With Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev having received his medal as HLTV MVP by BenQ of ESL One New York, it's time to explain what he did to earn it and which other players were in contention in our "Top players" review of the American event.

With $250,000 on the line and eight world class teams in attendance, ESL One New York was always set to be one of the most interesting tournaments of the year. But now that it's over, it seems it actually surpassed the expectations, providing a lot of nail-biting matches, as well as storylines and highlights that will live on for a long time.

Natus Vincere returned from the battlefield as victors, taking out Liquid in the semis and Virtus.pro in the final on their way back toward the top of the world. The Polish veterans finally bested their nemesis SK in the other semi-final, while the updated lineups of OpTic, fnatic and especially Liquid gave a good account of themselves in their LAN debuts.

You can read more about most of the teams' performances in our What we learned article. Here we will discuss which players came out as the biggest stars from New York.



s1mple with his medal as HLTV MVP by BenQ for ESL One New York

Naturally, our official HLTV MVP by BenQ of the event Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev got most of the spotlight, but we'll also take a look at other top performers and the impact they had on their team's final placement.

At this event we started our new project (supported by BenQ) of handing out actual medals to our MVPs, backtracking to give Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David one for ESL One Cologne and Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski for DH Open Bucharest. We also picked our PotM (Player of the Map) on Twitter for each of the 27 maps played, which we will refer throughout this article.

We will be using Rating 2.0 in our analysis, which although still in testing and awaiting implementation on our site, is showing promising results by better assessing player performance – accounting for consistent contribution, opening kills, clutches, assists, damage dealt and more in addition to the original formula.

You can click on each player's name in the following list to jump to the section of the text that goes more in-depth about their performance, while in case you're unfamiliar with the terms and abbreviations used in the article you can always jump to the end and check our glossary.

HLTV MVP by BenQ: s1mple becomes a champion

The Ukrainian prodigy s1mple joined Natus Vincere two months ago as a major finalist and an already established star, but an international title had still eluded him, having only won local CIS LANs in his career. After his first outing with Na`Vi at StarSeries in Kiev, where the then-18-year-old put in a disappointing performance (0.70 rating) and the team bombed out in last place, a cloud of doubt was cast above the lineup change that brought him to the team in place of long-time member Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko. But ESL One New York resolved all such doubts, as s1mple put in the best performance of his career at a big event and won his first ever international trophy, earning the HLTV MVP by BenQ title in the process. The reasons we gave s1mple the medal are quite simple – he was the highest rated player of the event (1.25 rating), the most consistent player (8 of 9 maps above a 1.00 rating), the best fragger (0.86 KPR), the hardest player to kill (0.62 DPR), the best clutcher (9 clutch rounds won) and the 2nd most impactful player (1.40 impact rating). We named him our Player of the Map on three occasions throughout the weekend – each more important than the last – starting with the playoff-spot-clinching win over SK on Mirage (28:10, 114.1 ADR, 1.71 rating), then the Dust2 decider of the Liquid semi-final (26:12, 96.2 ADR, 1.53 rating) and lastly the second map of the grand final, Train vs. Virtus.pro (22:13, 125.0 ADR, 1.67 rating). In addition to those high peaks, he played well in other maps too, contributing the most in Na`Vi's round wins overall (and having the most round win shares in the whole tournament, 25%). And that came in very handy when one of the other two stars in the team had a bad game, as the Ukrainian-based squad always managed to pull through in the end. And to touch on the aforementioned 1.40 impact rating – it mostly stemmed from his ability to get multiple kills in a round, as well as his 9 clutches. He ended up with two or more kills in 25% of his rounds (second most at the tournament). And Na`Vi won 51 of 57 such rounds (89%), which is the highest percentage by any player. The most memorable part of s1mple's campaign will of course be his highlights, such as the 1vs4 in the final, the already infamous 1vs1 with throwing the AWP over the wall, or some of his event-high 14 Desert Eagle headshots. You can see most of those highlights below in our special MVP movie:

s1mple became a champion and an MVP of a big event for the first time in his career last weekend, and the manner in which he did that showed that he has a winner's mentality and that he is one of the biggest superstars we have in the game currently.

EVPs: GuardiaN steps up when it mattered most, EliGE reaches new heights, Snax & flamie with games of the tournament

The MVP race was quite open before the final, but Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács wasn't one of the players in it due to his uninspiring display in the semi against Liquid, as Na`Vi had to rely on their other two stars to carry them through that challenge. However, the Slovakian player answered the call in the grand final against Virtus.pro, which he finished as the best player of the series (69:49, 79.5 ADR, 1.21 rating, 37 AWP kills). 22 of those AWP kills came in the deciding map Mirage, including 6 in the overtime – along with the championship-winning defuse. He also had a big 1vs3 clutch during the second half and ended the map with a 34:19 score. In addition to that Mirage performance, he was also our Player of the Map twice earlier in the tournament – in group stage wins over Liquid (22:12, 82.1 ADR, 1.39 rating, 18 AWP kills) and Virtus.pro (23:17, 95.2 ADR, 1.27 rating, 15 AWP kills). A good case can be made that he was overall the best AWPer of the event as well, getting 10+ AWP kills in 7 of his 9 maps, with an average of 0.46 per round (shared highest). He was also one of the most successful at opening rounds, winning 64 percent of his duels (ranks 3rd) for an average of 0.13 opening kills per round (ranks 7th). Considering that all of that eventually led to a title – his first ever at a big event – GuardiaN is an obvious choice for an Exceptionally Valuable Player of ESL One New York.

The revelation of the tournament was home-grown, at the delight of thousands of local fans, as Liquid's 19-year-old Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski had the best performance of his career so far, putting up a 1.22 rating and the event's highest ADR of 91.2. EliGE kicked off the event with a bang despite a loss to Natus Vincere (33:16, 127.9 ADR, 1.78 rating), and went on to be Player of the Map twice in the group stage. The first occasion was the victory over G2 on Train (23:13, 86.6 ADR, 1.30 rating), while the other was one that will be remembered – second Dust2 clash vs. fnatic for a playoff spot (28:16, 102.9 ADR, 1.52 rating) where he had a big ace. "Young Jon" didn't stop there, as he proceeded to dominate against Na`Vi in the semi-final (63:53, 92.7 ADR, 1.18 rating), admittedly with a drop off on the third map as the team faded away to a 3rd-4th place finish. On the first map though, Cobblestone, he earned his third PotM recognition by putting up superb numbers in the 16-7 win (25:9, 119.0 ADR, 1.78 rating). It was EliGE who bested the MVP in the impact rating category, earning a 1.43 score (which means 43% above average) thanks to his opening kill prowess and impact rounds. As the most aggressive player of the event – he was involved in 29% of possible opening duels – he recorded 0.14 opening kills per round (3rd most) and had 18 rounds with 3+ kills (the most). With all of the above in mind, and considering that none of EliGE's teammates even had a rating above 1.00, it's clear why he was an EVP of this event. The youngster reached new heights with this performance and, combined with what probably would have been an EVP performance at the previous major (had we done an article like this), this means that the 19-year-old's stock is growing fast.

Janusz "⁠Snax⁠" Pogorzelski has been dropping in form a bit after his MVP-worthy performance at ELEAGUE Season 1 playoffs, failing to impress at StarSeries and being "only" a Valuable Player at DreamHack Open Bucharest a few weeks ago. He started the New York event in similar fashion, with a few solid displays, but nothing too impressive in the group stage as only the third best rated in Virtus.pro. He slowly woke up "the beast" within during the SK semi-final, doing solid work in the double-OT thriller on Overpass and then excelling on Nuke (21:10, 95.1 ADR, 1.45 rating). But that was just a prelude for the first map of the final, where he made Cobblestone his playground and toyed around with the eventual champions. In the first half he won a 1vs3 with the AWP, and then as the sides changed he pulled off one of the most amazing pistol round clutches in CS:GO history. Check out those two rounds below:

Snax ended the map with 26:7, 123.7 ADR, 2.22 rating, making it the single best performance of the tournament. He put up a decent fight on the deciding map Mirage as well, although his place as an EVP of the event was already cemented by then. He was the fourth best rated player in the playoffs (1.11 rating) and best rated in Virtus.pro's round wins. He continued with great CT-side AWPing, recording 0.40 kills per round – 4th highest at the event. On the other side of things, he was a very good round opener as a Terrorist, getting 0.13 opening kills per round with a 65% success rate.

No longer the youngest member of Na`Vi, Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev was the team's only bright spot in their unceremonious last place finish at StarSeries last month. He continued his form here in New York with solid play in all three group stage wins, with a particularly good display against Virtus.pro on Train (21:15, 101.5 ADR, 1.35 rating, 2x 1vs1). Train was also the map where he later on made his biggest contribution to Na`Vi's triumphant trip to the States – putting in a mind-blowing performance in a 16-13 win over Liquid to tie the semi-final series (39:19, 134.8 ADR, 1.87 rating, multi-kill in 48% of rounds). He did well in the other two maps of that series too, but was less impactful in the grand final, thus dropping out of the MVP race. flamie ended up with the 5th highest ADR (86.2) overall and second most clutch rounds won (6), which together with the fact that he had only one bad map (below 0.85 rating) shows his usefulness to the team.

Following his convincing EVP performance at DH Open Bucharest, Paweł "⁠byali⁠" Bieliński had another great tournament in New York. He was a part of Virtus.pro's trio that alternated in putting up big numbers, and his main strengths were consistency and, as usual, reliability. With only two bad maps (their two group stage losses) and 75% of rounds with a contribution throughout the tournament (2nd most), he was the second most consistent player of the event, after the MVP. He was only once Player of the Map though, but it was quite an important occasion – the playoff spot decider against OpTic (27:21, 98.5 ADR, 1.38 rating, 9 assists), where he helped the team overcome a 13-14 deficit on Cobblestone. The SK semi-final was another test that byali passed with flying colors, as he was the shared highest rated player of that series (1.10 rating). And the first map of the final against Na`Vi was actually his best statistically, in which he kick-started the big win with a 4K in the first round, but his performance (23:10, 116.9 ADR, 1.85 rating) was overshadowed by his teammate Snax. Lastly, to illustrate his reliability it's worth noting that he was the player who dealt at least 100 damage most often at the event (in 47% of his rounds) – meaning that even though he doesn't get the big multi-kill rounds too often, the team could rely on him to do the needed damage.

Rounding out Virtus.pro's big trio that helped them reach 2nd place and almost win the event is the MVP from Bucharest, NEO. At the start of this event the 29 year old Pole continued exactly where he left off in Romania, opening his account in New York with a stunning performance against fnatic on Cobblestone (27:14, 132.8 ADR, 1.82 rating). He had another PotM display against Liquid on Mirage (21:12, 81.5 ADR, 1.36 rating) and was looking to be on his way to another MVP title after the group stage. That looked even more likely after his display in the amazing semi-final series against SK, where he was shared-highest rated (1.10 rating). More important, he pulled the team to a comeback on Overpass which ended up in double overtime, after which he got our PotM nod for that map as well (34:32, 88.7 ADR, 1.13 rating, 11 assists, 7 opening kills). He even started well in the final with 88.2 ADR on Cobblestone and a 1vs2 clutch early on that set the tone, but he then slowly disappeared across the series and couldn't make the needed impact in the last two maps. In the end he ranked third in the team with a 1.07 rating, but still dealt the most damage on average (84.2, 7th most overall). A stat that demonstrates his team-oriented approach is damage he dealt outside of his kills (25.9, 4th most), which includes his event-high grenade and Molotov damage (7.3) that so often served to soften up the enemy early in the round. And as expected, that all led to a high number of assists for NEO (0.20 per round, 2nd highest). NEO was also one of the players who sacrificed himself for the team most often, having 26% of his deaths traded within five seconds (3rd most). With all that said about his teamplay, he was still the most impactful player in Virtus.pro, having team and event high 18 rounds with three or more kills. Therefore, coupled with the three-time PotM selection and his performance in the SK series he deserved a spot in the EVPs section.

VPs: FalleN shines with the AWP, fer does the damage in group stage, twist stars for the new-look fnatic

In SK's first LAN event since the triumph at ESL One Cologne three months ago, the Brazilian team recorded a decent top four finish, but will surely be sore after wasting 6 match points in the semi-final against Virtus.pro. One of the best performers for the squad this time was Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, who put up 0.46 AWP kills per round, was one of the best at opening rounds and had one of the tournament's best highlights – at a key point of the Astralis win no less. He played well both in the group stage and in the semi-final, even putting up a 40-kill performance in the double-OT thriller against Virtus.pro.

Fernando "⁠fer⁠" Alvarenga missed some action throughout the summer due to a nose surgery that saw him only return to activity a few weeks ago. At the start of ESL One New York he looked like he hadn't missed a step, putting up 105.1 damage per round in the group stage as the team went 3-1 to secure a playoff spot. He particularly excelled in the Virtus.pro win on Train (22:13, 128.5 ADR, 1.57 rating), but was unable to replicate that performance against the Poles in the more important match – finishing as the worst rated player of the semi-final series. Nevertheless, fer was involved in a remarkable 97% of round wins for SK throughout the event, indicating how essential he was on their road to top four. Another stat that testifies to his influence is that SK lost 82% of rounds when fer dealt no damage at all. Thankfully for them, he was the player to whom that happened least often – in only 19% of his rounds.

Jarosław "⁠pashaBiceps⁠" Jarząbkowski finds himself in the Valuable players list in spite of a slightly below average rating (0.99) thanks to the amount of work he put in during the playoffs (1.02 rating). After a mostly lackluster display in the group stage (aside from the fnatic opener), pashaBiceps showed up in a number of important moments in the big matches and even had a PotM performance on the Nuke decider against SK (24:14, 106.9 ADR, 1.58 rating). Some of those moments are worth pointing out, as he showed nerves of steel on all three occasions Virtus.pro sat on a 14-15 deficit in the playoffs to bring his team into overtime – he won a 1vs2 on Mirage against SK, a 2vs4 on Overpass against SK and a 1vs1 in the deciding map of the final, Mirage, vs. Na`Vi. He ended up with 6 clutch rounds won, which was the second most in the tournament.

Another player who had a below average rating but still made the list is Na`Vi's new in-game leader Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin. The justification for that is that his overall stats are affected by the poor performances in two big Cobblestone losses in the playoffs, which for all intents and purposes had no influence on the team's final placing as they ended up winning both series. If we exclude those two maps, seized stands at a 1.03 rating and a contribution in 74% of rounds. Furthermore, he is actually the player who was involved in the most round wins for Na`Vi (91%), which means he was a big part of their winning run. Much like Virtus.pro's NEO, he excelled at dealing grenade damage (7.2 per round, 2nd most) and generally damage outside of kills that softened up the enemy (24.0 per round, 6th most), which in turn made his team's stars' job easier. He also probably wouldn't have made the cut if it wasn't for his 79.1 ADR in the playoffs (6th highest) and his impressive performance on map two of the grand final, Train (24:13, 92.3 ADR, 1.50 rating), but his impact there was valuable enough to push him over the line.

The all-new lineup of fnatic made its LAN debut in New York and gave a solid account of itself, although it failed to reach the playoffs despite having two chances against Liquid. The team's main star wasn't last year's #1 player, but instead it was Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson, who had the third highest rating of the event (1.19) and dealt the third most damage per round (89.5). His display against OpTic on Train was one of the best at the event (25:4, 117.4 ADR, 2.00 rating), while he also did everything in his power in the team's last match – the second chance against Liquid (28:18, 130.0 ADR, 1.67 rating, 9 opening kills, 7 assists).

Jacob "⁠Pimp⁠" Winneche, Liquid's replacement for their previous star, now MVP of this event s1mple, was a good second fiddle to EliGE as the most consistent of the remaining members of the team. The 21 year old Dane had only one bad map throughout the event, while he otherwise contributed in most of Liquid's round wins and dealt 100+ damage in 59 of them (only 3 fewer than EliGE). He particularly stood out in the first Dust2 clash with fnatic and the Cobblestone against Natus Vincere, in which he showed he can handle the secondary AWPer role very well.

The 20 year old American Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik ended up with a 1.15 rating (4th highest at the event) in his LAN debut with OpTic, and led the team with most damage per round, impact, opening kills, clutches and contribution in round wins. His most memorable display was in the win over Astralis when he was the Player of the Map (21:18, 89.8 ADR, 1.17 rating) and had a 1vs2 clutch in the closing rounds. He also played well in the win over G2, and was the team's best on the Cobblestone that almost sent his team into the playoffs instead of Virtus.pro. Overall a very promising debut for the former CLG member.

The MVP of the most recent major, coldzera, didn't have an event that lives up to his very high standards, but he was still able to make a mark by having a rating above 1.00 in 5 of his 7 maps – including all three wins in the group stage.

These 15 players comprise our Top players list for ESL One New York 2016, but as always there were more who deserve a mention, such as OpTic's Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic who had a solid event overall, Virtus.pro's Wiktor "⁠TaZ⁠" Wojtas who had almost no bad performances but had low peaks or Astralis' entry fragger Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen who played decently well in every map despite the losses.

Here are some interesting stats for the end:

That concludes our ESL One New York 2016 coverage. The next event where we will be presenting an HLTV MVP by BenQ medal will be EPICENTER: Moscow from October 17-23rd.