Remember n0thing?

From the flashy new kid on the block in 1.6 to the wise veteran at the end of his time in CS:GO, n0thing has done everything in his long career within Counter-Strike however since his short stint as a stand-in for Complexity in 2019 the charismatic rifler has been virtually absent from the professional scene.

2008-2010

n0thing started off his CS career attending small LANs in 1.6 and would regularly upset his much older opponents. Through gaining notoriety at these local LANs the 18-year-old prodigy got his first pro contract in 2008 with Evil Geniuses, who dominated the domestic scene at the time. Despite their domestic dominance, the team struggled on the international stage but n0thing did get his first international win at MSI BEAT IT! 2010 where his EG team beat Fnatic to secure the trophy.

2012-2015

Moving into CS:GO, n0thing found himself quickly at the top of the NA scene once again as his natural ability landed him a place on Team Dynamic alongside NA stars such as Spencer "Hiko" Martin and Braxton "Swag" Pierce in 2012. Dynamic would be picked up by Quantic, before n0thing would once again become part of Complexity, when the Jason Lake led organisation signed the team.

Then in 2013 team would attend the first ever Major at Dreamhack Winter placing top four. They followed up that succesful run with a top eight placement at Katowice 2014, establishing themselves as the number one NA team.

The Katowice result led them to being picked up by Cloud9 after the event, where n0thing would stay for the next four years. Cloud9 continued to be the dominant NA force but were consistently second best to EU opponents, even during their infamous 'Summer of C9' run in 2015, a run where the team made three 2nd place finishes in a row at ESL ESEA Pro League Finals, ESWC and FACEIT Stage 2 Finals.

It would be n0things old teammate, Hiko who would help power his Liquid team to overthrow Cloud9's NA dominance towards the end of 2015 and by the time 2016 started the roster shuffles had started. It says a lot about n0thing's value as a teammate that he became the irreplaceable rock among the chaos. By this point in his career n0thing had transitioned from the hotshot fragger to the experienced veteran and Cloud9 would finally pay him back for his service.

2016-2017

Now with Timothy "Autimatic" Ta and Jake "Stewie2k" Yip on the roster, Cloud9 went on a shock run to lift the ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals trophy in 2016. The NA side beat out the Brazilian hometown favorites SK Gaming in the final, and after almost a decade of playing at a pro level n0thing finally had his big win.

This would be the only big event trophy during the NA legends CS:GO career, however, the team continued to go toe to toe with the big boys. Cloud9 even made the Grand Final in the cathedral of Counter-Strike at 2017's ESL One Cologne.

The last member of C9's original team would be benched after they missed the play-offs at PGL Major Krakow 2017 and with that brought the curtain on n0thing's illustrious career. With his C9 contract not expiring until May 2018, nearly a full year after his benching n0thing turned to monetising his much-loved personality through Vlogging and streaming.

2018-2019

It would be a bittersweet moment for n0thing, as he watched Cloud9's Boston 2018 Major triumph from the sidelines. The team he had marshaled for the last four years of his career took home NA's first and only (to date) Major victory without him. n0thing would pop up in the server as a stand-in for MOUZ (Then known as Mousesports) for ESL Belo Horizonte 2018 where he helped the team to a second place finish behind FaZe.

Later that year whilst playing with former teammates like Sean "Seang@res" Gares and Tyler "Skadoodle" Latham under the banner of Old Guys Club, n0thing would be one round away from making the Minor for IEM Katowice 2019 but the team would forfeit despite being a map up and 15-13 ahead in the second, due to being unable to play the Minor.

In a strange twist of fate, n0thing would end up playing at the Katowice 2019 Major as his old home Complexity came calling for him to stand in for their Major run. n0thing's competitive swan song would go about as well as expected as the team finished 11th-12th in Katowice with a close loss to FaZe eliminating them from the Major.

2019-Present

Unlike many of his fellow NA ex-pros, n0thing didn't jump ship to the VALORANT pro scene although in 2020 he did play one tournament for T1. Naturally, his charismatic and engaging personality lended itself very well to the streaming world and that is mainly where he can be found these days. n0thing has also taken up Golf and even participated in a streamed Golf + Gaming League earlier this year. He has been fairly radio silent in relation to the professional CS:GO scene, however, he did make appearances at both IEM Dallas vlogging Cloud9's win and IEM Cologne this year as a spectator.

It's a shame to think that the new wave of fans may not remember n0thing for being anything more than a goofy personality on a struggling C9 roster, but this is a player whose raw talent and personality helped keep his teams in the 'nearly' column for a decade across two different versions of the game. n0thing may not have been on the Boston Major winning side and granted he only has that ESL Pro League success in his big event trophy cabinet, but he is undoubtedly a Legend of the game and deserves the respect that so many in the scene give to him.

Perhaps that is best summed up by the fact that Robin "ropz" Kool, one of the best riflers in the world currently, stated in an interview with fragbite that he regarded the NA legend as his biggest inspiration and he "had a lot of good matches and frag movies that I still look at".