With his outstanding performance against top teams and his continued influence on the field, Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski has been named to the HLTV TOP 20 list for the fifth consecutive year.
2021 Best Players of the Year TOP 20 Players Introduction:
Although EliGE began playing CS 1.6 very early as a casual player, the real sense of esports began to count from StarCraft 2, when he played RTS games for nearly three years before he began to gradually contact CS:GO, which was in the testing period, and he won his first championship in 2013. The then fifteen-year-old talented teenager quickly became popular in North America, and after competing with Peter "ptr" Gurney in several tournaments including CEVO Professional and ESEA Premier, he joined the eLevate team that owned David "Xp3" Garrido and William "RUSH" Wierzba at the time.
EliGE finished third and fourth in the first international event, Sortcon 2015, when his team defeated THE CLG led by Tarik "tarik" Celik in the quarter-finals and lost to Cloud9 in the semi-finals. In just two months, he was the old club of his career, Team Liquid, to take the place of Keith "NAF" Markovic. Although he had a mediocre performance when he first joined, it turned out that There was so much potential for Elite in the match between the top teams, and just seven months later he competed in the first Major of his career, the DH Cluj Open.
The group stage exit on the Major allowed EliGE to be relieved in the second Major MLG Columbus, and the side-by-side battle with Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev allowed Liquid to reach the semi-final stage of Major in history, but against the Brazilian king Luminosity at the time, the final result of the match could only end in failure.
The Brazilian team, which moved to SK three months later, continued its ruthless domination of Liquid at ESL One Cologne in 2016, when, despite being at the end of the team's 1mple at the heart of the team, Elite also began to show off its star potential with an average rating of 1.15 on 11 maps, and began to show off its muscles in the second year after the departure of the Ukrainian genius.
In 2017, When Elite debuted on the Top 20 list, his all-around performance with Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken earned him the top 12 rankings and helped the team win the runner-up of ESG Mykonos and ESL One New York.
With NAF back on the team, Liquid's performance in 2018 gradually improved, on the one hand, the three of them helped the team win international championships including the second season of the Pinnacle League and SuperNova CS:GO Malta; the addition of Epitacio "TACO" de Melo also helped the team in the finals of the seventh and eighth seasons of the EPL, the finals of the ECS season five, ELEAGUE Premier, ESL New York and IEM Chicago and other races go further. At that time, Elite was on the TOP 20 list again, ending the 2018 campaign with a top 15 ranking.
Although it had been at the mercy of the Danish dynasty of Astralis along the way, when world number two Liquid was determined to break away from Danish rule in 2019 to win more titles, it was Jake "Stewie2K" Yip who joined TACO to help the team usher in an explosive year – a record 63 days to win an Intel Grand Slam, seven crowns a year to help Liquid rise to the top of the world rankings. EliGE also became the absolute backbone of the team, with three full-weight MVPs plus a Rating of 1.21 and an Impact rating of 1.30 for the whole year, helping him to get the top 4 in the best year.
Despite the team's decline at the end of the previous year, Liquid is still a good contender in the competition in 2020. IEM Katowice's finish of five to six continues to highlight EliGE's individual strength, taking advantage of the momentum to continue to win the EPL Eleventh Season North American Championship, but after that, the online event made the team look a mess.
EliGE's performance is still good, but it can't resist the decline in online competitions, including FURIA, Evil Geniuses and 100 Thieves, and the online model is a mess. The team also ushered in a wave of blood changes in August, with the addition of Michael "Grim" Wince and the departure of five-year veteran Nick "nitr0" Cannella, as well as changes in the coaching staff. Although Elite is still reliable, it is insignificant in the face of the distant offline competition in 2020, and even so, he has been on the TOP 20 list for the fourth consecutive year, and continues to be on the list as a TOP 8.
Liquid also witnessed the departure of Twistzz in the last event of 2020, the IEM Global Challenge, gabriel "FalleN" Toledo joined the team as the main sniper, helping NAF and Stewie2K to be liberated from sniper rifles, and FalleN gradually integrated into the entire team system.
"Our goal was to put FalleN in charge of the whole team, and his addition made up for everything the team needed at the time, he was a great conductor, a good sniper and a player with a strong personality. His addition helped the team enter a new phase and perfectly solved many of the problems that plagued the team in 2020. ”
The BLAST Global Finals in early 2021 were a slow start for Elite individuals, with Rating and 1.10 impact ratings of 1.07 being good for Liquid for Status Vincere and Evil Geniuses, but Elite's form began to decline in the blast spring group stage, and Liquid was completed twice with Bo3 doubles by Twistzz-led FaZe. This is not a kind of revenge on Twistzz's old owners.
In the first experience level event of 2021, IEM Katowice, Liquid completed a gorgeous turn, and the wild card stage light miBR and OG allowed them to easily advance to the main tournament, and then completed the revenge against FaZe and won Vitality and Natus Vincere, directly to the semi-finals of the knockout stage. However, the week-long break made the Gunners slightly uncomfortable, facing Virtus.pro they could not perform too well, and finally ended with three or four places.
"This event is a good start to our year, especially on Katowice, where we beat a lot of good teams and reached the semi-finals. I remember the team cohesion against NaVi, our teamwork helped us win a lot of games and our confidence was at the top of our confidence against so many strong teams. ”
"Katowice at the beginning of the year was the best part of 2021 for me because it was a game where everything felt cohesive and one of the best games we played this year.
Still, EliGE's performance in the group stage and his steady play throughout the event (1.18 Rating, 1.25 Impact Rating, 83.6 ADR) was enough to earn him his first EVP nomination of the year. He also extended that form into next month's EPL season thirteen. EliGE was once again the highest player in liquid rating, qualifying 4-1 in the group stage, losing only one game to the old bittersman Astralis. Unfortunately, the team was not in good shape in the knockout stage, and was kicked out by G2 in the first round, and finally the ninth to twelfth places ended the tournament.
DreamHack's March North American Open could have been a race of confidence for Liquid, but the team was in poor shape overall, and although Elite received a Rating of 1.34 on seven maps, an impact score of 1.40 and an ADR of 98.6, it only finished three or four times in the tournament. Then the early exit of the BLAST Spring Repechage allowed Liquid to be a spectator in the BLAST final in the first half of this year, and the victory of the eighth season of the Pinnacle League (cs_summit 8) became a temporary comfort, and the regional championship became the team's only championship in 2021.
EliGE's hot feel was muted at a critical moment, the restart of the offline event was not as Liquid's wish, IEM Cologne, the group stage started with the loss to NIP so that they fell into the losers group early, and after defeating MOUZ, they could not cross the BIG mountain, EliGE also got a frustrating 0.97 Rating, which is also one of his three games with an average Rating of less than 1.00 this year. At this point, Stewie2K and FalleN had problems with the command of the team, and even if AdreN returned to the coaching staff later, it would not be able to solve this problem.
"The main issue is getting everyone on the same page and the shift in our role as the commander of the team. There was a reason at the time, but it was also quite stupid, and each time the command position was not reasonably transferred. FalleN was still in command when he first joined so he could focus on sniping, and eventually we had a transfer of command, but Stewie did a pretty good job, so we continued to do that for a while. Then there were frequent problems in the team after FalleN, and to be honest, if the command changed hands, it could be adhered to, rather than frequent changes. I think when we first swap, we should stick with it, not repeat it over and over again, causing everything to become stupid. ”
After a short break, the return of the EPL's fourteenth season made Liquid better again, performing well in the group stage, losing to Gambit but defeating the strong rival NIP. This time, they won the first round of the playoffs and were on the cusp of qualifying for the semifinals, but were completed by Heroic for 1v5 of the match points, which was reversed by the Dane. It was heartbreaking, but Elite still won its second EVP of the year with an average rating of 1.14 on 17 maps, an impact score of 1.22, and an ADR of 83.4.
The next few months were a grind for Liquid, as the Major seat problem had to return to North America to play the IEM fall tournament, blast's poor performance in the autumn group stage also made them have to play the re-entry match, returning to Europe from the BLAST fall re-re-entry tournament Liquid to finally beat 9z, Virtus.pro and MAD Lions to qualify for the offline final in Copenhagen.
"It was a really tough time, we were knocked out of BLAST after losing to Astralis in the group stage and had to play in showdown. The rmr and showdown back and forth after that made us tired, but fortunately we were still out. ”
"I think we were able to give our all in Major and get a good result, but unfortunately nothing happened in the end."
The elimination of the team again with 12-14 places at the Stockholm Major brought the team back to the cusp, and just a few weeks later, reports and interviews began to reveal that Liquid would change sides at the end of the year, and the fifth, sixth and seventh places in the BLAST autumn finals and IEM winter races became the last two nails in Liquid's coffin. While their performances in the BLAST World Finals deserved respect, it all came too late.
"The days [spent in Europe] are the biggest problem for me personally and when I look at the schedule for the end of 2020, I know it's going to be tough. I knew I needed something to help me solve my problem, but it didn't yield any results, and I was under a lot of pressure throughout the year and didn't know what to do, which also affected my mentality overall. Neither as a player nor as a teammate has reached the predetermined heights, but fortunately the team has changed now and I can now focus on being the best player in and out of the game. ”
"My personal goal in 2022 is to be the best team-mate I can be and solve all the problems I've had in 2021. It's definitely a process that will take some time, but I'll keep working on it. I want to start the new year with a great performance and make sure to invest as much time as possible in further developing myself inside and outside the game. ”
Why is Elite top 19 player of the year?
Unlike previous years, Elite's selection into the TOP 20 this year is not predictable in advance, but the EVP performance including IEM Katowice and EPL Season 14 and against the top teams is a steady performance, rarely bad performance (89% of the maps maintain 0.85 or above Rating, the 9th highest in the world), in the world's top five teams 40 maps meet 1.10 rating (the world's 12th highest), These two key factors set him apart from the many candidates.
Although the overall level of the year was lower than his standards in previous years, Elite was still able to figure out his strong performance – dealing a lot of damage (80.6 innings, 12th high in the world) and getting opening kills (0.13 innings, 12th high in the world). He also stood out in a handful of other categories, earning an impact rating of 1.17 (9th highest in the world) and contributing one or more kills (#13) in 48.7% of the rounds.
However, the lack of explosive data, and only 1.04 Rating in five elite LAN matches, prevented Elite from improving further this year's rankings, and perhaps his data could pick up again in 2022 with three new teammates.
Rising Star Prediction
EliGE chose 18-year-old sniper Marshall "Minus" Sedowicz as his star of tomorrow prediction. He believes the young genius will show solid form at ESEA Premier in 2021.
"I've seen a couple of his games and I think he has potential in a few years. How good a sniper north America is, he's playing well on Premier and I hope to see him at a higher level."