Mareks "YEKINDAR" Ga inskis debuted in the Top 20 list and was voted the Top 8 player of the year, and his high impact data and terrifying breakthrough ability are his reasons for the list.
YeKINDAR CS began his career, like many players, in the early days with his friends in various small local events, step by step to accumulate experience and hone their skills. The first time the name YEKINDAR was seen on HLTV was in the roster of the Latvian team Wolsung, who had achieved good results several times in small offline events locally and in the Baltic region. Once in the GameOn III finals in Lithuania, his stunning performance made Dmitry "hooch" Bogdanov interested in the young man, Hooch was discovering new potential players for the EPG team at the time, YEKINDAR successfully joined the EPG, knowing that in his hometown of Latvia, it is difficult for local CS players to leave the local area and go to other places to compete.
"It wasn't a disadvantage for me to be born in Latvia because without all the experiences I have there wouldn't be where I am now. But overall, this may be a problem for many local players, because other countries such as Denmark or Russia have more opportunities for players there to enter the big picture. Latvia may have limited the boundaries of growth of local players to some extent, but our country is gradually beginning to have an open-ended attitude towards e-sports and has become more interested in developing the e-sports industry, so I feel that I entered the CIS environment at the right time. ”
"Hooch approached me, saying he recognized my talents and offered to invest time in me. I was just playing offline in the local and Baltic Sea, and then I was very upset when I was playing in Lithuania, and when I came on stage, I almost directly rolled on the stage, but hooch was thinking 'Hey, we're going to have this approval'. Also, I remember playing with hooch in a CIS league and he had noticed me before that, but that public scandal made him decide that I was the person he needed (laughs). ”
The young Latvian spent the next eight months playing for the EPG, where he gained valuable experience playing at higher levels, and he reached 33rd place in the world with the team at one point, including hooch, Aleksei "NickelBack" Trofimov, Aleksei "El1an" Gusev, etc., all of whom now continue to chase their dreams in the Entropiq team, but this is all a story. At this stage of YEKINDAR's career, the very personal style of play has been intuitively reflected in the match data, and in the Stream.me Gauntlet 7, he contributed 1.40+ rating data on 5 maps, including his opponents including the future first-line professional Nemanja "nexa" Isakovi, whose team defeated Spirit in the semi-finals. However, he will also score a low score of 0.80 on the five maps of M.Game League 2, and it is worth mentioning that the team that defeated them, ALTERNATE aTTaX, has three familiar old acquaintances - Nils "k1to" Gruhne, Florian "syrsoN" Rische and Nicolai "HUNDEN" Petersen.
YEKINDAR and El1an are well-deserved star players in the EPG roster, gaining valuable experience against powerful opponents and making quick adjustments to get huge improvements. In the ECS S5 Challenger Cup they led the team to a 16-13 and 16-14 victory over NaVi, but CS is still a team game after all, EPG can not make more progress, the change of team is inevitable.
The young rifleman briefly played for forZe after leaving the EPG before competing in the CIS Minor at Monolith before being signed by pro100 after a successful trial in October 2018. Although his personal performance is still the same, the team is still unable to complete the breakthrough, and the highest ranking of the pro100 is only top 31. However, this does not prevent YEKINDAR from constantly honing himself on a larger stage, his performance is more stable, and the record of match data is also significantly reduced, such as he cut 1.47 rating in the 2019 DH Delhi Invitational Tournament, and in the same year Qi Banja Luka achieved an average of 1.32 on 9 maps, and they defeated Copenhagen with René "TeSeS" Madsen in the final Flames。 Even in the face of defeat, he performed well, ESL One: Road to Rio CIS, he scored an average of 1.22 ratings on 11 maps, and although the team's ranking was still at the bottom, the Virtus.pro, who was beaten 2-0 by them, had already set his sights on the invincible but outrageous young man.
"I felt great at the pro100, Flarich is really a really great guy, I learned a lot from him, and the offline game tips, mindset adjustment tips and nutrition tips that Zeus taught me are still very helpful to me. But after playing there for 4-5 months, I found myself a bit stagnant and unable to improve, but after we lost the Minor qualification, the team changed, WorldEdit, wayLander and PipsoN joined the team, and the situation also changed a lot, and all three of them also taught me a lot of valuable experience and made me believe in my ability even more. All of this forced me to do better, and I believe it was these things that helped me get the attention of the VP. ”
In May 2020, YEKINDAR was signed by the Virtus.pro, injecting new life into the original AVANGAR squad, which had achieved excellent results in major competitions and once ranked 3rd in the world, but after being included in the Virtus.pro, it began to gradually decline and eventually fell into trouble. Virtus.pro left with a poor finish in the last five races and had to make a change, and the key part of that was YEKINDAR. The improvement in the team's form was immediate after YEKINDAR joined, with Latvian fierce performances in the CIS BLAST 2020 qualifiers, including a record high of 1.36 rating against NaVi Junior in the semi-finals.
However, their run-in period was not all smooth sailing, and the defeat in the EPL S12 qualifiers sounded another alarm for them, and in August, the team activated Timo "buster" Tulepov and delegated Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev. The Virtus.pro of the new lineup trained their troops through a series of mini-events, including YEKINDAR again achieving a horror stat of 1.39 rating in the Nine to Five event, and the team also received a significant ticket to Flashpoint 2. During this time, they also won the championship at IEM New York CIS, this time truly showing the world the huge potential that the squad has, and in the match against NaVi, YEKINDAR once again shined, dominating the field with a 1.41 rating, helping Virtus.pro sweep NaVi 2-0.
The new York victory brought the new Virtus.pro fully into shape, and in the next major event, Flashpoint 2, they won the cup again, in which they did not lose to any team, and successfully crowned with a record of all-win series, when big (Top 5), OG (Top 6) and fnatic (Top 13), the teams ranked higher than them were their underlings. Yekindar's overall performance, however, is not outstanding, his rating is 1.06, but his total first kills (84) and average first kills per round (0.16) are at the top of the charts, and his Impact rating (1.20) is also in the top ten. It is clear that YEKINDAR is the sharpest spear tip of the Virtus.pro, the key person who opens up the situation and creates space for other teammates to shine. Virtus.pro and YEKINDAR extended this impressive state to the end of 2020, when they finally concluded with a victory in the DH Open in December.
"It was really cool to win flashpoint 2 titles, we were playing open qualifiers and we had IEM New York closed qualifiers to play, after beating K23 we successfully qualified for IEM New York and then we started preparing flashpoint, the quarter-finals showdown with MAD Lions on Train was incredible, after reaching the semi-finals we successfully flipped fnatic on Overpass, In the final against OG, we lost one of our first, and OG beat us in the group stage, but in the end we still won. It's all a very bad story, and it's a great experience, but I played too badly, and I need to continue to strengthen my training, and I'm the kind of person who will work harder after winning. It's just a success, there are more events to play, life goes on, never stop you. ”
2021 was another success for Virtus.pro and YEKINDAR, with the CIS team on the cs_summit 7 stage on a more mature trajectory, winning the title without losing a single map, YEKINDAR finishing third in the charts with a stats score of 1.22rating, while also playing an 87ADR and a staggering 1.48 Impact rating. The Latvian managed to earn the EVP title and he was already fairly close to the MVP (his teammate Dzhami "Jame" Ali won the MVP Medal). Katowice was the next most important event, Virtus.pro did not go well in its qualifying rounds, losing 2-0 to NIP after winning their first victory, but in the next round they finally found themselves, and under the yekindar God of War class (1.75rating), Virtus.pro easily crossed the Renegades to qualify for the main tournament.
IEM Katowice' main event was one of the most gold-laden races of the year, with 16 team-mates on its list, but Virtus.pro first game was frustrated, Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev led NaVi 2-0 to Victors.pro with a 1.43rating performance, and YEKINDAR performed poorly with a rating of just 0.92. The CIS stars broke through the losers' group, destroying NIP, Vitality and FURIA.
YEKINDAR and James also form a dynamic duo, with the two Virtus.pro stars topped the list in every series, with both of them ratings at least 1.26. On the stage of the quarter-finals, waiting for them were world number two Astralis, Virtus.pro, who won 2-1 in a head-to-head match against the Danes, and YEKINDAR once again contributed the highest 1.37rating and 99ADR in the server. In the semi-finals, Liquid was overpowered by YEKINDAR and James, who scored 1.59 and 1.50 respectively. Unfortunately, in the final, they met the new Gambit, who is steadily moving towards the world's first place, and finally Virtus.pro lost to Gambit 1-3, and the veteran Abay "Hobbit" Khasenov played a terrifying 1.40rating stat in the final, crushing the Virtus.pro in one fell swoop.
Still, the event was also a huge success for Virtus.pro, especially for YEKINDAR, who won the EVP, who once again narrowly missed the MVP, Gambit's Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov bringing home the MVP medal. Yekindar achieved staggering figures of 1.28rating and 92rating on 17 maps, and we have to mention his inhuman Impact rating (1.57), and there is no mistake that YEKINDAR has a Carry ability that is almost comparable to s1mple in the game.
YEKINDAR believes that the strong momentum of the team in 2020 is the main reason why they have a good start in 2021.
"We won three races before 2021, CIS RMR, Flashpoint and DH Winter, and the excellent performance at the end of the year contributed to further development at the beginning of the year. In addition, we are actually a rookie team in the first division, so people will doubt to some extent whether we can adapt to the higher intensity of the game so quickly. ”
At the end of 2020 and early 2021 Virtus.pro won several events, they have shown the potential of their world-class teams, but in the following games their form began to decline. Although YEKINDAR regained EVP with a 1.24 rating on the EPL S13, Virtus.pro barely made it to the knockout round, losing to Complex in the second round. Failing to achieve the expected results in a major event is not too worrying, but the next Funspark ULTI, in this overall intensity is not very high, they performed very badly, as the highest-ranked team in the event, they lost to forZe and HAVU in succession, which is unacceptable for a world No. 5 team. Virtus.pro's lows were not over, and at the DH Spring Masters Virtus.pro didn't even make it to the knockout rounds, but the two teams that defeated them were NaVi and G2, and in both games, YEKINDAR's performance was still admirable, and he won the title of VP (Valuable Player) in both games.
Then the RMR event EPIC League CIS officially arrived, and although the Virtus.pro was not completely out of the haze, they still achieved second place in this particularly important competition. Their performance in the group stage was impatient, and after barely entering the winner group, they were defeated by Akuma, but they bottomed out of the loser group again, and in the following game they were only defeated by the then world number one Gambit on the final stage, and in the final, Hobbit once again became their biggest enemy, and the Virtus.pro Hobbit was like playing chicken blood, subduing the White Bears again with a horror data of 1.45rating. It's also one of the few mediocre races at YEKINDAR, but his 1.05rating and 81ADR on 25 maps is still enough to earn him another VP nomination. IEM Summer was a continuation of Virtus.pro's recovery, nominated to reach the knockout rounds, but was blocked by Vitality at the first hurdle, where YEKINDAR played its worst performance of the year, which was also his only event with a data hit (0.93rating).
After entering July Virtus.pro fell to the bottom again, and at the StarLadder CIS RMR, they finally won a Bo3 victory, but Virtus.pro still came out in the penultimate position, the most unacceptable of which was the defeat against the world's 53rd-ranked 100PG. Virtus.pro seems to have developed a corporate culture, and in the latter event they once again completed their redemption, the CIS team reached the quarter-finals of the offline competition IEM Cologne, but there they met Astralis, who also bottomed out, and the two sides fought three times, and the first two games were in overtime, and finally the Astralis old guys were better, ending the series 16-8 on the decider Inferno. YEKINDAR didn't reach his early heights, but he remained the most critical driver of the Virtus.pro, winning second (1.06) and first (1.12) ratings in the team at RMR and Cologne, respectively, while YEKINDAR added two more VP awards for himself.
After entering the offseason, a series of behind-the-scenes rumors in Virtus.pro began to rumble, and some media broke the news that they would make a change of team in the near future, and Sanjar "SANJI" Kuliev may be the candidate to be delegated. However, in August Virtus.pro did not hear anything about it, and the team returned from the offseason to participate in the EPL S14 with the original lineup. But the CIS teams once again had a bad performance in the EPL, winning just two of their five games in the group stage and eventually eliminating them with dismal results. YEKINDAR has won himself his sixth VP title so far this year, and his first kill stat of 0.15 per round is really impressive. In the following small events Virtus.pro continued to be extremely unstable, finishing first in the Pinnacle Fall Series but being eliminated by the Eternal Fire in the second season of REPUBLEAGUE TIPOS.
After entering the IEM autumn match, the Virtus.pro's form slowly stabilized, and they reached the knockout stage with a record of 4-1 in the group stage, and it is worth mentioning that they defeated the world's second-ranked Gambit 22-20 to announce the return of the team. Then in the semi-final against NaVi, YEKINDAR fully showed his strong and strong characteristics, he led the game with a data of 1.26rating, but NaVi was still an insurmountable obstacle for Virtus.pro, and finally lost to NaVi 0-2. Virtus.pro lost in the third-place scramble, where they won the first game to get the lead, but only scored seven points in the next two maps, and were eventually let by Entropiq to chase them two. Luckily, Virtus.pro their closest opponents in RMR didn't fare as well as they did in the group stage, with a fourth-place finish enough to get them tickets to the PGL Major. YEKINDAR played the role of the team leader in the event, with 1.30 ratings, 95 ADR and 1.56 Impact ratings on 12 maps making him the best player in the team, and he once again rubbed shoulders with the MVP, but the EVP was naturally indispensable. Virtus.pro failed to show enough influence at the BLAST Fall Games on the eve of Major, beating movstar Riders 2-0 in the first game, only to lose 1-2 to Liquid in the next round, but YEKINDAR still scored a good 1.30rating.
Virtus.pro precarious state and a sharp decline in the second half of the year prompted them to make changes, and finally SANJI was officially decentralized, with Evgeny "FL1T" Lebedev from ForZe taking his place. The youngster had impressed Virtus.pro, and his addition provided the team with another powerful firepower output point, and given that players in the Virtus.pro except YEKINDAR were prone to falling into passive situations, which eventually led to the CIS team's offensive rhythm in recent months, FLIT's more aggressive play seemed to help Virtus.pro fill the gap perfectly.
"We want to win the championship, it's one thing to get into the knockout rounds, but it's another thing to win the championship and everybody recognises that the team has to make changes to move forward. In fact, we had the idea of changing sides very early on, but the game that lost to Liquid at BLAST made us make up our minds, and that loss had a big impact on the team. ”
Virtus.pro passed 3-1 in the Challenger stage of major, and FaZe, 3-0, was the only team to beat them, but they were not smooth sailing, and they tried their best in the 16-14 victory over paiN, and they played three charts in the Bo3 match against Spirit, and finally narrowly beat their opponents in overtime in the decisive chart. YEKINDAR was stable in Major's challenger group, and although it didn't stand out by his standards, he still got a 1.16 rating, a 0.23 average round first kill, and a 1.44 Impact rating. Virtus.pro's new squad may not be as strong, but it is undeniable that the addition of FLY has greatly improved their offensive rhythm.
Then came the Legendary stage, Virtus.pro's form was once again ups and downs, they beat Vitality 16-14 in a fierce match, but they were immediately swept 16-4 by the eventual champion NaVi, but in the match against Gambit they were once again ruthlessly destroyed by Hobbit, the Virtus.pro nemesis slashed 39 frogs in this Bo1 showdown, personally sending their CIS compatriots to a desperate situation.
It is worth mentioning that the quality of these three games in Virtus.pro is not average, and they have shown some competitiveness against vitality, which is ranked third in the world, and Gambit, which is ranked fourth in the world, which shows that the addition of FL1T is achieving results. So far, YEKINDAR has not played at the level of star level, but in critical moments, when the team needed him most, he stepped forward and led the team to beat MOUZ and FaZe by the same score of 2-1, respectively, to successfully advance to the knockout rounds, yekindar in two games to achieve 1.15 and 1.16 rating, respectively. James's poor performance in these two races highlights the importance of YEKINDAR, the Virtus.pro must have a big brother who can carry the banner to lead the team and drag the team into the finish line. The quarter-finals may have been the end point for Virtus.pro, who were beaten by Heroic and YEKINDAR once again led the team in such an important match, finishing first in the squad with a statistic of 1.09rating, and the Latvian's efforts allowed him to win the VP title once again. On Major's stage, Virtus.pro cemented his position as one of the best eight teams in the world, thanks in large part to yekindar's efforts, which he saw as the biggest highlight of the year.
"It was the first time I saw so many live fans, signing autographs on clothes and taking a group photo, the first time I played in the arena, and the emotions contained in these scenes were all memorable to me, and all of them constantly inspired me to become stronger."
Virtus.pro reached the final four with a strong momentum at the IEM Winter, and they did not lose a single picture on their way to the knockout round, especially in the group winners' group with a 2-0 victory over Gambit, a victory for them that is worth rejoicing in, as Red Star has been the absolute nemesis of the Virtus.pro throughout the year. Yekindar has this to say about his team seemingly catching up with Gambit before the end of the year:
"Gambit is really quite Clamy (laughs) and I have to admit that Ax1Le and Hobbit's individual performances this year are really outrageous, playing with them is very, very difficult, Gambit's firepower output point is too stable. But after FL1T joined we can say that it was a completely different team, so the old record is no longer meaningful, and I think Gambit was a bit too tired at the end of the year, so this win doesn't represent anything. ”
"It was inevitable that the CIS team would beat another CIS team, and in those eras dominated by Astralis, ruled by Luminosity-SK, cis-cis players almost failed in challenging these teams that were then dominant, but now we have accumulated a lot of experience. Gambit has also become the industry benchmark in the professional arena, everyone is trying to keep up with them, but when there is a benchmark team in your region, then the strength of the whole division will increase accordingly, and the regional teams will be more targeted, I think you understand what I mean, so I say this is bound to happen. ”
Virtus.pro eventually collapsed in front of the final, the comeback Vitality destroyed them in one fell swoop, and the Frenchman ended the year with good results, losing to what may be the second best team in the world at the end of the year. YEKINDAR went on to win its 8th VP title with excellent data, and the Latvian star lost only once on the road to VP and EVP competition, which also ended this wonderful year. The 22-year-old hopes a strong end of the year will mean his squad will make a big difference in 2022.
"Winning some titles throughout 2022 and being in the top three teams in the world is probably going to be a good result, for me personally, I don't know, I just want to enjoy the fun that the game brings me and help my team go further."
Why is YEKINDAR the Top 8 player of 2021?
YEKINDAR was one of the most influential players in the game throughout 2021, and together with his steady lower bound level, he was ranked 8th on our Top 20 list. His biggest advantage is his particularly aggressiveness and ability to kill firsts, he ranks first in the average first kill stats (0.18), and he has a 53% success rate in this head-to-head duel, which brings his first kill stats to 1.30rating, ranking first among all players. His ability to kill streaks is also strong enough (18.6% odds per round, ranking 10th), and his high number of assists (thanks to his world-numbered ADR stats: 84.5) gives his Impact Rating a staggering 1.36 (third among all players). He also has the highest percentage of unattuund kills (86%), and his kills are among the best in the world (0.74 KPR).
His aggressiveness has in many cases helped the team directly win rounds, with 1.07 kills in the victory round (5th) and ADR of 113.8 (2nd), a statistic where he is on par with the best players in the world. In addition, his majority stats are 1.14rating (9th) and he performs very well in important matches (36 maps 1.11rating, 10th).
However, the problem with YEKINDAR is that he doesn't have high peak data, and overall his real best performance is in IEM Katowice, when he ran as runner-up in the MVP campaign. Overall, he did pretty well in the "Elite" event (1.16rating, No. 9), with his excellent performances at the PGL Major, IEM Cologne and IEM Winter all earning him the title of VP, but his awards cV wasn't strong enough to compete with the best players of 2021.
"I don't think I'm a very aggressive player and I can play in different styles depending on which kind of team I need to be. Maybe I just like to play like this, and this rhythm of the game will make me more enjoyable, but everyone knows that sometimes I will pit myself, but the team's performance is the most important thing for me, and I will become the person my teammates need. ”
Rising Star Prediction
YEKINDAR named his compatriot Roberts "shield" Tipsis as his rising star, the teenager who is playing for LowLandLions. However, he specifically mentions CIS snipers Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov and Igor "w0nderful" Zhdanov.
"Shield is a pretty good player and if he keeps working hard, his future will be bright and I hope everything will have a good impact on him because I want him to be a good player and more importantly – he's Latvian, let's cheer together."