The best players from IEM Cologne's group stage

IEM Cologne’s group stage has already thrown up some surprises, with only two top-ten teams making it to the LANXESS arena in the form of Natus Vincere and FaZe. The underperformance of several squads at once points to the presence of end-of-season fatigue, but that should not be used to take credit away from the four underdogs who have made it to the top six.

Nor should it take anything away from the players who have fought that fatigue to stand out at the group stage. IEM Cologne sits as the third most important event of the year, just behind the Majors and on equal footing with IEM Katowice, and had all but two of the top sixteen teams in attendance — a strong performance here is always worth recording. So, without further ado, let’s take a look at the best players so far.

All stats exclude the play-in stage unless specified

As ever, we start with Natus Vincere‘s ever-reliable superstar Aleksandr “⁠s1mple⁠” Kostyliev. Even by his standards, IEM Cologne’s group stage was an absolute breeze for CS:GO’s best player. In six out of his eight maps, s1mple exceeded a 1.28 rating. In the other two, he remained well into the green (1.11 and 1.21 ratings) in maps where the opposition didn’t even reach double digits; it has generally been the close games that s1mple has elevated his level in, with his highest (1.55) map coming against MOUZ in a 14:16 loss.

It was not quite the s1mple of 2017-20, but Natus Vincere still need their other superstars to share a bit more of the load in playoffs. Valeriy “⁠b1t⁠” Vakhovskiy‘s 1.08 rating is hardly a concern given Natus Vincere haven’t lost a match yet, but it would be impossible for s1mple to reach such statistical heights if b1t and Denis “⁠electroNic⁠” Sharipov were at their best.

Still, it is far too early to be concerned for Natus Vincere‘s firepower; this is a team that gets even better in front of the crowd. Instead, let’s focus on the positives: s1mple has 7 clutches, a 1.47 impact rating, and a K-D differential of 71. Over a thirty-round game, that means s1mple would have 10.7 more kills than deaths. The best player in the world has also been the best in Cologne, so far.

Second on the list is Benjamin “⁠blameF⁠” Bremer, who is once again Astralis‘ highest performer. This time, though, his high ratings have come in wins, with Astralis making their first big event playoffs since a loss to FURIA in ESL Pro League Season 15’s quarter-finals.

Given that blameF‘s strong performances seem devoid of any correlation with Astralis winning matches, it is valid to question his true impact, but that ignores how he has taken up more responsibility in Astralis to open up rounds recently. At Cologne, for example, he posted a respectable 0.12 opening kills per round on T-side compared to 0.08 at Big Events in 2022 previously.

On CT, blameF has been world-class throughout 2022, something that has continued in Cologne with a 1.39 rating and 0.17 opening kills per round (with 29.6% attempts). blameF‘s consistency is easy to take for granted, but IEM Cologne seems to imply that — now with support from Kristian “⁠k0nfig⁠” Wienecke and Andreas “⁠Xyp9x⁠” Højsleth — blameF has only gotten more impactful in a functional machine.

The third highest rated player of the group stage was Mathieu “⁠ZywOo⁠” Herbaut, who has recovered from a slow start to 2022 in a now English-speaking Vitality to re-gain the form that made him s1mple‘s only competitor.

What is even more impressive is that ZywOo actually improves on the more difficult T-side with a 1.37 rating on attack compared to a still-impressive 1.26 on defence. 0.19 opening kills per round (0.15 on T, 0.24 on CT), meanwhile, is comparable with riflers like k0nfig (0.18) and Alejandro “⁠mopoz⁠” Fernández-Quejo Cano (0.21).

That ZywOo is this aggressive whilst still topping the rating charts is a rarity — even s1mple shies from opening duels on T-side (13% attempts) but ZywOo is still taking 24% of Vitality‘s T-side opening duels. Still, Vitality‘s failure to convert ZywOo‘s form into a playoff run is concerning, and you can’t help thinking that ZywOo‘s aggression would not be necessary in a more democratic kill distribution.

In fourth is Jonathan “⁠EliGE⁠” Jablonowski, who is currently having his best statistical LAN event since the pandemic with a 1.27 rating thus far. The addition of Mareks “⁠YEKINDAR⁠” Gaļinskis in Richard “⁠shox⁠” Papillon‘s place to EliGE‘s Liquid squad is temporary, at least for now, but seems to have kickstarted North America’s premier side into gear.

It also means a bit of a switch-up for EliGE, having to give up several CT positions to the incoming YEKINDAR. Even if EliGE still spends most of his time in the pack on T-side, Liquid‘s balance is undoubtedly different with the far more aggressive YEKINDAR involved. The Latvian has lurked more than expected, especially on Ancient, but his self-styled “space-creation” has still released EliGE to be the elite trade fragger he was when he followed Epitacio “⁠TACO⁠” de Melo and Jake “⁠Stewie2K⁠” Yip into bombsites.

This role swap was framed as EliGE making YEKINDAR comfortable but so far the inverse has occurred: EliGE has a 1.21 rating on T, and a 1.32 on CT, whilst his figure of 91.9 ADR is the highest of the event. EliGE is also dying less; in May he averaged 0.73 DPR, something that put him in the bottom 20% of all players. At Cologne, that figure is 0.62, surely in part due to YEKINDAR creating space early in the round.

Honourable mentions

Moving away from the top players to the honourable mentions — there is a gap of 0.09 rating between EliGE (1.27) and Sergey “⁠Ax1Le⁠” Rykhtorov (1.18) in 5th — the next player to catch the eye at Cologne is Alvaro “⁠SunPayus⁠” Garcia of Movistar Riders. After a win in Valencia, Movistar Riders have gone from strength to strength in Cologne. They followed that up by defeating Vitality in the play-in, before beating G2 and Vitality once more to lock in a slot in the LANXESS.

A solid chunk of SunPayus‘ rating comes from his stellar 47% survival rate, but the 23-year-old Spaniard is still deserving of praise for having six maps above a 1.30 rating in Cologne if we include the two against Vitality in the play-in. Part of the reason SunPayus is alive so much is his role, throwing 0.91 flashbangs a round in the main event and blinding opponents for a solid average of 2.15 seconds per round at the main event. He is an effective ‘support AWPer’ whilst fragging fairly well — support that unlocks the likes of mopoz to do his best work.

Speaking of mopoz, ‘The Bull’ took 41% of Movistar Riders‘ opening duels so far, and is successful in 53.7% of those. That means that mopoz gets Movistar Riders an opening kill in 22% of rounds, more than double the ‘par’ of 10% if it was equal between all ten players in the server.

He was not the only aggressive rifler to excel in Cologne’s group stage, with k0nfig fulfilling his duty as a foil for blameF in Astralis with a 1.37 impact rating and a 1.41 opening kill rating. Robert “⁠Patsi⁠” Isyanov, taking even more risks after the more passive Igor “⁠w0nderful⁠” Zhdanov replaced Abdul “⁠degster⁠” Gasanov, bests that with 1.40 impact and even more T-side opening kill attempts than mopoz at a stupendous 46.5% (albeit with 41.5% success).

FaZe have so far gone without mention, and that is because their group stage run was accomplished by committee: Russel “⁠Twistzz⁠” Van Dulken, Håvard “⁠rain⁠” Nygaard, and Robin “⁠ropz⁠” Kool have all had their moments with Helvijs “⁠broky⁠” Saukants only a short distance behind, though much of the AWPer’s form has come on the CT-side. MOUZ‘ run, too, has been a group effort. David “⁠frozen⁠” Čerňanský offers a 1.28 rating on CT-side and 1.02 on T, whilst lurker Aurimas “⁠Bymas⁠” Pipiras reverses that with a 1.29 rating on T and 0.92 on CT.

Despite Cloud9‘s exit, Ax1Le and Dmitry “⁠sh1ro⁠” Sokolov still appear in the top six for rating 2.0 at IEM Cologne. sh1ro didn’t dip below a 1.00 rating in a single map, while Ax1Le‘s most impressive moment came in the very first match of the group stage proper with a 1.72 rating against Outsiders. Nemanja “⁠huNter-⁠” Kovač also impressed in elimination, his 1.26 rating on T-side enough to put him fourth.

Finally, mention should be given to Josh “⁠oSee⁠” Ohm — North America have lacked an AWPer for a long time, but oSee is growing into his role at Liquid and his 1.15 rating so far in Cologne is a sign of promise.