The fourth edition of the Player stock shift sees 11 players rise and seven fall after attending at least one of the two big tournaments, DreamHack Masters Marseille and IEM Sydney.

We have aligned April's 'Player stock shift' article with the monthly ranking, which is released on the first Monday of the month, and that means two large-scale events made the cut: DreamHack Masters Marseille and IEM Sydney. Although the smaller-sized Bets.net Masters and Qi Invitational were considered as well, they ended up having next to no impact on the final list.

After a fairly unremarkable March, whose lack of big events produced only nine players for the Player stock shift, there are a total of 18 players featured in April, with 11 of them rising well above our expectations and seven falling.

Astralis' quartet's stock rises after two great tournaments

As usual, a few more players are on a knife's edge after underperforming last month, most notably Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist, Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný, Oscar "⁠mixwell⁠" Cañellas, and William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin. For the time being, they stay where they are, but we'll keep an extra eye on them in future tournaments so that we can get a clearer picture.

The previous Player stock shifts can be found below:

Rising Falling Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev Adil "ScreaM" Benrlitom Denis "electronic" Sharipov Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo Nicolai "device" Reedtz Jake "Stewie2K" Yip Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander Marcelo "coldzera" David Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth Nick "nitr0" Cannella Emil "Magisk" Reif Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham Dauren "AdreN" Kystaubayev Kevin "xccurate" Susanto Hansel "BnTeT" Ferdinand Jay "liazz" Tregillgas Sean "Gratisfaction" Kaiwai Erdenetsogt "erkaSt" Gantulga

Rising

It is unbelievable how impactful one player can be in the current landscape, where there are superstars and then there is Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev in a league of his own, after his outrageous, John Wick-esque display at DreamHack Masters Marseille.

The French tournament saw the Ukrainian defy reality, putting up numbers such as a 1.65 rating and 106 ADR across the seven maps Na`Vi won on the way to the grand final, in which the squad had to bow down to Astralis despite s1mple's efforts. To find a performance like this in CS:GO history, you'd have to dig all the way to the 2012 versions of Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund and Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg, when NiP had no real competition.

Denis "⁠electronic⁠" Sharipov was a great sidekick to s1mple, as he hit some incredible peaks in Natus Vincere's campaign at the $250,000 tournament, albeit not as many as his Ukrainian teammate.

The Marseille event was the 19-year-old's best to date given the level of teams Na`Vi had to face, such as three top-five teams, fnatic, mousesports, and Astralis. The Russian had already been in consideration for a spot in the Player stock shift after his performances at WESG in March, but we had decided to wait until he had proven himself against better competition, which he now has.

In the undefeated title run at DreamHack Masters Marseille and a similarly confident showing on the way to the grand final at IEM Sydney, four of Astralis's players simply looked like upgraded versions of themselves.

We had already featured Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz and Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander once before, in February's Player stock shift, when they both recovered from a poor run of form at the end of 2017 and in early 2018, but now they stepped things up even more and thus make a reappearance. Meanwhile, Emil "⁠Magisk⁠" Reif has turned out to be another star in the Danish squad and Andreas "⁠Xyp9x⁠" Højsleth has also made a great recovery from an underwhelming start to 2018.

The only missing player is Peter "⁠dupreeh⁠" Rasmussen, who has stayed more or less the same, putting up great numbers up until the finals. However, his tendency to drop off in big matches, which he did against fnatic and Na`Vi in Marseille, as well as versus FaZe in Sydney, have cost him a spot here among his teammates.

In-game leading seemingly had a big effect on the Kazakh veteran, who had taken up the mantle at the end of 2017, with his numbers taking a big hit, something that persisted even when Abay "⁠Hobbit⁠" Khasenov took over the role, in February.

Now that the role is in the hands of Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin, the only player on the team with real experience in leadership, Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev has recuperated with a solid showing in Marseille, where he looked more like his old self.

February saw the Indonesian star fall following a poor showing at StarSeries, where he recorded his career-worst performance. Since then he had been recovering at smaller events, and we had been waiting for him to show up at the big ones.

Hansel "⁠BnTeT⁠" Ferdinand didn't get to show much at DreamHack Masters Marseille, as TYLOO exited the tournament in last place after two quick losses. However, there is a case to be made for IEM Sydney being his best tournament to date, as he was the main reason TYLOO got this far — to the semi-finals, where they took a map off FaZe.

The Oceanic region put up quite the show throughout IEM Sydney. No one had expected ORDER to put up much of a fight against the world's best teams, but they did, and just one round separated the squad from eliminating Cloud9 in the group stage.

Although Alistair "⁠aliStair⁠" Johnston & co. eventually fell short after the American team had come back thanks to William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba's 1v4 clutch on the deciding map, Inferno, we have to commend Jay "⁠Liazz⁠" Tregillgas for his fantastic play in the series.

Grayhound took it one step further, as they eliminated a top-ten team, SK, in the groups before giving FaZe a run for their money. The team's AWPer, Sean "⁠Gratisfaction⁠" Kaiwai, proved himself a rising star after two great series.

Meanwhile, Erdenetsogt "⁠erkaSt⁠" Gantulga was player of the map on two of the three maps Grayhound won in Sydney, the deciding Overpass versus SK and Mirage versus FaZe, with a 1.40 and 1.38 rating, respectively.

Falling

The 23-year-old had been one of Envy's two best players since the squad restructured at the beginning of 2017, which is why it was a surprise to see him dip so low at DreamHack Masters Marseille.

Even though the Belgian played his part in eliminating G2 in the tournament, he was nowhere to be seen throughout the three maps Envy played against FaZe, especially in the decider series, in which he was by far the worst player on the server.

April saw the new SK lineup debut with Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip, and things hardly went according to plan for the Brazilians, who bombed out of DreamHack Masters Marseille and IEM Sydney in the groups.

It's clear the players aren't quite at their 100%, particularly Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo, who had an especially poor month, which ended with SK getting eliminated by Grayhound in Australia. Stewie2K seems to be adjusting badly, too, as he has been far from the player we had known him to be in Cloud9.

As for Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David, we have to hold the best player of 2016 and 2017 to unusually high standards, which he wasn't able to live up to throughout Marseille and Sydney. We'll have to wait and see how the trio develop as SK attend more tournaments, with coldzera as the newly-appointed in-game leader.

Liquid's debut with Epitacio "⁠TACO⁠" de Melo also went awry, as they exited DreamHack Masters Marseille in 9th-12th place after losses to Astralis and Gambit in best-of-three series.

We have kept a closer eye on Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella since February, when he was up-and-down with a good showing at StarSeries and a poor IEM Katowice, and put him among the falling players in April following an underwhelming tournament in France.

Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham has been showing signs of inconsistency since the start of the year. After he had a great January, when Cloud9 won the Major, he dipped in February and proceeded to drop further down in April.

DreamHack Masters Marseille and IEM Sydney saw him record his two worst tournaments of the year so far, with an average 0.92 rating across 13 maps, as well as a particularly uninspired series against ORDER (0.79 Rating/-20 KDD).

The 20-year-old's stock had risen last month, when he had put up an MVP-worthy showing at StarLadder Chongqing, combined with consistent play at WESG World Finals with Recca.

But now Kevin "⁠xccurate⁠" Susanto drops back down after posting below-average numbers in each of the four international tournaments he attended in April, two small ones, CS:GO Asia Summit and the Qi Invitational, and two big events, DreamHack Masters Marseille and IEM Sydney.