In his first appearance as a fnatic member, Richard "Xizt" Landström was named the MVP of a tournament, which promised a successful 2011 for him. Even though he wasn't able to repeat that performance later on, he was still a very important part of the team thus earning the 13th place in our Top 20.

Basic information

Player: Richard "Xizt" Landström
Team: fnatic
Age: 20

Team achievements in 2011:

1st - IEM5 European Championship Finals, DreamHack Winter, IEM6 GC Guangzhou, fnatic PLAY #2
2nd - MSI BEAT IT Russia, HadeLAN, Adepto BH Open, IOL FINAL4
3rd - /

Stats from major LAN tournaments in 2011:

Kills per round: 0.75
Deaths per round: 0.61
Rating: 1.13 (?)
Maps played: 72
MoM: 11 times top rated in a match
Best tournament: IEM5 European Championship Finals
Best map: de_train
Most notable stats: 3rd best M4A1 (0.29 kills per round), one of the best clutchers (41 times won 1vsX)

It wasn't until February 2010 that Richard "Xizt" Landström got his first big chance by joining the ranks of H2k. It would turn out to be a great stepping stone for him, as after some lineup changes that team became the new squad of Lions and their form culminated at the end of the year with a 3rd place at DreamHack Winter.

Throughout 2010 Landström proved himself as one of the brightest upcoming talents, which resulted in getting the 18th spot on our Top 20 players of 2010. More importantly, it resulted in getting a call from fnatic to join the team, which the young Swede didn't have to think twice about.

A dream start in the fnatic shirt

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
IEM5 European Championship Finals (1st place)	1.19 (1st)	+9%
MVP of the tournament Best rating in playoffs (1.29) Most clutch rounds won (9) Best pistol-round player

Apart from Landström, fnatic added Marcus "Delpan" Larsson and Faruk "pita" Pita for their upcoming adventures in 2011, and the first occasion we saw them in action was IEM5 European Championship Finals. They took everyone by surprise and won the event, defeating favorized Natus Vincere and mTw on the way, while Landström became the main star of the tournament, earning the title of Most Valuable Player.

Apart from being the best player from the winning team, the best clutcher and the best pistol-round player of the event, Landström proved himself in the most important matches, being shared-best rated in the playoffs. That was the case thanks to a very good display against Natus Vincere in the semi-final (64:44 score, 1.30 rating) and especially in the final against mTw, of which he was clearly the best player (86:62 score, 1.28 rating). All that earned him an MVP nomination, and in the voting process he was chosen as the winner in front of two other players.

After the event we made a short movie showcasing all of his highlights from Kiev:

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
IEM5 World Championship (Quarter-final)	1.01 (3rd)	+1%

Expectations were high from both Landström and fnatic at IEM5 World Championship in March, but they couldn't repeat the Kiev performance. The Swedish team did make it to playoffs despite losing to SK and Natus Vincere in the group stage, but Frag eXecutors were too strong for them in the quarter-final. Landström wasn't impressive as before, now being 3rd best in his team with an average 1.01 rating.

Xizt's 4-kill round against Evil Geniuses at IEM5 WC

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
Xperia PLAY 2011 (Quarter-final)	1.04 (4th)	-8%

Similar fate awaited them at Xperia PLAY, losing to their arch-rivals SK Gaming in the group stage and then being sent home after the quarter-final, this time courtesy of mTw. Landström had another average performance with a 1.04 rating, only the team's 4th best.

winning a 1vs5 pistol-round against face!

A few weeks later, fnatic organization hosted an online tournament named fnatic PLAY 2011 #2 and came out victorious ahead of TCM-Gaming. Landström was back in shape as one of three impressive performers from his team with a 1.31 rating.

Ace by Xizt during a glock-eco vs dakarma

deagle ace against Virtus.pro

Soon after that, Marcus "Delpan" Larsson decided to leave the team and join SK Gaming, while fnatic was forced to look for a new addition. They actually welcomed two new players, as Faruk "pita" Pita was shown the door to make room for ex-fnatic member Rasmus "Gux" Ståhl and young talent Manne "manne" Nordqvist.

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
DreamHack Summer 2011 (Quarter-final)	0.99 (2nd)	+8%

After the previous time fnatic made changes to their lineup, they won IEM5 European Championship Finals and similar was expected this time. But the new squad didn't work that well in their first tournament DreamHack Summer, as fnatic finished the competition with another quarter-final campaign, losing again to SK Gaming in the group stage and then to Natus Vincere in their only playoff match.

In this bad performance by the team, Landström wasn't able to stand out, recording his worst rating of the year (0.99), although above team's average as their 2nd best. He did manage to record his highest match-rating of the year though, having a 30:9 score (2.23 rating) against Brazilians playArt in the group stage.

A few days after that, the team was set to travel to Bosnia & Herzegovina for Adepto BH Open. In the short time between DreamHack Summer and this event, they made another lineup change bringing back Pita instead of Nordqvist.

They reached the final easily as expected, but there they met Natus Vincere and lost to them again, with a shamefull 0-16 score in the second map. Landström was the third best in the team with an excellent 1.34 rating and he will remember this tournament by the highlight round he made in the first map of the final, which was surely one of the best of the year:

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
GameGune 2011 (4th place)	1.39 (3rd)	+6%
All-Star nomination Most clutch rounds won (7) Hardest to kill (0.45 DPR) 2nd best K-D difference (+98) 4th best in pistol-rounds

The first real test for the latest fnatic lineup came a month later at GameGune, where another somewhat disappointing campaign took place. SK Gaming stood in their way in the upper bracket, while after that they surprisingly lost to ESC Gaming and finished in 4th place. Landström had a good tournament overall, with his year-highest 1.39 rating, although he mostly shined in the group stage.

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
e-Stars Seoul 2011 (7-8th place)	1.18 (1st)	+18%
Most clutch rounds won (6)

The team recorded another unsuccessful campaign at e-Stars Seoul in August, as they lost to SK Gaming as usual and then to WinFakt, ending up in 7-8th place. Despite the team's failure, Landström had one of his better shows in Korea, being the team's best with a 1.18 rating and playing well in each of their four matches.

After this tournament, team's longest standing member Harley "dsn" Örwall decided to retire and another lineup change followed for fnatic, as they added Danish AWPer Michael "Friis" Jørgensen.

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
IEM6 GC Guangzhou (1st place)	1.03 (4th)	-7%
All-Star nomination

In their first test with Jørgensen in the lineup, fnatic came out victorious in China where they won IEM6 Global Challenge Guangzhou over mousesports. Landström wasn't spectacular overall, but he was the best individual of the semi-final against WinFakt which earned him another All-Star nomination.

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
ESWC 2011 (Group stage)	1.19 (2nd)	+4%

It seemed that fnatic had finally found the formula for success, but they followed up the first place from Guangzhou with failing to pass the group stage at ESWC, due to losing to Alternate. Landström wasn't to blame once more, as he put in a very good display with a 1.19 rating as the team's second best.

The Swedish-Danish squad was back in shape at MSI BEAT IT Russia where they reached the final over Natus Vincere, but lost to Moscow Five at the last step. Landström was the team's 3rd best with a solid 1.15 rating and playing above average in 10 of his 11 maps.

Tournament (team result)	Rating	Avg% +/-
DreamHack Winter 2011 (1st place)	1.08 (2nd)	+2%
All-Star nomination 4th most kills (235)

The last tournament of the year for fnatic, DreamHack Winter ended up the same way as their first, with winning a major title. They defeated Anexis, mousesports and Lions in the playoffs while Landström was their second best player overall. He was the team's best rated in the quarter-final against Anexis and played above average in each map of the semi-final against mousesports, which earned him another All-Star nomination.

Didn't turn out to be the star of the team

Even though he didn't become a new world's superstar as it was expected after his first tournament in 2011, Richard "Xizt" Landström was a valuable asset in the fnatic squad throughout the year.

His MVP performance at IEM5 European Championship Finals where he led fnatic to their first title was of course his highlight of the year, but he had solid influence in their other two title-winning campaigns too, at IEM6 GC Guangzhou and DreamHack Winter where he was nominated for All-Star lineups. He also played well in two other major tournaments where his team didn't achieve anything, e-Stars Seoul and ESWC.

Additionally, Landström was one of the best clutchers of the year, winning 41 rounds when left alone (25x 1vs1, 12x 1vs2, 3x 1vs3 and 1x1vs5). Also, as witnessed in several of his highlights, he was one of the best players with the M4A1 rifle, having 3rd best average of 0.29 kills per round with it.

All that made him a worthy candidate for this top 20 ranking, and his very solid rating of 1.13 helped place him at the 13th position.

Recommended demos of Richard "Xizt" Landström in 2011:

Opponent	Map	Event	Score	Demo
Lions	nuke	IEM5 Eu Finals (Group stage)	23:20	POV
Na´Vi	inferno	IEM5 Eu Finals (Semi-final, map 1)	27:15	HLTV
mTw	inferno	IEM5 Eu Finals (Grand final, map 3)	25:12	HLTV
alchemists	tuscan	HadeLAN (Upper final, map 1)	32:21	HLTV
dakarma	inferno	fnatic PLAY #2	29:8	HLTV
selectah	inferno	ICSC8	24:7	HLTV
playArt	train	DH Summer (Group stage)	30:9	HLTV
DELTA	inferno	GameGune (Group stage)	33:11	HLTV
eSahara	nuke	GameGune (Group stage)	24:5	HLTV
x6tence	tuscan	e-Stars (Lower round 2)	18:13	HLTV
DTS	dust2	ESWC qual	27:19	HLTV
WinFakt	train	IEM6 GC Guangzhou (Semi-final, map 2)	23:17	HLTV
Anexis	inferno	DH Winter (Quarter-final, map 2)	23:13	HLTV

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At only 20 years of age, Landström is one of the youngest members of this ranking, so he still has chances to become an even bigger star than he's been in the past two years. Do you think he will become one of the world's very best in 2012 and is the 13th position the right one for him? 

If you want to check out the entire ranking, go to our Introduction article as it will be updated daily until we complete the list. Stay tuned to HLTV.org as tomorrow we will bring you our number 12.