One of the best awpers in the history of CS and a Best Counter-Strike Player award-winner in 2005, Danny "fRoD" Montaner takes the 14th position in our Top 20 players of 2010 list, as he showed us during the last year that he is still one of the best in the world.

Basic information

Player: Danny "fRoD" Montaner
Team: Evil Geniuses
Age: 24

Team achievements in 2010:

1st - MSI BEAT IT, ESEA-Invite S5, ESEA-Invite S6, ESEA-Invite S7
2nd - IEM5 American Championship Finals, WCG Pan-American Championship
3rd - Arbalet Cup Dallas

Stats from major LAN tournaments in 2010:

Kills per round: 0.76
Deaths per round: 0.65
Rating: 1.13 (?)
Maps played: 60
MoM: 12 times top rated in a match
Best tournament: Arbalet Cup Dallas
Best map: de_train
Most notable stat: 4th best in kills per round with awp (0.25)

Danny "fRoD" Montaner joined Evil Geniuses in December 2008 after being a part of compLexity since mid-2004, including the time spent playing CS:Source in CGS. Upon his return to 1.6 he quickly got his form back, even though EG wasn't overly successful in 2009, winning only GameGune Mexico and placing 3rd at Arbalet Cup Europe at the very end of the year. In 2010 the team progressed along with Montaner, winning a more prestigious international tournament, MSI BEAT IT, and more importantly, showing that they can beat almost any top team at a given day.

A promising beginning

The first international tournament for the American team was to be IEM4 World Championship in Hannover. They had a brilliant start when they placed first in their group after defeating teams like fnatic, mTw and Frag eXecutors. However, they didn't continue in the same manner as they were later beaten by Na`Vi in the semi-final and then by SK in the 3rd place decider. Montaner overall had an average tournament, with some ups and downs, recording a 1.01 rating. His brightest moment was surely his performance against fnatic when he recorded a 29-18 score, while outawping his opponents 20-1. He also finished as the events second most successful awper with 72 kills (0.27 per round).

A short while after Hannover, Evil Geniuses won a title in their domestic competition, ESEA-Invite Season 5, while Montaner was their best player at the LAN finals of the tournament.

Next major tournament for EG was Arbalet Cup Europe, which turned out to be their least successful one of the year, as they didn't make it past the first group stage. Although, some controversy surrounded their group which saw WeMade FOX and UNiTED go through. They did however have a bright spot in the tournament, managing to defeat SK Gaming in a match that could have potentially brought them to the next stage, while Montaner was the best rated player of that encounter.

In July, they attended ESWC in Paris, France where this time they managed to make it to the second group stage, but then they were easily dealt with by mTw and Frag eXecutors. Montaner however had a very good tournament individually, as he was rated above 1.00 in 4 of 5 matches (1.17 overall rating), while his standout performance was against Ukrainian team PinG when he recorded a 38-19 score.

Next up were another LAN Finals of ESEA-Invite in Dallas, this time for season 6, as Evil Geniuses managed to defend their title in North America and Montaner had a solid tournament with a 1.14 rating.

Fulfilling the potential

Over the next few days, Arbalet Cup Dallas was held at the same venue as Evil Geniuses managed to achieve their biggest success until that point in the year, finishing at 3rd place only behind Na`Vi and mousesports. Montaner himself had a very successful showing (1.22 rating, 7th best at the event), especially excelling in their quarter-final match against BURNING when he recorded an astonishing 2.02 rating over the two maps, practically singlehandedly defeating the French. He also played great in each map of their 3rd place decider versus H2k. But most importantly, he was named the Best AWP of the tournament, recording a total of 100 kills with the big green (0.26 per round).

Evil Geniuses traveled to Brazil next, to attend WCG Pan-American Championship where they placed 2nd behind FireGamers, although while using a stand-in instead of their in-game leader Tomi "lurppis" Kovanen. Montaner was the event's second best rated player with an excellent 1.34 rating while putting up great resistance in the final map of the tournament (37-24 personal score) which his team lost in double overtime.

MSI BEAT IT tournament in China followed, where EG showed their best form of the year, which culminated with their victory over fnatic in the final as they took the 1st place. Montaner had a very good tournament individually recording a 1.12 rating, while he was also the best awper by far with 0.26 kills per round. He played particularly well in the final against fnatic, where he was the top rated player over the 3 maps with a 1.35 rating, especially great in the last map when he recorded a 30-12 score while outawping the Swedes 18-0.

Prior to their next international appearance, which was going to be in Los Angeles at the World Cyber Games, Evil Geniuses made a lineup change, bringing in Derek "dboorN" Boorn instead of Ediz "goodfornothing" Basol. They were also unable to use their in-game leader Kovanen once again due to his nationality. But that didn't stop them from making it through the group of death which contained Lions and F2F, although they were later stopped in quarter-final by eventual finalists mTw. Montaner did not excel at this tournament, recording only a 0.96 rating, as well as his lowest awpKPR of the year (0.16).

Montaner picked his form up only a week later at the IEM5 American Champioship Finals, by being the top rated player of the event with his personal best rating of the year, 1.43. Even though EG were again defeated by the Brazilians in the final, this time under the name of Montaner's ex-team compLexity, they managed to qualify for the IEM5 World Championship in March 2011.

In their last international appearance of the year, the American team attended WEM where they finished as 5th-6th. Montaner had his worst rating of the year, 0.81 overall from their 3 matches, but he once again showed his best against Swedish powerhouse fnatic when he outawped them 24-1 in a triple-overtime encounter which EG managed to win. That match also brought what was probably his highlight round of the year:

Montaner's amazing 4 kills with the awp against fnatic in WEM

At the end of November, EG defended their ESEA-Invite title once again, proving their dominance in the North American scene with 3 championships in a row, while Montaner had a solid 1.09 rating.

Still one of the best AWPers in the world

Montaner had a total of 392 kills with the awp at major international tournaments, which was 5th most of all players. Looking at the average he was even better as 4th best in the world with a 0.25 awpKPR. Another area where he impressed was first kills of a round where he was the 7th most successful overall looking at the difference of entry kills and deaths per round.

His major achievements include winning MSI BEAT IT and placing 3rd at Arbalet Dallas, along with 3 domestic titles and two second places at American-based events. Individually, he was awarded the best AWP at Arbalet Dallas and was also unofficially the best AWP at MSI BEAT IT, meaning he was crucial in both of his team's major successes. All those things make him a worthy candidate for our Top 20 list, although he had some bad performances as well, which puts him at the 14th position.

It might also be interesting to note that Montaner was the 4th best rated player on de_train, which when coupled with his teammate Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert (2nd best rated) helps to make Evil Geniuses one of the strongest teams in the world on that map.

Another interesting fact from Montaner's 2010 campaign might be his performance in matches against fnatic which seem to make him especially motivated. While his team defeated the Swedes in all 3 of their clashes during the year (4-1 in map-wins), Montaner had an astonishing 80 kills with the awp and was only killed by it 3 times, having an overall rating of 1.32 in those matches.

Recommended demos of fRoD in 2010:

If you want to check out some of his matches that were mentioned in this article, you can find links to those demos right here:

Opponent	Map	Event	Score	Demo
fnatic	train	IEM4 World (Group stage)	29-18	POV
oXmoze	inferno	IEM4 World (Group stage)	32-16	POV
SK	inferno	Arbalet Europe (Group stage #1)	22-12	HLTV
PinG	train	ESWC 2010 (Group stage #1)	38-19	POV
Finesse	dust2	Arbalet Dallas (Group stage #1)	26-12	POV
BURNING!	inferno	Arbalet Dallas (Quarter-final, map 1)	22-7	POV
BURNING!	nuke	Arbalet Dallas (Quarter-final, map 2)	30-8	POV
H2k	train	Arbalet Dallas (3rd place, map 2)	23-10	HLTV
FireGamers	train	WCG Pan-Am (Final, map 2)	37-24	HLTV
fnatic	train	MSI BEAT IT (Final, map 3)	30-12	HLTV
d2x	train	IEM5 Am Finals (Semi-final, map 2)	26-5	HLTV
fnatic	dust2	WEM 2010 (Lower round 1)	33-30	HLTV

If you missed our previous article about Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer, click here or if you want to see who else is on the list when it is updated, head over to our Introduction article here.

What do you think about the performance of Danny "fRoD" Montaner in 2010? Does he deserve a place in the Top 20? What was your biggest impression of him this year? Feel free to leave a comment on this topic and stay tuned to HLTV.org if you want to see what the rest of the Top 20 looks like, as we will bring you number 13 tomorrow.