Brazilian Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato from FURIA was named to the top 15 of this year's list, and his strong fragging ability is one of the reasons for his inclusion.
As early as 2009, KSCERATO and his brother Kauan "kNc" Cerato were both hooked on this shooter game called Counter-Strike, and little Cerato continued to hone his skills in the Brazilian CS environment, and he also skipped class during school to play CS in an Internet café, which shows how much he loves this game. In order to further improve, KSCERATO competed in a number of small offline competitions in São Paulo, and in 2015 he finally had the opportunity to participate in his first higher level competition (r1seCup), when he was defeated by Marcelo "coldzera" David's team.
However, it was not until 2018 that KSCERATO made a breakthrough in his career, joining THE ACADEMY OF FURIA with Vinicius "VINI" Figueiredo, the duo who spent just one week in the academy before being promoted to the home team, and the two names will be closely associated with FURIA for four years. For FURIA at that time, it may be difficult to qualify for international competitions, but they made a name for themselves in the South American division early and won some large and small championships in the local area, FURIA took one step at a time, and after successfully qualifying in the FACIT Major American Minor Qualifier, they moved their family to Miami and officially prepared to march into the international competition.
After moving to North America, the FURIA team had mediocre results, did not qualify for the tournament smoothly, and did not achieve satisfactory victories, but the team was very stable in the competition, and they often pressed the top North American teams to the ground. The determined FURIA made a change by replacing Guilherme "spacca" Spacca with Rinaldo 'ableJ' Moda Junior, and the team finally made a comeback in 2019, with FURIA making its debut in Major (IEM Katowice), who were out of the challenger stage with a 12-14th finish.
The FURIA team began to gain better proportions in late 2019, thanks to their performances in DH Dallas and the ECS S7 Finals, especially in the GROUP STAGE OF ECS where they defeated Astralis twice to reach the knockout rounds. At that time, the arena was dominated by Astralis, and in that era led by the Danes, it was an absolute hegemony composed of systematic use of props and strict tactical discipline, and they were also the object of imitation by many teams. At that time, FURIA brought a completely different experience to the audience, KSCERATO and Yuurih gradually showed the level of the world's top riflemen, providing strong support for the team's frontal firepower, and under the aggressive command of the artistic brother arT, the Black Panther stood out, and their playing style quickly swept the global CS community, and the Black Panther was sought after by a large number of fans.
Not surprisingly, FURIA's passionate Brazilian CS style didn't work well at the top events of the time, and they began to slip markedly over the next few months. The breakthrough-seeking Panthers have changed sides again, replacing the ableJ position with Henrique "HEN1" Teles, the brazilian player's addition has provided FURIA with the confidence needed to further improve the world rankings, and his stability and star potential have indeed provided FURIA with great help in 2020. As the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged, many teams were stranded in the midst of the crisis, leaving many teams with their own path in the midst of the crisis. During the year, FURIA dominated North America and won three major titles in the region, the European Black Panthers at the end of the year once again showed their world-class potential, and KSCERATO also made the top 18 in 2020.
Entering 2021, just as fans are looking forward to the take-off of FURIA, the Black Panthers took the lead in ushering in a big crisis - HEN1 chose to leave the team to find LUCAS1 to play brother cs, and established O PLANO in one fell swoop. There was one less good guy and more competitors, and the Panthers really had no choice but to find a good hand, and after some consideration they chose to go to the international squad and signed Paytyn "junior" Johnson, a North American sniper from Plumph, when the teenager played hard with Michael "Grim" Wince, who later joined Liquid.
"We're all very uncomfortable, how to say that Henrik (HEN1) is also a cornerstone member of our team, and to everyone is like a family member, hey, but life is like this, this is the end and a new beginning." 」 It was also an incredible experience for us to rebuild this big family with a young man. ”
FURIA failed to get their new members to play in the first two tournaments of the year (BLAST Premier World Championship, cs_summit 7), and due to various issues such as passports, the team had to use the youth team's Lucas "honda" Cano as a substitute. Although the team is not their complete body, KSCERATO still showed a super high level, making a good start to the year, in the BLAST field he obtained a carrying stat of 1.18rating on six maps against G2 and Evil Geniuses, although the team was eliminated, KSCERATO's own strong performance allowed him to win the title of the first VP (valuable player) of his career.
KSCERATO's poor performance on cs_summit 7 was one of his only two negative-stats events this year, but KSCERATO rebounded quickly at IEM Katowice, where the Panthers played fully, and the Brazilian was again nominated for VP, with an average rating of 1.24 and an excellent 1.22 Impact in this event. Furia lost to NaVi in the losers group after defeating NIP in the first match, and after crossing FaZe 2-1, they were sent home by Virtus.Pro in the losers group final.
During the run-in period of the new lineup, FURIA, who tried to switch to English communication, felt a little uncomfortable, but in the EPL S13 arena, FURIA defeated naVi, FPX, G2 and Astralis teams to achieve a 3-4th ranking, and KSCERATO was rated as EVP with an excellent data of 1.16rating.
"To be honest, this (the change in the language of communication) was good for me, I could improve my English in my communication with the concierge, and I gradually realized that English communication may be clearer than Portuguese. I just saw it as 'another test' in the race, and I think that thinking about it helps to develop a better mindset and we don't feel a lot of pressure anymore, so that time at EPL S13 wasn't that tough for us. ”
KSCERATO's second loss of the year soon arrived, blast Premier Spring, FURIA won the first game to beat MIBR, but was defeated by Gambit in the Bo3 stage, thus missing the opportunity to participate in the spring finals. In the Spring Sweet Spring 1 and IEM Summer Closed Qualifiers, FURIA lost its hoof again and was eliminated in succession. But in the following competition, the DH Spring Masters, KSCERATO returned and once again became a crucial winner in the team, eventually helping FURIA to a 5-6th finish.
He was the key man in the three battles of pain, Complexity and Vitality, under his leadership, FURIA finally came out of the trough and reached the knockout rounds, but they were still eliminated by NaVi, who had just replaced flamie for B1T, and although they were out early in the knockout stage, KSCERATO's performance throughout the event earned him his second EVP nomination of the year. He averaged 1.16 ratings and 1.23 Impact on 10 maps — 0.13 higher than the second-place finisher on the team.
At the end of the first half of the season in 2021, FURIA chose to make a change, replacing the junior and choosing to return to the all-Brazilian squad, and finally, the young man who used to stand in the rear when the FURIA players played the game was officially back on the field. Junior's last race with the team was cs_summit 8, the first North American RMR event of the year, in which FURIA beat Liquid but was runners-up, but they managed to qualify for the PGL Major, where KSCERATO scored a solid 1.12rating.
Before the offseason, FURIA officially launched honda at the offline competition IEM Cologne, but this did not improve the Results of the Panthers, the Brazilian team won only one victory in the event (beating Renegades), followed by successive defeats to Vitality and Heroic, but KSCERATO still won another VP nomination for itself with excellent data of 1.29rating and 1.40 Impact, for the loss of this event, KSCERATO attributed it to the sudden change of team.
"We just replaced Junior with Honda and the whole team needed some time to adjust to the new environment."
However, this will not be the last change of furia, they once again announced that they will call in André "drop" Abreu to replace honda, but they did not determine the squad before the deadline for the reporting of the competition, so they could not use the newcomer on the EPL S14, and what is even more uncomfortable is that because honda's mother unfortunately contracted the new crown virus, he is determined to return home to take care of his family, FURIA had to let their coach Nicholas "guerri" Nogueira wore on the pitch and they were eventually eliminated in the group stage. But KSCERATO once again contributed top performances (1.30rating, 89.4ADR, 0.60DPR) on the 12 maps they went through, and he received his fourth VP nomination of the year for his outstanding performance against some of the world's top teams.
"In my opinion, every change in personnel is exhausting."
Back in North America they lost again, losing to GODSENT in the finals of the closed qualifiers and failing to qualify for the IEM Winter, but they had to refocus on the more critical things – the IEM Fall North America division and the Major. FURIA was humiliated at the IEM Autumn Tournament and received a ticket directly to the Legends stage as the champion of the North American Division. On Major's stage, KSCERATO continued to contribute to star-level performances (1.15 ratings, 1.31 impact), beating MOUZ, Liquid and Entropiq on the way to the knockout rounds – one of only two matches in FURIA to beat CIS teams in the whole year. However, in the Avicii Arena arena, they were eliminated by Gambit in the quarter-finals, thus ending their Major journey.
"To be sure, the CIS teams have made great strides in the style of the competition and the marksmanship of the players, but many of their players lack certain competition experience, which limits their development to some extent."
"I'm sure we can make it to the knockout stages, but we all know it's not going to be easy, the whole team tried a lot of new things in front of Major and we were well prepared enough to get us on the field with plenty of confidence. It feels a little magical to play on the stage of Major, and it was a really different experience for me to be able to reach the quarter-finals on Major this year, where Brazilian fans cheered for us. ”
"In addition, it is very difficult to meet players from different teams from different regions and talk to them about issues such as adjusting their mentality. The atmosphere and environment of the Major are beyond words, and the players get along harmoniously, exchange their ideas and experiences, and discuss tactical play with each other. More importantly, you can see everyone out there doing their best in the game. ”
Why is KSCERATO the Top 15 player of 2021?
This is the second time KSCERATO has made it to the Top 20 list, and he has improved from 18th in 2020, thanks to the star-level stats he has contributed in the top competitions he has participated in throughout the year. He was ranked 4th with a rating of 1.20 in the major events of 2021, and he scored an impressive 1.22 rating in the three "elite" events he competed in (IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne and PGL Major).
Overall, he is also one of the best fraggers in the world, ranking 6th in both kills per turn (0.74) and multi-kill frequency (18.8% of the rounds are multi-kills), and his ADR is 11th with a statistic of 81.0. It is worth mentioning that his performance on the offensive end is particularly prominent, and he is the only player in the Top 20 who has a higher rating on the offensive end (1.17, ranking 4th among all players). Furia didn't have many chances of playing against the top teams, they only played 18 charts with these teams at the end of the year, but he still achieved a 1.18 rating in the strong matchup.
Another key factor in KSCERATO's emergence from the team was his extremely high ceiling, and his strong strength in most matches also brought him two EVP nominations and five VP nominations, but the lack of MVP nominations also intuitively showed that he lacked enough team honors to support him. KSCERATO ended up at Number 15 on this year's list, with too few match maps in total (86 charts) and playing in only 8 major events throughout the year, coupled with his low peak, these factors are the root causes of his inability to achieve higher places.
Rising Star Prediction
KSCERATO's rising star chose 16-year-old Argentine sniper Santo "try" Rigal, and the media broke the news that the young Argentine genius would join 00Nation as one of Coldzera's generals.
"He's a good sniper, good mentality and stability are his strengths, but he needs to build more experience to support himself on this path."
Brazil's top gunman also credited two other talents, FURIA academy player Lucas "decenty" Bacelar and Denis "deko" Zhukov from 1WIN, who said the former was a very good player, but he also needed to go further to "excellent", while describing the 20-year-old Russian player as "very special" in his evaluation of the latter.