In the first installement of our Top 20 players of 2010 series we take a closer look at the performances of fnatic's longest standing member, Harley "dsn" Örwall as he takes up the 20th position.

Basic information

Player: Harley "dsn" Örwall
Team: fnatic
Age: 24

Team achievements in 2010:

1st - Arbalet Cup Europe, GameGune 2010, IEM5 GC Shanghai, KGC #2
2nd - IEM4 World Championship, IEM4 European Finals, MSI BEAT IT, DSRack LAN #3, EPS Nordic II
3rd - Arbalet Cup Best of Four, e-Stars (also won the Continental Cup as part of Team West)

Stats from major LAN tournaments in 2010:

Kills per round: 0.74
Deaths per round: 0.62
Rating: 1.09 (?)
Maps played: 132
MoM: 11 times top rated in a match
Best tounament: IEM4 European Finals
Best map: de_nuke
Most notable stat: 2nd in number of awp kills (746)

Örwall joined fnatic in October 2005 after being a stand-in for them at CPL Singapore, and only a few months later he was appointed captain and asked to build a new team around himself. Since then he has seen several players come and go, but he always stayed and rebuilt the team (along with cArn). But more importantly, he continued to perform year after year, never letting his team down and still hungry for success.

2010 was no different for him regarding individual performance, even though he was, more often than not, overshadowed by his (now former) teammates GeT_RiGhT, f0rest, and in the second half of the year, Gux.

Great form early on

The first major tournament of the year in January, IEM4 European Finals, went great for Örwall, as he was the 2nd top rated player of the event with an impressive 1.30 rating and was the 5th best awper with 0.26 awpKPR (kills per round with awp). However, despite his performance, which turned out to be his best tournament individually in 2010, fnatic were defeated in the final by mousesports.

Two months later, arguably the biggest event of the year came - IEM4 World Championship. Örwall was once again on top of his game ending up as 10th best rated player of this tournament stacked with top teams and players.

dsn started the year on a high note in IEM4

Two Arbalet Cups - Best of Four and Europe - followed in April and May, but Örwall had a bit of a down spell in form at that time. However, he played great in the final of Arbalet Cup Europe, helping fnatic reach their first title of the year by defeating Na`Vi.

He picked up his form at DreamHack Summer where he was the best awper and continued at ESWC as the 3rd best awper, but fnatic didn't capitalize on that, dropping out of both tournaments in quarter-final.

After the lineup change

Following those couple of unsuccessful events, fnatic decided to make a lineup change in mid-July and bring back Gux, which probably meant Örwall would drop to only being the team's 4th best fragger. That proved to be correct straight away at their next tournament GameGune, but it didn't mean that he would perform badly, as he had a very good 1.13 rating and was one of the top awpers. He also showed once again that he can deliver when he is needed the most with his performance in the first map of the final against Frag eXecutors, putting up a 35-24 score (outawping his opponents 21-1) in their double overtime clash on de_train.

one of his most important performances was at GameGune

Their next tournament was IEM5 Global Challenge Shanghai where Örwall wasn't too impressive overall, but has yet again put in a great performance when it was most needed. In the historic 2-day semi-final encounter versus Na`Vi, after losing the first map, Örwall put in another classy performance. He outawped the enemy 17-4 and finished with a 37-26 score in the match that fnatic won after overtime. That kept them in the game for a 3rd map, which they capitalized on the next day, as they ended up winning the semi-final and eventually the event.

e-Stars was their next stop and it was another good event for Harley as he was the 6th top rated player and he had the most awp kills at the event. MSI BEAT IT followed two weeks later and Örwall had an average tournament, although he again provided a spark in the final versus Evil Geniuses, with 39-29 score in the 2nd map which kept fnatic in the game, but unfortunately it wasn't enough as they lost the 3rd map.

Their next destination was Denmark in mid-October for two events - DSRack #3 and KGC #2. Örwall played well in both, rated 7th and 8th best in them, respectively. KGC #2 was his best personal event considering awp stats, as he had 0.33 awpKPR and used the big green for 42% of his kills. That was the case mostly thanks to his performance in the final against Full-Gaming when he outawped the Danes 43-13 over the three maps, helping fnatic win that extremely close match and get revenge for the loss in DSRack #3 final a few days earlier.

WEM followed in November and it was fnatic's, as well as Örwall's, worst event of the year. They lost both of their matches finishing 7-8th and he was the team's lowest rated player. At the last major event of the year, DreamHack Winter, we saw Örwall pick his form up again as the 5th best rated at the event. He also had a great awpKPR (0.28) and was finally, for the first time of the year, the best rated in his team. Although, that brought little success, as they once again lost in the quarter-final to Na`Vi.

fnatic's best player at DH Winter

Meanwhile, EPS Nordic III and IEM5 European Championship were taking place online. In the Nordic league, he didn’t excel much, with the exception of the match against mTw which brought us one of the highlight frags of the year. In IEM5 he played much better, finishing the group stage with a 1.30 rating and as fnatic's best player. He played especially well against the Spanish side Wizards, recording his highest rating of the year on their de_nuke clash – 2.45.

What it all adds up to?

Örwall played well during most of the year, with ratings over 1.00 in 12 of 14 major LAN tournaments that he attended. He was one of the best awpers of the year, with an impressive 746 kills (2nd most; 224 more than his first follower). Although, he did take part in many more events than some other players, so looking at the average awp stats, he was ranked 7th best, but is still part of the world's elite with 0.21 awp kills per round.

Also, somewhat surprisingly, he was fnatic's best entry killer with +108 Entry Kill-Death difference throughout the year, although only slightly ahead of his teammates.

He won four titles, had five 2nd places and three 3rd place finishes. Even though he was only the 4th best player of fnatic in the end, they were still the 2nd best team of 2010 and he was an invaluable member of the lineup. Apart from having very good stats overall, especially with the awp, his presence was crucial in some important matches. All that makes him a worthy candidate for Top 20, although the fact that he didn't win any individual awards will give advantage to some other players in the ranking and keep him at number 20.

What 2011 holds for dsn?

He enters his 6th year as the captain of fnatic, once again with a lineup change and for the first time without Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg. Also for the first time, he will not be the team's primary awp, as that position will go to Marcus "Delpan" Larsson, so Örwall will have to adjust his playstyle to accommodate the new lineup. How that will affect his performances remains to be seen.

Recommended demos of dsn in 2010:

Opponent	Map	Event	Score	Demo
n!faculty	nuke	IEM4 Eu Finals (Group stage)	26-12	POV
oXmoze	tuscan	IEM4 Eu Finals (Group stage)	25-11	POV
Ravens	nuke	IEM4 Eu Finals (Semi-final, Map 1)	20-6	POV
Ravens	tuscan	IEM4 Eu Finals (Semi-final, Map 2)	19-6	POV
mousesports	inferno	IEM4 Eu Finals (Final, Map 2)	24-19	POV
Na`Vi	dust2	Arbalet Cup Europe (Final, Map 3)	23-10	POV
Antwerp Aces	nuke	GameGune 2010 (Group stage)	28-14	POV
Frag eXecutors	train	GameGune 2010 (Final, Map 1)	35-24	POV
Na`Vi	dust2	GC Shanghai (Semi-final, Map 2)	37-26	HLTV
Evil Geniuses	nuke	MSI BEAT IT (Final, Map 2)	39-29	HLTV
Full-Gaming	train	KGC #2 (Final, Map 1)	20-15	HLTV
Full-Gaming	dust2	KGC #2 (Final, Map 3)	26-22	HLTV
mTw	inferno	EPS Nordic III	24-10	HLTV
Wizards	nuke	IEM5 European Championship	31-8	HLTV

What do you think about dsn's performance in 2010? Does he deserve a place in the Top 20? What was your biggest impression of him this year? Feel free to leave a comment on this topic and stay tuned to HLTV.org if you want to see what the rest of Top 20 looks like, as we will bring you number 19 tomorrow.