s1mple, NiKo, and dev1ce better watch out: m0NESY’s stats paint him as a future CSGO superstar.
Over the past three months of CSGO tournaments, Natus Vincere Junior AWPer Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov has put up .60 deaths, .90 damage, and .87 kills per round. Those statistics are nearly identical to Natus Vincere’s senior sniper Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev. Natus Vincere has somehow signed the two best snipers in Russia for each of their CSGO squads.
Those statistical similarities mean even more with context. s1mple’s chart-breaking numbers include three championship runs at DreamHack Masters Spring, the StarLadder CIS RMR, and IEM Cologne. For all of m0NESY’s insane fragging skills, Natus Vincere Junior hasn’t claimed a top-eight finish since January. Despite working with a rougher economy, 62.27% of m0NESY’s kills are with an AWP compared to s1mple’s 46.7%. Get an AWP in m0NESY’s hands and he will frag with it.
Natus Vincere Junior is an academy branch of Na’Vi dedicated to training young CSGO talent. Several big CSGO organizations have youth teams, including Virtus.pro, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Team Spirit. Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi played on Na’Vi Junior for just over a year before being promoted to the main roster and winning his first LAN at IEM Cologne.
If m0NESY gets promoted to Natus Vincere’s main roster within the near future, he’ll be the youngest professional CSGO player at just 16 years old.
Unfortunately, that puts m0NESY at odds with the greatest CSGO player in the world. s1mple is Natus Vincere’s AWPer now and forever if he so chooses. He won’t switch to a flex rifler for the sake of a new player. The more likely scenario is a pricey contract buyout from another esports team. The Na’Vi organization wins either way.
In an era dominated by legacy squads and players, new players putting up insane numbers is a very good thing to see. The online era greatly stratified professional and amateur esports, and developmental esports teams allow young talent to train in an organized fashion. As esports become mainstream, more and more prodigies like m0NESY will get a chance to become the next generation of esports stars.
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