As we enter the second half of our Top 20 players of 2010 list, we have one of the best awpers of the year occupying the 10th spot. Despite the team instability that he faced, Marcus "Delpan" Larsson played impressively throughout the year and he even managed to step onto a few podiums.

Basic information

Player: Marcus "Delpan" Larsson
Teams: MYM, concode, Lions, SK Gaming
Age: 21

Team achievements in 2010:

1st - ASUS ENC 2010, The Gathering, CB NationsCup XIII
2nd - WEM 2010
3rd - DreamHack Summer 2010, DSRack LAN #3

Stats from major LAN tournaments in 2010:

Kills per round: 0.79
Deaths per round: 0.65
Rating: 1.17 (?)
Maps played: 48
MoM: 9 times top rated in a match
Best tournament: WEM 2010
Best map: de_tuscan
Most notable stats: 3rd best in awp kills per round (0.26), 5th best entry killer

In September of 2009, Marcus "Delpan" Larsson finally got his big break, along with his teammates from Begrip at that time, as they were signed by MYM. That gave them the opportunity to attend more international events and they seized it right away. At their first major event, Global Challenge Dubai, MYM finished 2nd and just one month later they managed to go a step further and win DreamHack Winter. That was enough for them to be considered one of the best teams in the world at the end of the year, so expectations were high for 2010.

The MYM era

Things didn't start that well for MYM, as they initially didn't even manage to qualify for the first big tournament of the year, IEM4 European Championship Finals. They did eventually get a chance to attend after H2k withdrew from the event, but by that time one of their star players, Andreas "moddii" Fridh had already left the team.

MYM then traveled to Germany for the IEM4 European Championship Finals with a stand-in in form of Emil "FYRR73" Karlsson, and they turned in a very good performance. Led by Larsson as the top rated player from his team, they managed to win their matches against AGAiN and Millenium, and stay undefeated against SK and Ravens, succumbing only to mousesports. However, that wasn't enough for them to make it through the group stage, as they finished 4th, but it did earn them a spot at the World Championship. Larsson was the 6th best rated player of the event with a 1.19 rating and the 2nd best awper with an impressive 0.38 awpKPR. He had several excellent performances, which included 32-19 score against SK in their 15-15 opening match, as well as 27-17 (21 of those kills with the awp) against AGAiN in their first win of the tournament.

Two months later, with Karlsson now as a full-time member of the lineup, MYM performed much worse at the IEM4 World Championship in Hannover, losing 4 of their 5 group stage matches. Larsson however was once again excellent, finishing the event with a 1.12 rating, best in his team. He also shined with the awp again, posting the event's 2nd best 0.34 awpKPR. His most memorable performance of the tournament came in the match against Ravens when he had an incredible 39-15 score (23-0 with the awp) while he led his team to their only victory.

Larsson's awp ace against Ravens

In the beginning of April, Larsson attended The Gathering in Norway with a mix-team under the name concode. They managed to surprise many as they won the event in front of teams like Frag eXecutors, H2k and UNiTED. Larsson was one of the best in his team and at the event, having ane excellent 1.23 rating. His awp was also in tip-top shape as he had 0.29 awpKPR, 2nd best at the event. Probably the most crucial performance by Larsson was in the quarter-final against the Polish team Frag eXecutors. In that match, which concode won 16-14, he had a 28-19 score while outawping his opponents 17-3.

MYM had to suffer through some more changes in mid-April, when their in-game leader Jimmy "Jumpy" Berndtsson announced retirement. Ex-SK member Frej "kHRYSTAL" Sjöström was brought in as a replacement and their first event was to be the Swedish Championship. They finished only 3rd and not managing to qualify for ESWC, but Larsson was a real one-man army at this event. He finished with the event-best and an unbelievable 1.46 rating (1.01 kills per round), performing excellent in each of his 8 maps, his lowest rating being 1.27. He was expectedly the best awper of the tournament as well, with 0.33 kills per round with his favorite weapon.

In the meantime, from early February until the end of April, Larsson represented his national team in the ClanBase NationsCup XIII on their way to their 7th title in this competition. He was the event's most successful awper, managing a total of 138 kills with the big green, 70 more than second best (0.32 per round). Also, he was very consistent recording a rating above 1.00 in 13 of his 16 maps, ending with a 1.13 rating (3rd best in his team).

In May came MYM's next international event, Arbalet Cup Europe. They didn't fare well this time either, losing all three of their matches in a group that included mTw and Na`Vi. Larsson however, still managed to leave a mark, playing amazingly in his team's last match against Alternate, putting up a 30-18 score while his team lost 9-16. He finished the event as the team's only bright spot, with a 1.05 rating.

Two more lineup changes followed in MYM after this event, as they released their two latest additions Karlsson and Sjöström and brought back Fridh and a new name Andre "BARBARR" Möller. Their first event together was IOL FINAL4 Season 2, where they shared the 3rd spot with H2k, staying behind SK and fnatic. Larsson didn't stand out much this time, although he didn't disappoint either, recording a 1.04 rating as his team's 2nd best player.

Right around the corner was another test for the new MYM team, as in the next two days they took part in DreamHack Summer. This time they were much better, finishing 3rd at the prestigious event, after defeating SK in the 3rd place decider. Larsson was the team's best rated player with an excellent 1.22 rating (8th best overall) and was the 3rd best awper of the tournament. He was also very consistent, rated above 1.00 in 9 of 11 maps.

The stand-in era

A few weeks later, the team decided to leave the MYM organization and as a result of it the players went their separate ways. Although, in the meantime Larsson participated in EPS Nordic II with MYM's previous lineup which included Karlsson and Sjöström, so in August it was time to put an end to it. They managed to finish as one of the top 4 teams in the league, but have then lost in the semi-final to fnatic and to SK in the match for 3rd place. Larsson was the team's best rated player in the league with 1.09 rating and the 3rd best awper (0.28 awpKPR). He particularly impressed in matches against Cheap Times (31-16 individual score) and against Playzone.fi when he had his highest rating of the year, 2.40 with a score 31-10 during a 16-4 win.

Even though without a team now, Larsson still had an event to attend at the end of August. It was the ASUS ENC 2010 LAN Finals, for which he qualified with his national team. Sweden ended up lifting their 5th trophy as the best CS nation and Larsson excelled in the final against Ukraine, having a 25-8 score in the second map and making one of his highlight rounds of the year. He also played great during the online stage of the competition finishing as the 3rd best rated player of the competition (rating 1.21) and once again impressing with the awp (142 total kills, 0.34 per round). His most impressive performance came against Norway despite the fact that his team lost that match. In the one map that Sweden did win very closely 16-14, Larsson had an impressive 38-16 score with 23 awp kills.

Great awp 4-kill round in the final of ENC against Ukraine

Two months passed before we saw Larsson in action again, when he was called by Lions to replace his former teammate Sjöström for a brief while. Larsson then joined the team as a stand-in to attend two events in Denmark, DSRack LAN #3 and KGC #2. At the first event, Lions managed to finish at 3rd place, while Larsson was the team's second best rated player (1.14 rating). He performed particularly well in his team's best-of-three group stage win against eventual winners Full-Gaming, as he outawped his opponents 43-4 over the two maps which each went into overtime, and also made another one of his highlights in 2010. In the second event in Denmark, Larsson impressed against Playzone.se in the semi-final of the Swedish playoff, but the team was then stopped by fnatic in the final and he finished with an average 1.03 rating.

Another awp 4-kill round by Larsson, this time as a Lions member

After being a stand-in for Lions, Larsson was snatched up by SK Gaming to be a temporary replacement for Robert "RobbaN" Dahlström during the World e-Sports Masters in China. In his first tournament out of Europe in 2010, Larsson performed admirably and was one of the main reasons that SK achieved one of their biggest successes of the year, which was finishing 2nd at WEM. He was the team's best rated player, but even more importantly 2nd best rated at the event with a 1.22 rating and 2nd best awper with 0.30 awp kills per round. His best performance came in the Upper Bracket final against WeMade FOX when he had a 26-5 score, leading the team to a 16-7 victory.

At the end of the year, Larsson was finally signed by a team as a full-time member when fnatic formed a new lineup in which he is expected to be the first star.

Performed excellent regardless of the team he was in

Ever since the start of 2010 lineup changes had hit Larsson's team, but that didn't bother his performances as he proved himself in every version of MYM. He also played great as part of the Swedish national team in both CB NationsCup XIII and ASUS ENC 2010, as well as a stand-in for Lions and SK in the latter part of the year.

His biggest achievements in 2010 were winning the ASUS ENC with Sweden, finishing 2nd at WEM with SK, 3rd at DreamHack Summer with MYM and 3rd at DSRack #3 with Lions. He also finished 1st at The Gathering with a mix-team concode and won the CB NationsCup XIII with Sweden.

He didn't have any bad tournaments individually, while on the other hand he excelled on several occasions, putting in MVP-worthy performances at both ENC and WEM, as well as being among the best awpers at almost every event he attended. Just how well he performed with the AWP speaks the fact that he was the 3rd best in the world in number of awp kills per round (0.26). On top of that, he was the 5th most successful entry killer. Therefore, he definitely earned to be placed 10th on our Top 20 players of 2010 list.

Recommended demos of Marcus "Delpan" Larsson 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, including a couple that were from a final of a local LAN tournament against Snajdan's mix-team (edepol) and are not mentioned in the above text:

Opponent	Map	Event	Score	Demo
SK	train	IEM4 Eu Finals (Group stage)	32-19	POV
AGAiN	dust2	IEM4 Eu Finals (Group stage)	27-17	POV
Millenium	nuke	IEM4 Eu Finals (Group stage)	26-17	POV
mTw	dust2	IEM4 Eu Finals (7th place, map 2)	28-18	POV
Ravens	tuscan	IEM4 World (Group stage)	39-15	HLTV
Fx	tuscan	The Gathering (Quarter-final)	28-19	HLTV
Austria	train	ENC 2010 (Group stage, map 2)	29-12	POV
Alternate	nuke	Arbalet Europe (Group stage #1)	30-18	HLTV
Cheap Times!	train	EPS Nordic II	31-16	POV
Norway	dust2	ENC 2010 (Group stage, map 2)	38-16	POV
Playzone	dust2	EPS Nordic II	31-10	POV
edepol	inferno	Game-Z Tour (Final, map 1)	37-13	POV
edepol	dust2	Game-Z Tour (Final, map 2)	30-17	POV
Poland	train	ENC 2010 (Group stage, map 2)	31-18	HLTV
Ukraine	train	ENC 2010 (Final, map 2)	25-8	HLTV
Gamingplace	nuke	DSRack #3 (Group stage, map 2)	30-11	HLTV
Full-Gaming	dust2	DSRack #3 (Group stage, map 1)	31-22	POV
Full-Gaming	inferno	DSRack #3 (Group stage, map 2)	37-23	POV
Playzone	inferno	KGC #2 (Swedish semi-final, map 1)	29-14	HLTV
Power	train	WEM 2010 (Upper quarter-final)	20-7	HLTV
WeMade FOX	dust2	WEM 2010 (Upper final)	26-5	POV

If you missed our previous article about Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert, 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 Marcus "Delpan" Larsson 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 9 tomorrow.