IEM Cologne's 10 Best and 10 Worst players from the Group Stage
Complexity and Liquid exited IEM Cologne on the last day of Group play, but surprisingly, only one player from either lineup made either the top ten best players or worst ten players at the German tournament. Additionally, there was only one North American player to make the list and he had never even reached this level of player before in his career.
FaZe and G2 captured the final spots at IEM Cologne to join SAW, Vitality, Natus Vincere, and MOUZ. The six European teams will be battling it out with Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa the only representative from the Americas in attendance.
In fact, it was actually mostly malbsMd's teammates that populated the list of best players in Cologne, with Nikola "NiKo" Kovač, Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov, and Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač- all joining him in the list. Natus Vincere also had several players make an appearance, alongside two from Vitality, and the lone NA lineup representative Roland "ultimate" Tomkowiak.
Top Ten by HLTV Rating:
1. Nikola "NiKo" Kovač | G2 | - 1.44
2. Mihai "iM" Ivan | NAVI | - 1.43
3. Valerij "b1t" Vakhovsjkyj | NAVI | - 1.42
4. Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov | G2 | - 1.39
5. Mario "malbsMd" Samayoa | G2 | - 1.38
6. Justinas "jL" Lekavičius | NAVI |- 1.35
7. Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač | G2 |- 1.33
8. Roland "ultimate" Tomkowiak | Liquid |- 1.30
9. Shahar "flameZ" Shushan | Vitality | - 1.29
10. Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut | Vitality | - 1.28
Almost all of the players in the Top Ten best are of those in playoff teams and it doesn't take a genius to connect the two. Now, others simply did not do enough in the group stage and their teams also fell out pretty early.
Spirit and FURIA finished as the two biggest disappointments of the event, so it's no wonder that those two teams featured several players at the bottom of the list.
Bottom Ten by HLTV Rating:
1. Yuri "yuurih" Boian | FURIA | - 0.55
2. Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotja | Spirit | - 0.59
3. Marcelo "chelo" Cespedes | FURIA | - 0.62
4. Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov | Spirit | - 0.63
5. Gabriel "FalleN Toledo | FURIA | - 0.69
6. Boris "magixx" Vorobyev | Spirit | - 0.73
7. Martin "stavn" Lund | Astralis | - 0.75
8. Dmitriy "sh1ro" Sokolov | Spirit | - 0.79
9. Felipe "skullz" Medeiros | FURIA | - 0.82
10. Alexander "br0" Bro | Astralis | - 0.83
IEM Cologne playoffs begin later this Friday with North American representative malbsMd playing against MOUZ in the Quarterfinals.