ZywOo crowned best player of 2023; NiKo and ropz place 2nd and 3rd

Vitality's Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut is the best player of 2023 according to the reputable portal HLTV.org, as announced during the HLTV Award Show 2023 ceremony. Second and third places in the top 20 were taken by Nikola "NiKo" Kovač (G2) and Robin "ropz" Kool (FaZe), respectively.

In 2023, ZywOo, together with Vitality, won five top tournaments, namely IEM Rio 2023, BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023, Gamers8 2023, BLAST Premier Fall Final 2023 and BLAST Premier World Final 2023. At each of these events, the star Frenchman was chosen as MVP.

Herbaut recorded an impressive average rating of 1.31 in 2023. He became the best in the world by multiple stats, including rating, impact, KAST, K-D difference and multikills.

Notably, ZywOo became the second esports athlete in the history of the Counter-Strike pro scene, after Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, to be recognized as the best in the world three times. In addition to the last year's award, the 23-year-old Vitality player became top 1 in 2019 and 2020.

In turn, NiKo with G2 scored only two tournament trophies, winning the IEM events in Katowice and Cologne. His high level of individual performance earned him one MVP award as well as three Exceptional Valuable Player (EVP) titles.

In 2023, the Bosnian showed an average rating of 1.21 and became a leader in a number of stats. In particular, he topped the list of the world's best players in terms of damage per round.

ropz had four big victories in 2023, which he spent as part of FaZe, including ESL Pro League Season 17, IEM Sydney 2023, Thunderpick World Championship 2023 and CS Asia Championships 2023. As for individual awards, the Estonian was crowned MVP three times and earned exceptionally valuable player (EVP) status four times.

Kool finished the year with an average rating of 1.17. Among other things, HLTV.org experts noted his ability to win clutches, by the number of which he is the best in the world, as well as high stats in K-D difference, headshots per round and rating in big matches.

Top 20 players of 2023 according to HLTV.org are:

1. Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut (Vitality)
2. Nikola "NiKo" Kovač (G2)
3. Robin "ropz" Kool (FaZe)
4.  Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov (G2)
5. Lotan "Spinx" Giladi (Vitality)
6.  Álvaro "SunPayus" García (ENCE/Falcons)
7.  Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev (NAVI)
8.  Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov (Cloud9/Team Spirit)
9.  Martin "stavn" Lund (Heroic/Astralis)
10.  Helvijs "broky" Saukants (FaZe)
11.  Nicolai "device" Reedtz (Astralis)
12.  David "frozen" Čerňanský (MOUZ/FaZe)
13.  Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač (G2)
14.  Guy "NertZ" Iluz (Endpoint/ENCE/Heroic)
15.  Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard (Heroic/Astralis)
16.  Benjamin "blameF" Bremer (Astralis)
17.  Emil "Magisk" Reif (Vitality/Falcons)
18.  Casper "cadiaN" Møller (Heroic/Liquid)
19.  Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato (FURIA)
20.  Russel "Twistzz" Van Dulken (FaZe/Liquid)