Top 20 Players 2022: HUNTER- (14th)

Nemanja “huNter-” Kovacs is ranked 14th in 1xBet’s Top 20 Players of 2022, thanks to a great floor and an impressive level at some of the biggest events and deep tournaments.

Top 20 players of 2022: an introduction

huNter- started his involvement in Counter-Strike at the end of 1.6 when he represented local Balkan teams but failed to achieve international recognition due to his young age. After the release of Global Offensive, the Bosnian decided that the game was not for him, and for several years he moved away from a serious game.

Undoubtedly, he was spurred on by the success of his cousin Nikola “NiKo” Kovacs, who was just starting to gain momentum on the international scene, huNter- gave in and decided to try his hand at CS:GO in 2015. He started his career playing in local teams like Jake Bube and GamePub before joining one of the top teams in the iNation region where he played alongside Alexander “kassad” Trifunovic and Luka “Luka”. Trifunovic and Luka “emi” Vukovic.

The team then went through several player changes and moved to Binary Dragons, where it began to gain international experience and broke into the top 40 of the world rankings. Another change of organization followed, and at the end of 2017 the roster moved to Valiance.

It was then that huNter- began to raise its head on the international stage, with the Balkan roster taking part in first-tier tournaments such as DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018. A period of stagnation followed, pushing the organization to create an English-speaking team by signing Nemanja “nexa” Isakovic, Rokas “EspiranTo » Milasauskas, and Otto “ottoNd” Sihvo. Then the team rebranded under the name CR4ZY and under this name took part in StarLadder Major Berlin 2019, almost reaching the Legends Stage and strengthening their status as one of the best future rosters.

It was not surprising that higher ranking teams began to show interest in CR4ZY players given their performance. Shortly after the Berlin Major, huNter- and nexa went to G2, which was the beginning of the organization’s decision to leave the French scene. huNter wasted no time in proving himself to be Tier One material, showing results that landed him at number 13 in his first appearance on the Top 20 list.

At the end of 2020, his cousin NiKo joined him and fulfilled his lifelong dream of playing alongside him. The Kovacs duo led the team to second place at IEM Cologne 2021 and PGL Major Stockholm 2021 and consistently placed well in international competitions, with huNter- getting even better and finishing 12th on the 2021 top 20 list, but no title was given them as we move towards 2022.

2022 has been a turbulent year for huNter- and his team, as the team’s roster has gone through several player changes as well as an unexpected parting with the coach in October. The team had to get used to playing under the two new IGLs and their respective style of play, but still managed to put together some impressive performances and put an end to G2’s five-year trophy drought.

Entering 2022, G2 has been active in the transfer market. The Berlin organization has decided to bring in new IGL Aleksi “Aleksib” Virolainen, as well as young player Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov to replace Nexe and François “AMANEK” Delaunay, hoping to build on the success achieved in the two grand finals at the end of the previous year.

The team started the year well, going through BLAST Premier Spring Groups 2022 to 4th-6th place. G2 did enough to make it to the spring finals, huNter- showed consistent performance throughout the tournament and finished it as the third highest rated player (1.10).

The encouraging debut set the team up perfectly for IEM Katowice 2022, where they hoped to develop their decent start. G2 started the tournament with a shocking loss to fnatic, but managed to turn the tide and qualify for the playoffs through the bottom bracket.

In the playoffs, huNter- increased his numbers and was a key ingredient in the team’s run to the finals, first scoring a 1.25 rating against Virtus.pro in the quarter-finals and then leading his team on the Mirage against Natus Vincere with 32 regular time kills. This meant that G2 would face FaZe in the grand final, who used Justin “jks” Savage as a substitute.

The game was incredibly tense, and G2 lost with a crushing score of 0:3 – the first two maps ended in overtime, and the third – 14:16. huNter-, despite the loss, became the highest rated player on the server (1.27) and received his first Exceptional Valuable Player (EVP) award this season.

G2 came to ESL Pro League Season 15 full of self-confidence, but a month-long break between games did not do them any good. The European team was in serious trouble and had only two victories, one of which was against big outsiders Looking For Org.

The second win came against Ninjas in Pajamas, where huNter- scored an incredible 1.78 rating for the entire series. This helped him earn the Valuable Player (VP) award as he averaged a 1.17 rating despite his team’s setbacks, maintaining his impressive form at the start of 2022.

“I had extra motivation because I wanted to show the new coach and the IGL what I can do. I started working alone for two weeks, maybe even more, before the bootcamp started, and at the beginning of the year I felt very good individually, and in general our attitude, training and everything worked pretty well at the beginning.

A poor start to the season meant that G2 approached PGL Major Antwerp 2022 with uncertain expectations. Aleksib and company started the Major cycle well, going through the RMR and looking strong in the Challengers Stage without losing a single game as huNter- finished the first stage with a 1.27 rating.

The Legends stage was a much tougher test for G2 as they were eliminated after losing the deciding pool series 2-2 against FURIA. huNter- also had its worst tournament of the year, averaging 1.00 across nine maps played.

This was the beginning of the end for the Aleksib-managed line-up, as they never reached their peak performance in Katowice in the remaining competitions.

huNter- has managed to maintain its consistent performances even when the team was failing, maintaining its early-season form and earning VP honors in all three post-major events that G2 hosted before the summer break. He has improved from event to event since the 1.07 IEM Dallas campaign, which ended with his team being defeated again by FURIA in the quarter-finals.

The team continued to have inconsistent and ultimately inconclusive results, showing some promise for the first time at the BLAST Premier Spring Finals, advancing to the semi-finals after defeating Vitality and FaZe in the group stage.

IEM Cologne was the last pre-break event for the players and G2 got the exact opposite of a much-needed good run to end the season. Finishing in 9th-12th place is all they could take, finishing the tournament in the group stage with one win.

huNter- finished as the highest ranked player on the team (1.18) by a wide margin (0.07), ending the first part of the year with another good individual performance that was not matched by a good result. This prompted the team to remove Audric “JACKZ” Jug” and Aleksib from the active roster, leading to the second phase of a makeover in less than six months.

“It was difficult because we added a new IGL, a new coach, a new AWPer, but obviously everyone expected a lot more from Aleksi, m0NESY and Remy [XTQZZZ]. Aleksi is a good IGL who suits the role individually, m0NESY is a great and young AWPer who showed it throughout the year, and Remy is a good coach who had good results back then in Vitality but didn’t manage to bring everyone together. We may have needed more time together in order to succeed, but unfortunately we were not stable and consistent enough.”

The roster shake-up proved particularly difficult for huNter- as he lost his close friend and teammate JACKZ, with whom he got along incredibly well both on and off the server.

“Losing JACKZ is always hard, he is one of the best people I know. The first time he went to the bench was very hard for me because he is the guy that every team needs. I used to interact with him more in the game when we took zones together when I first joined G2, but in this second part, when Aleksi joined, we were both kind of lurking in default. But Jackie on the sidelines has always been my big brother and will always be. I think he got the chance he deserved and I know he’s happy now with his french guys in HEET and I’m really happy for him.”

The two withdrawals meant that G2 needed to sign IGL along with a new rifler, preferably capable of securing sites on the CT side. The choice fell on jks and Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen, who were both gamblers for the European combine.

The Aussie has been inactive for almost a year since leaving Complexity – not counting his performance at IEM Katowice where he helped FaZe take down his now teammates. The signing of HooXi also surprised many, considering the Dane comes from Copenhagen Flames and has never led a first-tier team before.

“They [our management team] thought a lot about who to take with them, which two players were the best option, and in the end they decided to take HooXi and jks. Of course, we as players were asked a bit, but we didn’t make any decisions. We have heard and know almost everything about jks, we needed a player who could lay low on T and CT with a good and safe anchor, so it was an easy and expected decision. It wasn’t easy for IGL because there aren’t many good IGLs right now and we thought HooXi was a great option after adding jks. We needed a real team player who would do everything for the team, which is what HooXi is, and a guy who works hard, helps his players, tries to make the best of them, so I think our management team ended up making an amazing decision. “.

The first G2 event with a new roster at BLAST Premier Fall Groups was unconvincing, but in the end they coped with the task and made it to BLAST Premier Fall Final 2022, defeating Vitality in the decisive series. huNter- scored a 1.07 rating in an unremarkable performance for his high standards, trailing star duo m0NESY (1.34) and NiKo (1.24).

The new G2 fared much better in their second tournament, posting a 5-0 record at the start of ESL Pro League Season 16 in a group that included the likes of Outsiders and FaZe.

The playoffs showed that the team still had to figure out some aspects of their game, as they defeated Natus Vincere and Vitality ended their tournament in the semi-finals. huNter- especially struggled in those two games with just one map above 1.00, but his quality performance in the group stage still earned him the VP award.

The second cycle of the major has arrived, and G2 entered the Road to Rio RMR as the main favorites to pass the major. The tournament started off like a dream with a 16-0 win over ECSTATIC, but then things went awry.

The destruction of the Danes was followed by a close loss to Cloud9, after which G2’s hopes of qualifying for the Major were severely damaged as they lost to 1WIN despite huNter- scoring a 1.50 rating in that loss.

The following day they lost to GamerLegion in a shock loss which meant G2 missed out on the Rio Major. huNter- showed his highest rating under HooXi (1.18), but this did little to cheer him up after such a disappointment.

“We need to deal with pressure much better. I know and we know that everyone expects a lot from G2 and that’s okay, we have great players on the team so the pressure and play to not lose against teams where we were favorites is never good and we that is exactly what they did.

It was hard when we lost, we were all calm, worried that we missed this Major in Rio, and after these two decisions of our management team, it hit us hard. But like I said, we bonded and became a real team after all, and I’m happy with our attitude.”

If it wasn’t enough shock and regret for the entire G2 team that they missed the Major, they were stunned by the news that their coach Remy “XTQZZZ” Quoniam and manager Jérôme “NiaK” Sudries decided to leave the team after RMR.

“We lost to RMR and we were all shocked and feeling bad. I was even more shocked when I got a message from XTQZZZ and NiaK [team manager] that they had decided to leave after RMR because it was something we didn’t expect at all. I understand and respect this decision, I just thought it was not the right time for such a move. But we couldn’t change anything, we needed to move forward as a team, stick together, try our best until the end of 2022, and then see what is best to do, which we did at the end.”

With Rio Maior left behind, the team had almost two months without official games to prepare for the final two BLAST competitions. The first was the BLAST Premier Fall Final, where the team failed to show significant improvement and left the tournament in 5th-6th place, losing to the winners Heroic. huNter- was great against Fluxo at Dust2 where he posted a 1.93 rating and also resisted the loss against Heroic with a 1.12 rating which increased his average rating to 1.11 for the tournament and earned him the VP award.

huNter- did not start the final event of the year very well: in the opening match of BLAST Premier World Final G2, FaZe lost, and the Bosnian ended up at the bottom of the standings with a rating of 0.90. The next match was against reigning Major champions, the Outsiders, and huNter- and his team put in a completely different performance, destroying the Russian team at the Mirage 16-1 to secure a place in the playoffs.

Since the quarter-finals, huNter- had only one more map in red, which was lost in overtime to Vertigo against Vitality. When his teammates picked up the slack against Dan “apEX” Madesclaire” and company, it was huNter- who got his revenge on FaZe in a brilliant 1.35 rating performance. Their tournament success meant that G2 found themselves in the familiar situation of advancing to the grand finals in order to finally break their curse.

The game against Liquid started at Inferno where jks (1.59) and huNter- (1.41) dominated the North American side and took the win 16-7. There was only one victory left on the map before the title, and Mirage was next in line. A successful play on the CT side saw G2 win 16:12 and ended a five-year wait for the organization to win the $1,000,000 Big Event. huNter- also received his second EVP of the year in Abu Dhabi, finishing the year on a high.

“This world final was a gift for us, and we accepted this gift in the best possible way. It was an amazing feeling, especially after the personal issues that happened with HooXi. We once again showed a great mentality and a great team spirit and I was very proud.”

The victory in the BLAST World Finals gave G2 some much needed confidence and confidence that they are finally on the right track, about to take a break from the game without thinking about the upcoming rebuild.

“Raising the trophy in Abu Dhabi is by far the best moment of the year. It changed a lot, at least I think so, and I’m finally happy that we keep this lineup and not start from scratch because I’m tired of it.”

Why did huNter- become the 14th best player of 2022?

huNter- ranked 14th in our top 20 rankings due in part to his consistent performances for G2, with his consistency from map to map being one of the best with 89% of maps rated 0.85 or higher. He also stood out for his ability to land multi-kills (18.4%), ranking 12th in this stat. The 27-year-old also held strong on the CT side, where his average rating was 1.22, which is 16th, while his 79.1 ADR and 0.73 KPR ranked 16th and 15th, respectively.

His most outstanding stat this year is that his average rating (1.12) has risen when he played at events labeled “Elite” (1.14) and in the playoffs of those events (1.26) , leading to two EVPs at the start of the year, with G2 finishing second at IEM Katowice and claiming the title at the BLAST Premier World Final later in the year. Overall, he was a big match player, once again surpassing his 1.14 average when he played deep in the competition.

Ultimately, huNter-‘s lack of a pick compared to the players around him kept the Bosnian from finishing higher. Lack of major appearances also worked against him, with the Antwerp Major being his lowest ranking this year (1.00), while he missed out on Rio entirely after G2 failed to qualify.

“My goals for 2023 are to work hard and try my best to help the team win games, and nothing else.”