Top ten Counter-Strike (1.0 to 1.6) players who could have been the greatest of all time

This article was originally published on GameSpot's sister site onGamers.com, which was dedicated to esports coverage.

As I outlined in a two part article (part one and part two) in 2012, there are three players who can be stated as the consensus candidates for the greatest Counter-Strike player in history: Potti, NEO and f0rest. Potti's era is neatly over the first five or six years of competitive play, then he retires and the other two appear and dominate the rest of history, seemingly. Those three players all have enough factors going in their favour, across the board, that who you pick of the three doesn't matter as much as your specific reasoning.

Taking those three out of the equation, though, there are other candidates who could have taken up that top spot, given the right key factor being changed. I've striven to make my analysis of the factors holding them back fair, so you can't simply change their nationality and make them Swedish, or give them an extra talent, they must be good enough in themselves but held back by something which could have been changed or gone differently.

It's worth mentioning that this is not a list of the greatest players of all time either, there are greater players but who aren't in this particular conversation. For example, someone like SpawN or HeatoN had every opportunity to showcase their skills and accomplished great things, that's why we need not consider them, since they already showed us everything they were capable of and hit the highest heights in their careers. Instead, these are the players who could have been the greatest, something just didn't go their way.

10. Mickael 'mSx' Cassisi (France)

mSx was an absolute monster in the server. Skilled with every single weapon in the game, he was just as deadly on the pistol round as he was with an AWP or a rifle in his hands. He could open a round up with kills, he could clean up the three guys in the middle and he could win his fair share of clutches too. One of those players where not only can they do it all, they actually do in the course of a match and their careers. mSx was held back by only two things: a lack of quality team-mates for long enough in his career and the timing of his peak. A quick read of this article on a 13 month stretch he went on will highlight the level of play he had reached at his peak.

Take away nothing and add nothing from how he played in the server and all mSx needed to be in the conversation for best player of all time was better career accomplishments and more opportunities to deliver high level performances on the top level. In his emuLate line-ups of 2007 and 2008 he got a taste of being able to showcase his amazing skills at the top end of CS competition, but that came in part due to the scene being slightly weaker during 2007 and then the true monsters of the game only emerging as 2008 progressed onwards. Beyond that his team-mates often failed to play to the same level, leaving him a solo star putting up great individual performances but ultimately losing before the final, as his GameGune 2007 performance can attest to.

Even in the latter years, much like REAL, mSx would show those flashes of brilliance on much more diminished teams, never able to truly compete as a team, but still showing he was one of the game's greatest individual talents. Had mSx had a couple of better team-mates, in particular a reliable second star, and that all collided with a stacked year like 2006, 2008 or 2010, then we might have seen one of the greatest players of all time coming from France. Go back and look at the WCG that emuLate won in 2007 and it's probably the single most dominating individual performance in history, in as much as the amount of help he gets from his team-mates is so incredibly little, when contrasted against the other great players who have won majors.

In the end, all things considered, he is far from being able to claim the title of the greatest CS player ever, but not as a result of what this man could do inside a CS server.

9. Erik 'Medion' Engström (Sweden)

This will probably be the most surprising entry on this list for most CS fans, since so few will be from the era in which MedioN was at his peak. To understand the level of MedioN's play I have to take you back with me to 2001. Back then there was no consensus best player in the world, fans were just beginning to build support around names like HeatoN and Ksharp, who were still very much in their infancy as elite players. Potti was the man the pros considered the best, as would be the case later, but he went unrecognised even back then, for the most part. Enter MedioN, star Swedish player.

MedioN was the first true all-around player in CS history, though Rambo and BigDog could challenge him on that front. As early as 2001 most players were very distinctly divided up in terms of being a pure rifler or an AWPer. If they were riflers then that meant using the AK or colt, using the Aug or Sigg was considered unorthodox. Even in terms of positions, players had one or two they could play at a high level. This is where MedioN's brilliance came in, as the Swede could literally use every single weapon to a high level as far back as then, and did.

After the first generation of competitive line-up of Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) fell apart, MedioN joining up with vesslan's MAFIA allowed him to establish himself as perhaps the best player in the world, he was considered the dominant individual player while someone like HeatoN was still establishing himself and waiting for his first big offline tournament. He was on the winning team in the famed 'NiP vs. NiP' CPL Holland final, where the players were split between MAFIA (under the tag SoA.se) and All*.

When NiP saw the light and reformed their line-up following that CPL, MedioN was a key part of their dominant run of three straight CPL titles, including an American seasonal final, with slight line-up changes. The best latter day equivalents for someone like MedioN would be players like Tentpole or trace, who played different roles in their teams, but could impact the game in so many ways as MedioN could. MedioN stopped playing competitively in early 2002, only coming back for a brief return with SK and a 3rd at CPL Winter 2002.

Had he played longer, then MedioN would be much higher on the list of all time great players and had the potential to really put together a truly stellar career. The reason he can make this list is because what he accomplished in such a short space of time was staggering. In about two years of competitive play he won two American and three European CPLs. He had the respect of all of his peers, who considered him a monster of a player, and he could certainly have played in big teams for a number of years following his retirement.

MedioN is one of the rare players who walked away from CS when he really could have done so much more, not forced out by diminishing skills or lack of opportunity.

8. Kang 'solo' Keun Chul (South Korea)

solo is a player who was held back in his career purely by his quality of team-mates and lack of opportunity. He is another player who was literally elite with every single weapon in the game and seemingly could adapt to whatever was needed for him. In fact that's one of the qualities which made his career so trying: where players like f0rest or NEO can play the same role for their entire careers, teams adapting to their strengths and putting them in position to be great, solo had to figure out what his personnel was like in each of his teams and what holes needed to be filled.

If the team needed an in-game leader, as they did for one stretch, then he had to become the in-game leader and adapt his level of aggression accordingly. If they needed a specific CT spot covering, since nobody else was capable, then he had to switch over and find a way to be effective there. solo's versatility and strength in all areas of the game meant that at times you didn't even get to see what he was entirely capable of.

At his peak, and with the two or three line-ups he had which could actually compete at the highest level, he shone as one of the best individual players in the world, yet still would repeating be forced into top three finishes rather than LAN victories. At events like WEG Masters in 2006 and ESWC in 2008, solo put up all time great individual performances, yet came away with no trophies.

It wasn't simply lack of good team-mates either. The problem in Korea was that the other group of good players, Lunatic-Hai, kept to themselves and there was a solid rivalry between the two squads for his entire career. When Lunatic-Hai died out and latter day player glow came over, then solo got some help in the form of a clutch player and someone who could play a decent second or third star position. Before that he had to mesh with the streaky bail, at times brilliant and in other moments impotent.

The practice conditions for solo are the worst I've ever heard of for an elite tier player, even beyond those of players like cogu or AdreN, who come from countries with either poor internet connections or not many teams to practice against. What needs to be understood is that in South Korea people all played from PC Bangs (LAN cafes) so they would play games already installed on the machine or free online FPS games. That meant the version of CS they played in the cafes was not the Steam 1.6 we all played. This meant the player pool for South Korea, already tiny due to the popularity of RTS games, was even smaller for competitive CS players.

It's not exaggeration to say that all those amazingly in-depth tactics you've seen from WeMade FOX or eSTRO over the years came from the team practicing them alone in an empty server. That's because at times that would be better practice than playing very low level teams. Add in that the Korean military ate away at the player base of competitive names and you have a nightmare scenario for an elite player trying to win a world championship.

In the end, solo never did get that major win, though he did win the last WEM for CS, a nice way to go out for a truly elite player.

7. Kyle 'Ksharp' Miller (United States of America)

Ksharp is one of the cases on this list where his play alone is not why he could have been the greatest, it's more than he needed to grasp a specific mentality to accomplish such a feat. It may seem like cheating to suggest a player needed to think of himself or the game a different way, since to a degree perhaps that does make up part of who they are, but I think Ksharp could have done changed his perspective if he'd really been able to consider the outcome of his career choices.

The reason movies of online players racking up crazy kills against low level opponents has never impressed me is because those moves simply don't work on elite level players, that first bullet you miss is where the great AK player takes your head off. That burst you hit onto the enemy is where the elite player instead strafed back behind the wall to get you out of your rhythm. It's also unfortunate that lack of demos mean that most fans have no idea what some of the all time great players were capable in online practice games.

Ksharp is probably the greatest online player in history, I think n0thing is up there too but Ksharp was the original. In CAL games and scrims he would routinely pull of the most insane and impossible plays, things that defy explanation. Now, obviously, there's a component of a lack of pressure in these situations, compared to offline, which is where the criticism of Ksharp will come in. In terms of raw skill, though, he is one of the most talented players to ever pick up a mouse and fire up CS.

Ksharp's problem was that he not only refused to play the same brand of CS offline, but he also refused to fully accept the mantle of the star player. In 2008 f0rest understood he was the star fragger on his team, if fnatic was going to win a tournament then he would need to be the one out there topping scoreboards and getting the difficult kills. When the Poles battled past more skilled and better tactical teams, it's because NEO was putting up incredible individual performances seemingly every game. Ksharp was never comfortable with the notion of being the star that all eyes are upon to succeed or fail.

This manifested in his play in that he would to some degrees limit himself and his teams by refusing to AWP. All the clips online, seemingly, show Ksharp's amazing AWPing, a weapon he was seemingly born to use. The only player I can even compare to his AWPing is markeloff, since they both had an incredibly fast yet precise style, which is very rare at the top level. But, where markeloff embraced being an AWPer and led his teams to major titles using it, Ksharp frequently opted out of AWPing in big offline games, instead going the "safer" route of rifling and trying to make an impact that way.

If I could go back in time and brainwash Ksharp into buying an AWP every time he had enough money, taking up those aggressive positions he would online and using the weapon as a do or die approach, willing to win the entire tournament or have his team bomb out earlier than usual, then I think we'd be talking about one of the very best players of all time, certainly in the conversation for greatest ever.

Instead, he went the safer route, had a nice career with some big highlights and ultimately is remembered for a lot of sparkling flashes, yet not the same kind of dominance offline that a player of his calibre should have been known for. He's not the only player to make that mistake, shaGuar was another AWPer who would fall back from AWPing when he felt less confident. The true dedicated AWPers have the mentality that if they missed the last shot then they'll make the next.

6. Max 'ruuit' Oskari Aspe (Finland)

ruuit is another player where the only thing holding him back from more greatness is mentality. He's already the greatest Finnish player ever, and one of the best individual CS players in history, but he was amazingly inefficient for a player with such talent. ruuit had a problem in that he didn't believe in safe play at all, or truly understand risk and reward as it pertains to game theory.

The same reckless impulse that told him to push up aggressively as CT and kill the first two guys, then told him he may as well keep pushing and get the other three. When he managed that it meant he won games single-handidly for his teams. When he almost managed it he might have made a huge dent in the enemy, putting his team at a very solid advantage. the problem is all the occasions on which he would get the first kill easily, for his skillset, and then give up his own life sloppily to even the score or even put his team at a disadvantage, forced to rotate and cover his now vacant position.

Had ruuit been able to understand aggression more like a NEO, he would have been an entirely unstoppable monster. This is a player whose confidence knew no bounds, so a little intelligence in his game could have made him an incredible asset, constantly keeping the enemy pressured and on the wrong foot. That kind of player would be an in-game leader's dream, instead ruuit was a chaotic force that his in-game leaders just had to turn loose and hope for the best with. Skillwise he was something special, he just didn't have the right mental game appropriate to his skillset.

5. Sondre 'REAL' Svanevik (Norway)

There have been few true geniuses in Counter-Strike, speaking in terms of intuitive individual skill for the game, rather than cerebral understanding and conceptual thinking. REAL was one of those geniuses, yet he never reached the peak of that major title like most of the others did. Where a f0rest or a NEO won those major titles and had a long enough career to prove to use time and time again why they stood above all others, REAL simply had spans of a few months at a time to show off what he was truly capable of.

f0rest came from Sweden and was surrounded his whole career with a player pool of competitive players who could have helped him accomplish the feats he reached. NEO came from a particularly impovrished CS area, yet found the right team-mates and stuck with them to amazingly find a system good enough to let them win sometimes, those times happening to be the biggest CS tournies in the world. For REAL his career was marked by bad luck and waning motivation.

In team9 REAL was a 15 year titan, ripping up the scene, but then that team fell apart. A year later his MYM team seemed capable of contending for world titles, only to progressively go down over the next 3-4 months of the big tournaments. Eventually, the prime of his career had him floundering in teams incapable of big results, often without the right backing to even attend events, so that he finally retired outright.

REAL did play a part in his own failures, he wasn't a player who would lead the way and help develop the next generation of talent, as every scene needs. This is worth noting since it meant that REAL did not last until a player like kalle came along, who might have been able to team with him and help him to success. If I could change one thing, though, in REAL's career, it would be simply to get him a starting spot on a top Swedish team, even the third best would do, in 2006 or 2007. In such circumstances, he could have really shown his skills game in and game out, then other Swedish top teams might have seen the value in taking a wager on the young man.

In the era of WCG being a key tournament, it's understandable why teams wanted to stay with all one nationality, but REAL is a player the calibre of whom means it is worth trying an experimental six man line-up, the majors you might win outside of WCG would more than make up for it. Nothing is more disappointing that genius which doesn't get to truly express itself.

4. Martin 'trace' Heldt (Denmark)

trace is another player where I don't need to change a single action he made in the server, his play was that superlative in its essence. I don't even need more opportunity to see him put on such performances at the highest level, he put together an impressive enough resume of individual displays as it is. All I need is to transport him to a different era or give him a few different bracket draws. trace is a player where I've never seen someone put up so many MVP calibre performances without winning a single major tournament.

It really does beggar belief in this case, because he did come from a country with a very sound background in CS and he came to a line-up which was suited to accomplish great things, incredibly consistent and with perhaps the greatest in-game leader in history. The problems for trace were that he had to live both in the era of Na`Vi, who had arguably the highest peak of any team in history, and also get bracket draws which always pit him against Na`Vi.

mTw was an even match-up with fnatic, most of the time, and fnatic could beat Na`Vi, some times, so all trace needed was a bracket in which fnatic met and beat Na`Vi, then he faced fnatic in the semi-final or final. Put those conditions in place and I see trace with a slew of tournament wins, including possibly some majors. Instead, his team always drew the Ukrainians.

Na`Vi vs. mTw is one of the most one-sided rivalries ever at the top level of CS, to the extent that mTw never won a match, only three maps out of 16 played againt markeloff and company. As if to highlight how insane the bracket draws were, the one tournament trace did win during his mTw time, Dreamhack Summer 2010, he would have had to face Na`Vi in the semi-final if SK had miraculously upset the Ukrainian team in two overtime games.

Now, in 2012 trace did get to make up for lost time a little, winning some tournaments with fnatic on the way out of the door, but this was not the same kind of era and style of play from him that puts him up so high on this list. The Danish beast of 2010 and 2011, who I call 'The Great Dane', put together a monster stretch of tournament runs and big games, he just couldn't get the right opportunity to take major titles.

Now, on one hand, the great players do seemingly get there once or twice in spite of everything, but I do think it's possible for everything to go against someone to the extent they just don't get the right chances. I can't fault trace for his play, he just picked the wrong year to become a master of the game.

3. Raphael 'Cogu' Camargo (Brazil)

cogu's career lacks for only two things: a more stable fnx and more major wins. As an individual player cogu is one of the best examples, along with solo and mSx, of the elite tier player who can do it all. He is most famous for his AWPing, yet go and look at his rifle play and you'll see colt work that could make a face or Edward weep. This was a very special player, from a country which seemed destined to never record a major victory. His talent was such that at their prime he could put them consistently into big semi-finals and finals.

The downside of cogu's career is that he only had the right line-ups once or twice in a six or seven year span. fnx was the second star he needed to anchor his teams with firepower, and that player's behaviour was an chaotic and all over the place as the young rifler's streaky style of play. The few times cogu did have the right time, he really got to showcase himself as history's greatest AWPer, the other times he was stuck like mSx, battling to stay relevant with inferior team-mates.

cogu did have a flaw to his play, one which developed as the years went on, which is that he eventually identified some of the problems in his teams and become overly selfish, thinking he had to do it all himself to win the game. He was right, in a sense, but it lead to a style for his teams that meant opponents knew they simply had to shut cogu down, hardly an easy task, as the best possible formula to win the game. Even great players have their flaws.

2. Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov (Ukraine)

markeloff is the best big game player in the history of competitive Counter-Strike. I used to think nobody would ever touch Potti in that regard, since the Swede won seemingly every time by just being unbeatable in 1VX situations and always delivering the key kills at the right moment in a round. Even Potti's big game record pales compared to markeloff's though. In 2010 he seemingly brought an elite tier performance in every single big semi-final and final. His AWPing, thanks to the team around him, made him the most deadly and efficient player in the entire world.

Playing train against markeloff meant a guaranteed shooting range for the Ukrainian as CT, which is the core dynamic that put his teams into the category of near unbeatable on that map. On dust2 he would pick you apart on T side and then switch over to lockdown sites as CT. That's almost half the map pool he's got on you already, and those are maps most teams want to play against his team, since they are their own strongest. In 2010 Na`Vi had the best year of CS ever, for my money, and markeloff was the star of stars on their team.

The only two factors markeloff had holding him back were some major victories in the last year and a half of his 1.6 career and then the issue of longevity. Na`Vi won enough majors in their first one and a half years that his resume is already one of the best of all time, but his team simply stopped winning after that. It's no coincidence the best players of all time continued to win and win throughout their careers.

Finally, the biggest knock on markeloff is simply longevity. Give him three more years of top level CS 1.6 competition, with a willing scene, and I think he would either have been neck and neck with or surpassed players like f0rest and NEO, that's how great he was in his peak of two and a bit years.

1. Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund (Sweden)

If there had been three more years of competitive Counter-Strike then GeT_RiGhT would have been the greatest individual player in the history of the game. Quite the bold statement to open this entry with, right? From what I've seen of him in his 1.6 career and his work ethic, I'm almost entirely convinced that it would have been the case. GeT_RiGhT's 2009 never fully got the credit it deserved individually since he played with f0rest. Then his 2010 was overlooked because fnatic didn't win major titles, and Na`Vi took up the spotlight. 2011 he could get into the real MVP conversations, but then his team ran into a streak of always losing to Na`Vi or the Poles, despite being capable of beating every other team in the entire world with almost certainty.

NEO, markeloff, trace and GeT_RiGhT were the most consistent players over the last years of CS, among the stars, but only GeT_RiGhT might even be able to edge that group, he was simply that much of an impact on seemingly every game. Even if SK lost in the semi-finals, you knew GeT_RiGhT would have given them chances to make that final or win that big game. His work ethic combined with what talent he did have, meant he got the absolute most of his skillset in a way very few other players ever have in the history of this game.

With GeT_RiGhT this discussion wasn't a matter of "if", it was simply a matter of "when". That he has gone on to dominate CS:GO can't be counted in his favour here, but I think it speaks to the level of unparalleled drive he has to be the best.