All those numbers put him well above everyone else on the list so far, but there were a few reasons why he didn't make it higher. Firstly, although he had arguably the second highest floor out of all players, his peaks weren't as impressive in comparison to the other candidates for top 3, with two of his MVPs coming at medium-sized events and even his IEM Katowice MVP being slightly less impressive than other candidates' best events. That was in large part due to the second reason, which was a drop-off in his performance when it came to Big matches and top opposition. While he was still one of the world's best in the Big matches, ranking 4th with a 1.18 rating, it was a noticeable drop from his 1.27 rating in all the other matches, as was the drop to a 1.15 rating against top 5 opposition, which was still joint-4th highest, but not enough compared to the very best. Lastly, while he did affect the game in a plethora of ways, he didn't put up as much direct impact that led to won rounds in comparison to the other candidates (for example, ranking 3rd in his own team when it comes to average kills in round wins).
2022-01-19 20:13