Magisk, gla1ve plummet as a new face arrives in CSGO rankings

While two Astralis players have enjoyed their time in the spotlight, Lukas “gla1ve” Rossander and Emil “Magisk” Reif took a hit this week in the CSGO player rankings while mousesports rifler David “frozen” Čerňanský moved nearly seven spots and broke out into the top 10.

It looks like the honeymoon period is over for Astralis. The team is still one of the most powerful in the world, but gla1ve’s return to the team gave both him and teammate Magisk a boost in performance. That boost has finally worn off this week as both players fell from the top five into ninth and 10th place.  Nikola “niKo” Kovač fell from the number one spot to the number three spot as the expensive addition to G2 Esports adjusted to his new environment. 

mousesports’s frozen climbing CSGO rankings

At first glance, mousesports rifler frozen’s recent performances don’t warrent the sudden move into the top ten. But if viewers take into account how he’s played compared to both his opponents and the rest of his team, it becomes clear that the young player is trying his best to carry a team that should be on someone else’s shoulders. frozen has performed better than Robin “ropz” Kool over mousesports’ recent matchups againts CSGO’s top teams such as Astralis and Vitality. While ropz is considered the team’s star player, frozen has performed better against top-tier teams in the past two weeks while staying within tenths of a point from ropz’s stats in overall rating, opening duel success rate, and kills per round.

Considering that frozen leads Ropz in headshot percentage, impact rating, and flash assists, that makes frozen a solid foundational player less likely to waver or become rattled in intense situations. While Ropz may be the flashier, more talked-about player, frozen is arguably more important to mousesports’ success and less reliant on the performance of those around him in order to put up his numbers.

gla1ve and magisk fall as they switch roles in Astralis

Before his long break from competition, gla1ve was the best in-game leader in Counter-Strike. But while the man behind CSGO’s most famous dynasty took time to rest after five years of constant competition, Magisk stepped in to fill the role. Interestingly, Magisk performed better in his new role as Astralis’ IGL, thanks in part to powerful stand-in Patrick “es3tag” Hansen taking the lead rifler role. glaive returned to competition in September, and Astralis kept Magisk in the leader role as gla1ve sharpened his skills. This helped Magisk’s continued ranking rise and it pushed gla1ve, usually the lowest-ranked player on the world’s best team, into the top 10 player rankings.

But gla1ve has returned to his IGL spot, and it’s affected both his stats and Magisk’s. Statistically, the team is back to its old tricks of textbook CSGO, and that affects its gameplans. Magisk utilized his teammates aggressively, knowing that the team lacked the chemistry it had built over years. Now, pinpoint attacks lead to more trades and deaths than overwhelming force. The switch back to a finesse-based style been great for Astralis, but less so for its members’ end-of match numbers.

There’s always the chance these two have one or two more breakout games, but Astralis is so solid across the board, they’ll never statistically rank like players such as Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. Even though they’ve fallen in the rankings, that’s actually bad news for the rest of CSGO’s top teams.