HLTV.org reveals nominees for spot in Best five of the year 2022

HLTV.org has announced the esports athletes who have been nominated for a spot in the Best five of the year 2022. A shortlist of three nominees was presented for the Anchor, AWPer, IGL, Opener, Closer and Coach categories.

Selecting the winner of each of the aforementioned categories will be a panel of experts, which consists of representatives of top 20 best teams in the world, ten analysts and casters, as well as four HLTV.org writers. The names of the experts can be found in the article via this link.

The nominees for the Anchor of the year award are:

  • Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic (Liquid)
  • Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy (NAVI)
  • Rasmus "⁠sjuush⁠" Beck (Heroic)

The requirements for this award were to play in at least three 'supportive' CT-positions, most of which are either small or big site anchors. These are positions from which it is difficult to earn a spot in our Top 20, yet they are incredibly valuable in-game and are required in any 'best five of the year' attempt. 

The nominees for the AWPer of the year award are:

  • Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov (Cloud9)
  • Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev (NAVI)
  • Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut (ZywOo)

Three heavy-hitters qualified for our AWPer of the year award, so it is worth remembering that the panel award does not affect our Top 20 list and that our panel are voting on their own criteria.

The nominees for the IGL of the year award are:

  • Casper "⁠cadiaN⁠" Møller (Heroic)
  • Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen (FaZe)
  • Dzhami "⁠Jame⁠" Ali (Outsiders)

This category is one where statistics are not much help. Our experts instead relied on their eye tests, deciding which IGL elevated their team the most directly through their calling.

The nominees for the Opener of the year award are:

  • Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač (G2)
  •  Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund (Heroic)
  • Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis (Liquid)

In the opener category, we feature the star aggressive riflers that power their teams in the early-round. None are traditional entry fraggers, but they are all part of the 'pack', or map control group, on at least three maps to qualify for the award.

The nominees for the Closer of the year award are:

  • Sergey "⁠Ax1Le⁠" Rykhtorov (Cloud9)
  • Kaike "⁠KSCERATO⁠" Cerato (FURIA)
  • Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool (FaZe)

Where the opener award is for players in the map control group, the closer of the year goes to the players who operate on the extremities.

The nominees for the Coach of the year award are:

  • Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy (NAVI)
  • Robert "⁠RobbaN⁠" Dahlström (FaZe)
  • Eetu "⁠sAw⁠" Saha (ENCE)

Similar to the IGL category, it is hard to assess the impact of a coach without access to behind-the-scenes information like communication and the like. Under our experts' criteria, using all information available to them, we outlined the three most impactful coaches of the year.

The winners of the nominations will be announced on January 14 during the special event HLTV Award Show 2022, which will take place in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. They will make up the Best five of the year 2022.

Origin: www.hltv.org