz that often gets to play through it on maps like Ancient around Elbow.

There was strong competition in the category from Jimpphat, David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský, Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz, and a resurgence from Fredrik "⁠REZ⁠" Sterner, but MVP ropz was too hard to dislodge.

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A slow 2023 meant that, for the first time since he rejoined FaZe, there were questions about Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen's future. Their start to CS2 has all but silenced those doubters: The 33-year-old is still displaying the conditioning, adaptation, and crunch-time calling that puts him right in the upper echelon of the game's captains.

A lot of credit, rightly, goes to ropz for FaZe's resurgence in CS2 but it would be wrong to use that as an argument against karrigan's impact. Knowlege of CS2's gimmicks and grenades can only take your far; it is the macro game of karrigan that is making use of these tactics and building such an effective system.

FaZe's T side had the second highest RW% (behind Astralis), and they overcame a very low 39% opening kill success rate on offense via great trading (25%) and 4v5 win% (40%).

Team stats are not as illustrative of in-game leadership as an eye test will ever be, but these are good indications that the FaZe system is firing — especially when you consider that this was an off event for broky (0.95 rating). ropz may have clinched the MVP, but this event still showed a FaZe winning as much off the back of their system as their individuals. For that karrigan deserves this credit.

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Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer, on paper, seems an unusual pick in the Opener category but he is in map control situations on all seven maps, occupying the on-meta in-game leader roaming T side positions.

In a similar vein to Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund, he is a very different type of opener to the likes of Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač or Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard who have won this award before. He is not going for many openers on T side, but he is still a crucial cog of map control by way of going for trades and setting up more aggressive teammates.

On CT side, very few players can hold a candle to (or question) blameF's impact. He is a star rotator as good as any rifler, posting a 1.48 CT rating this event and securing the most CT openers of anyone too (3.32 per 24 rounds). His kills have serious impact, too; 83% of his kills in this event came in round wins.

Like the AWPer category, the opener category was fairly weak among the best teams at this event which left the door open for blameF to walk in and take it. His overall rating (a whopping 1.38) was inflated by a stunning group stage, but he still boasted the best playoff rating of any opener at 1.12 and takes the award home.

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So it is karrigan, blameF, and device who join ropz and Jimpphat in our final lineup.

The squad does skew a bit passive thanks to the similarity between ropz and Jimpphat and blameF being more of a trader than a raw spacetaker, but this lineup would still represent a terrifying CT force. karrigan would miss having a lieutenant like rain, having to take up far more entry work himself, but it's not impossible to make work.

With a dearth of competition in the AWPer and opener categories, these are the five players that stood out most in their positions at the event that consolidated FaZe's grip on number one.

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Best Five: IEM Sydney 2023