HLTV Awards 2024 panel: Who votes and how it works

We explain the process behind the six role-based awards our expert panel for the HLTV Awards by 1xBet 2024.

There's three elements to the HLTV Awards: Internal awards, voted on by HLTV staff; Community awards, voted by the site's users, and Panel awards, voted on by an expert panel.

This year, we have assembled 10 on-air talent members, five of HLTV's newsroom, and 20 representatives from the best teams of 2024 to form the panel, including the likes of Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski, Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, and Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy.

The system means the majority of the votes come from players (or coaches) themselves, giving it an extra ounce of satisfaction.

Voting begins today, while the three finalists for each award will be announced on December 28, and the winners at the Awards on January 11.

HLTV Awards terminology reminder:

Nominees: The top 10 in a category that are voted on by the community or panel, depending on the category of the award.
Finalists: The top 3 by the decision of the community, panel, or HLTV, depending on the category of the award. Finalists receive paid invite to HLTV Awards ceremony and finalist medal.
Winner: The top 1 in a certain category, unveiled from the three Finalists during HLTV Awards ceremony.

The panel of 35 decide the seven "Panel Awards" categories:

- Coach of the year
- IGL of the year
- Opener of the year
- Closer of the year
- Anchor of the year
- AWPer of the year
- Highlight of the year

Some are straightforward, like the highlight of the year. Our video team collated the 50 best highlights of the year, before our content team voted to narrow that down to the top 10. Now it is on the panel to decide the #1.

The coach and in-game leader of the year awards are difficult ones to quantify, such is the fog of war around their impact in the mid-round, preparation, timeouts, vetoes, and so on. So we have selected nominees from the team ranking for 2024, excluding people who were not there for a sufficient time period.

AWPers, too, are obvious: Primary AWPers, with more than 0.20 sniper kills per round.

Now to the interesting bit, the three rifler awards.

How do the roles work?

Each rifler has had their position tracked throughout 2024, for all maps.

We then assign a score for each. Let's start with T side, the more straightforward one.

Our categories are 'Opener' and 'Closer' of the year - a straight divide between the map control, pack, riflers and the extremity players or lurkers.

Each position is ranked from 0 (full lurk spots like Lobby on Nuke) to 10 (map control spots like A Ramp on Vertigo).

Players are then given an average score across the maps they played (including Overpass from earlier in the year) to identify which of the two buckets they are placed in.

We use the T side distinction to separate our star riflers, with space for an aggressive and passive star in our all-star team of the year.

The fifth and final spot is for players with a tougher time, those who occupy the lower-activity, tricky, anchor spots on CT side.

The scoring system is the same: 10 for star spots like Toilets on Overpass or Conn on Mirage, and 0 for B on Mirage or Floor on Nuke.

Players have to be full-time anchors to qualify for our final award

We are then quite strict, looking only at players with an average score below 4.

A second check is also done, on a player's 'target rating' — the average rating of players in their exact set of positions. If it is above 1.05 they are excluded, in order to keep this award to players with hard roles. Players who pick and choose comfy spots on some maps and the 'star' anchors on others generally don't make it in.

For the nominees, we use a process similar to the one used for the top 20 but in each specific role. We are, generally, looking at the best ten players that qualify for each award, rather than the 'best anchor.' A player's T side also matters for Anchor, and their CT side matters for Opener and Closer.

And, finally, the panel. We invited a representative from each of the top 20 teams of 2024, 10 talent members (colour commentators or analysts), and five internal HLTV staff. Here's that list in full, with some teams yet to confirm their representative.

Team representatives

Astralis - Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller
BIG - Karim "⁠Krimbo⁠" Moussa
Cloud9 - Konstantin "⁠groove⁠" Pikiner
Complexity - Johnny "⁠JT⁠" Theodosiou
Eternal Fire - Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli
Falcons - Marco "⁠Snappi⁠" Pfeiffer
FaZe - Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski
FURIA - Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo
G2 - Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas
HEROIC - Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha
MIBR - Raphael "⁠exit⁠" Lacerda
The MongolZ - Garidmagnai "⁠bLitz⁠" Byambasuren
MOUZ - Dennis "⁠sycrone⁠" Nielsen
Natus Vincere - Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy
SAW - Christopher "⁠MUTiRiS⁠" Fernandes
Spirit - Sergey "⁠hally⁠" Shavaev
Vitality - Dan "⁠apEX⁠" Madesclaire
Virtus.pro - Pavel "⁠PASHANOJ⁠" Legostaev
GamerLegion - Ashley "⁠ash⁠" Battye*
3DMAX - Bryan "⁠Maka⁠" Canda*

* Liquid and paiN did not answer in time, and were replaced by GamerLegion and 3DMAX as the 21st and 22nd best teams of the year.

On-air Talent

Sudhen "⁠Bleh⁠" Wahengbam
Lucas "⁠Bubzkji⁠" Andersen
Dmitry "⁠hooch⁠" Bogdanov
Mohan "⁠launders⁠" Govindasamy
Alex "⁠Mauisnake⁠" Ellenberg
Jason "⁠moses⁠" O'Toole
Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche
Chad "⁠SPUNJ⁠" Burchill
Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk
Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović

HLTV staff

Lucas "LucasAM" Aznar Miles
Luís "⁠MIRAA⁠" Mira
Danish "⁠Nohte⁠" Allana
Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda
Petar "Tgwri1s" Milovanovic