Top 20 players of 2018: autimatic (17)

Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta placed 17th in the Top 20 players of 2018 list powered by EGB.com due his impressive fragging ability and match-to-match consistency.

Top 20 Players of 2018: Introduction

autimatic played his first HLTV matches in 2015, but his foray into competitive Counter-Strike dates back longer than that. When he was only 13, he started taking the game seriously and reached ESEA Invite in Source within a year. A competitive spirit pushed him in that direction, and developing a process of learning helped him stay on target for years to come.

"Two things really motivated me to start competing. The first is quite obvious: I have always wanted to be the best at what I do and I will keep striving for it until I get there. The second was to figure out the most efficient way to get better. This process of learning motivated me when it translated into actual improvements. Investing in this process early in my career continues to yield positive results to this day."

Despite a fast rise to the top of North America, autimatic soon took a break from the game to focus on his studies as he could no longer put in the "80 hours a week" into CS, and didn't want to juggle doing both things at the same time, half-heartedly. But the break didn't last long.

"During my first year of college I really missed playing CS and decided that I wanted to come back, drop all of my studies, and go all in on the game. At that time the scene had changed a lot and there were a bunch of new teams and players, so no one knew who I was anymore. valens had previously played with and against me in a few 10-man games, and thought that I was a good player, and I also knew that he was looking for a fifth."

That's where autimatic's partnership with Soham "⁠valens⁠" Chowdhury started. The two played together in Nihilum in 2015, being joined by Spencer "⁠Hiko⁠" Martin and Kory "⁠SEMPHIS⁠" Friesen early on, two of the biggest names of North American CS at the time. autimatic played his first notable CS:GO LANs with that team, CEVO S6 and ESEA Invite S18, before having a short stint in Tempo Storm, an up-and-coming squad. He would still return to the Nihilum core and valens before the end of the year—with the roster now representing Complexity—, and finish second at the $20,000 Northern Arena LAN. During the whole of 2015, autimatic was a solid player, averaging a 1.03 rating, but he wasn't standing out, with his teammates, such as Hiko, SEMPHIS, Shahzeb "⁠ShahZaM⁠" Khan and Daniel "⁠roca⁠" Gustaferri taking most of the spotlight.

"Looking back I think this year was essential to my development as a player and as a person. Although I wasn't ever in the spotlight, I was learning how to play roles that would help my team and I think this made me a more well-rounded player. If it wasn't for the time in Nihilum, Tempo Storm, and compLexity, as well as on TSM in 2016, I don't think I'd be the same player I am right now and I don't think I would've had much success."

Working with valens in the early days was crucial in autimatic's development, as he helped him build confidence and taught him how to work with other people.

"I see valens as my mentor as I’m sure he sees me as his younger brother. I’ve always spent a lot of time thinking about the game outside of practice, but I wasn’t always able to convey my ideas and be assertive on why they would work. Growing up in the CS scene doesn’t always teach you the very important life skill of how to have a tough conversation with someone, even if you disagree with each other. Neither does it teach you how to maintain a healthy team dynamic.

"Valens helped me translate what was in my head into communicating with the specific group of players on our teams, and also pushed me to stand by the ideas that would work best in a team setting. This process became even easier when he transitioned from being my teammate to being my coach."

With the turn of the year, autimatic found himself in TSM, with valens making the move as well and transitioning to a coaching role. This was when autimatic finally starting getting some of the limelight. The team finished third at the Americas Minor leading to MLG Columbus, narrowly missing out on the Major Qualifier, before managing a memorable run at ECS S1 Finals. The North Americans beat Astralis and Cloud9, losing to fnatic and Gabriel "⁠FalleN⁠" Toledo's Luminosity to finish 3rd-4th. autimatic was one of his team's standout players at that event, averaging a 1.17 rating, with Hunter "⁠SicK⁠" Mims and Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken being the other two parts of the team's firepower trio. It didn't take long for autimatic to step up to the big leagues after that, as his call-up to Cloud9 came in August 2016.

"When the Cloud9 offer came I felt very prepared. I had played on lower tier teams and had developed the skills that I felt were necessary to not only being a good CS player but also someone who can contribute to the way a team prepares and improves. I had a lot of moments in my career where I doubted whether or not I was a good player but this wasn't one of those times."

autimatic played 11 LAN events with Cloud9 that year—finishing all of them with above-average ratings—, but his standout tournament was the ESL Pro League S4 Finals, where he led Cloud9 to North America's first Big Event trophy in CS:GO. He boasted a 1.30 rating over 12 maps played and topfragged in the grand final against SK, denying the Brazilians the trophy on home soil and securing himself the MVP award as well.

"The main thing that contributed to me becoming more of a "standout" player is that I had better teammates around me. Jordan, Mike, and Ska all had years of experience and could play any role whether it was lurk, entry, or support and it opened up more opportunities for me that I didn't have on my old teams. When I look at my 2016 year I don't think I can emphasize how big of a role Stew played. We've always shared the same mindset about CS. During this time, he was putting in a lot of time and effort into preparing for matches and he was always putting me in good positions to succeed."

Even though he reached new heights individually, averaging a 1.15 LAN rating over the course of the year, and managed some big team achievements, his 2016 ended in frustration as Cloud9 failed to make it through the Main Qualifier for the ELEAGUE Atlanta 2017 Major.

"At this time I think everyone felt burnt out and a few were very demotivated. We were still practicing but the practices weren't as productive as they were before and when you come off of a big win every team will watch your matches to see what you do. We also played in a style that was heavily based on tactics rather than fundamentals. I think our results might have been different if we could've kept innovating but because we didn't and our fundamentals weren't refined enough to rely on this is what caused us to miss out on the Major. In 2017 we attempted to rectify these gaps in our fundamentals, but we didn't see much success and eventually decided to change the roster."

Cloud9's downward trend continued in the first half of 2017, as they bombed out of all of the Big Events—DreamHack Masters Las Vegas, IEM Katowice and ESL Pro League Finals—, but autimatic was still putting up big numbers, even finishing the Katowice tournament as the best performer with a 1.33 rating over 5 maps. Things took a turn for better as the first half of the year was coming to a close as the North American squad finished second at ESL One Cologne 2017 and qualified for the Major, but another underwhelming Big Event saw autimatic and co. part ways with Jordan "⁠n0thing⁠" Gilbert and Mike "⁠shroud⁠" Grzesiek.

"Majority of the time I feel like sticking together as 5, building a stable foundation, establishing a playstyle, and communicating with each other will be the most efficient way to improve rather than picking up "better" players. This criteria only holds up if the team dynamic is working well, but there were some personality clashes in the team that made the environment hard to play in and shroud had also expressed that he wanted to stream full time. It was very tough since I consider n0thing and shroud both close friends of mine but it was a necessary change to make."

At DreamHack Masters Malmö, his first event with his two new teammates, William "⁠RUSH⁠" Wierzba and Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik, autimatic didn't hold up to his usual standard of consistency, averaging a 0.89 rating over the small sample size of four maps, but that was one of just two poor tournaments (<0.90 rating) he had in 2017. He was back to his usual self soon, outstanding at ELEAGUE Premier and a standout player in Cloud9's iBUYPOWER Masters 2017 victory, the team's second trophy after triumphing at DreamHack Open Denver 2017.

With a 1.10 LAN rating and a 1.07 Big Event rating for the year, autimatic was one of the standout performers of 2017. He and teammate Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip only narrowly missed out on making the Top 20 list of last year, despite Cloud9 having a lot of struggles overall.

This year started with a bang for autimatic as he outclassed his opponents at the ELEAGUE Major Main Qualifier and continued the strong form at the Major itself, recording only one below-average rated game throughout Cloud9's Major-winning campaign. autimatic was a standout player in what was another historic title win, but had to settle for just an EVP mention despite boasting a very high 1.20 rating at the tournament in Boston.

"Winning a Major has been my biggest goal since deciding to pursue CS:GO in 2015. To finally achieve that goal while on home soil in front of an arena full of people who support our team was a beautiful moment and something that I will always cherish. Despite our big win, I was aware of the fact that we were underdogs for a reason. We didn't have a system that would allow us to perform at this level consistently and I attribute most of our Major win to everyone peaking in their individual performance.

"To eclipse [the feeling of winning the Boston Major] would require us to win a Major and win consistently as a result of practicing and preparing the right way, not just because we're hitting our shots."

There was no time to rest for the Major winners, as the event schedule for the following months the Major was gruesome. Shortly after that, Cloud9 attended cs_summit 2, where they were shocked by Liquid despite having a one-map advantage in the grand final, finishing second. The following month, autimatic's team attended three more tournaments, all of them overseas, returning to North America to play online matches in between. That is where the Major winners started having big issues, finishing 9-11th at StarSeries, 5-6th at IEM Katowice and 5-8th at WESG World Finals. Even though his team wasn't making it deep into tournaments, autimatic was still showing up, as he was statistically the best player of the event at StarSeries (1.32 rating over 10 maps), and an EVP in Katowice and at WESG.

"After the Major, I didn't feel like I accomplished everything that I wanted and I still had a lot of motivation to not only improve as a player but improve as a team. I was, however, extremely tired and exhausted from playing so many online matches, traveling, and competing— I even considered stepping down because I didn't feel like I was able to give my best anymore."

Despite the team's poor results, autimatic doesn't have any regrets about the post-Major events, which ended with Stewie2K leaving for MIBR in June:

"I have no regrets about anything. With every challenge, there is something to learn. I think Stewie was a huge part of the team and a great player, but him leaving meant that I had to learn how to adapt both in and out of the game.

"I don't think Stewie leaving could have been prevented. I know that the one thing he wants most is to win and he felt like joining MIBR would help him do that. I respect his decision and admire his ambitiousness."

But the addition of Pujan "⁠FNS⁠" Mehta to an already-established team didn't help the cause, with autimatic admitting that it wasn't the wrong roster move, but the wrong approach by the team that caused Cloud9 to find little success with the Canadian in-game leader.

"Picking up FNS wasn't a wrong move, but picking up an IGL and not letting him have full control of the team was the wrong move. We already had a playstyle that we believed in. Bringing in an IGL just to make them function within a playstyle we were already trying to implement didn't make too much sense unless FNS already had experience with it. I think he's one of the best IGLs in NA and it's just unfortunate that our philosophies didn't align out of the gate."

autimatic played only four events under FNS, with his output still stable at DreamHack Masters Marseille (1.09 rating), IEM Sydney (1.10), EPL S7 Finals (1.21) and ECS S5 Finals (1.13). He was Cloud9's best player at all of those tournaments except IEM Sydney, where he was the second-best, but during that time, Cloud9 played only one playoff game—against Gambit—and the 22-year-old wasn't impressive in the 2-0 loss. With the team going through a crisis, autimatic's motivation suffered significantly, and he even considered calling it quits.

"I didn't feel like I could give my best anymore because I wasn't happy. During our time with FNS I felt like our team was very unstable and no one, including myself, was working towards rebuilding it. Perhaps this was because we were also attending way too many events. As a result, FNS had little time to implement his ideas and had to play in a style that was not natural to him. The constant traveling was also a huge factor as I have a lot of difficulties adjusting to different time zones and getting sleep. When we travel abroad I average 3-5 hours of sleep a night. All of these factors combined left me feeling unhappy and frustrated. I felt it was best if I stepped down and took some time to recharge."

But autimatic managed to power through the bad period, and, despite the roster instability not being something the team was able to resolve for the rest of 2018, the American player got his drive back discussing his issues with the rest of Cloud9.

"I expressed all of my frustrations with the team in regards to attending too many tournaments, not having enough practice, and the lack of motivation. Together we came up with a plan that we felt could allow us to consistently improve and perform at a high level. This included attending fewer events, how we wanted to play, and what we needed to improve on as individuals and as a team. We haven't gotten a chance to actually implement our plan as we shortly had roster issues right after and have continued to have them for the rest of 2018. As for my performance during this time I felt like I played fairly average but improved after having this discussion with my team.

"The security of knowing how we would move forward and that everyone wanted to do it together was enough to remind me that I love competing way more than I hate traveling."

ESL One Cologne was the first tournament where Cloud9 hinted at becoming a mixed NA-EU team, adding Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk to the lineup as a stand-in. Even though the Slovakian only stuck around until the FACEIT Major, more European talent was brought in soon, with Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim, Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist and Fabien "⁠kioShiMa⁠" Fiey making their way to North America before the end of the year. However, adapting to new players and their style isn't something that affected autimatic negatively at all:

"Becoming an international team has only come with benefits for me. I don't think that I've had to relearn or reinvent anything about myself. Rather, I am able to observe players who I've respected for a long time and expand my playstyle. Even if they're not consciously trying to teach me something, I am able to observe players who have both had dominate eras along with a passionate IGL who has an eye for detail. I take pride in being able to extract the strengths of different playstyles and implement them to my own game."

The FACEIT Major, where he still played alongside Tyler "⁠Skadoodle⁠" Latham, was autimatic's last 16-team event of the year. From a team perspective, it was another one to forget as the North American team only managed to beat Winstrike, but autimatic's was not to blame as he was once again his side's best player with a 1.12 rating.

autimatic had only one bad event this year, BLAST Pro Series Istanbul in September. At his first tournament with flusha and the last one with Skadoodle, he was uncharacteristically poor, ending with a five-map average rating of 0.81.

"I'm not sure what happened during Istanbul. This was one of the very few events where I felt like things were out of my control. I wasn't playing intuitively and I was second guessing every decision I would make. When I first started competing on LAN there would be some matches that I'd lose and it would happen so fast that I never got to get into the zone. There are still matches like that every now and then but the whole event felt like this for me."

Similarly to previous years, the American was able to bounce back to form in no time, with even more weight on his back this time around as he decided to take on the main AWP role. And he lived up to the task, going from a player who had less than 3% of his kills in 2017 made with an AWP, to one with over 50% over the last three months.

"When Ska left I immediately knew that I wanted to become the AWPer. It's something that I've always wanted to do in my career and I am confident that I will learn fast and develop an impactful playstyle. In the past I suggested a lot of things for Ska to do so I had a good understanding of how to play with the AWP but the main challenge became actually being able to do it. I went back to square one and spent a lot of time working on my mechanics along with watching demos of all the top AWPers to see their different styles. Since I am starting with a clean slate so to speak I feel like it is important for me to experience a variety of scenarios and playstyles to see what suits me."

His first foray as the team's sniper was at BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen, at a time when he was still growing into it, but autimatic got a hang of the new role at ECS S6 Finals and BLAST Pro Series Lisbon, finishing as the team's best player at both events, with a 1.07 and a 1.12 rating, respectively. These numbers are only more impressive when the fact that autimatic was once again playing with standins is taken into account, as Golden's health issues saw valens and Ismail "⁠refrezh⁠" Ali step into the fray at the last events of the year.

Going back to his process of development—something that he has been working on from his first steps into competitive Counter-Strike—, and focusing on things under his control were key to autimatic staying on point during 2018, a year in which he played with 11 different teammates and managed no playoff victories since cs_summit 2 back in February.

"I think with every challenge that is presented, whether it be my personal form, roster instability, etc., I try and have a sustainable way of either dealing with it or fixing it. Working with our sports psychologist and coach, as well as through my own research, I've worked a lot on my mental conditioning to keep in perspective what situations are within my control. Again, having a process to fall back to while striving to have today be a more productive day than yesterday, helps keep me calm. Along with that, I've always been fortunate enough to play with great teammates who I can also consider friends."

As it was a turbulent year for the 22-year-old, we asked him to share his best and worst memory of the year in which he made the Top 20 list for the first time.

"The best memory of 2018 was winning the Boston Major. I was able to accomplish my biggest goal and make my dream become a reality. I was able to feel the support of all the fans who were there purely to cheer the team on. I was able to share such an amazing moment with my friends after all the time we’ve spent playing together. The most memorable, however, has to be the fact that I shared it with my Dad who has been so supportive and who has believed in me so much that he booked his plane ticket to see me in the finals before I even played the semi-final. I later found out the ticket was refundable…"

"The worst part was when I was considering stepping down. I’ve spent about nine years playing this game with all of my heart and the thought of stepping down and not competing and doing what I love was the worst memory from 2018."

In 2019, autimatic wants to get to the top again, but it in a way that is sustainable:

"My personal goal for 2019 is to do whatever it takes to get my team to the top, and to do it in a way where we are able to remain there."

Why was autimatic the 17th best player of 2018?

autimatic's first appearance in the Top 20 comes down to him being one of the best players in the fragging department in 2018. His 1.15 LAN rating over the past year wasn't inflated by smaller tournaments, as he was outstanding at Big events with 0.75 kills per round (7th best) and was one of the most consistent players with a 1.00+ rating in 73% of his Big event matches played (8th highest).

He hit his peak form early in the year as he was one of best players at the ELEAGUE Major (3rd in the MVP race) and proceeded to be Cloud9's best player at most of the events they played. However, he did not have that many standout performances, finishing with EVPs from just four tournaments: the ELEAGUE Major, cs_summit 2, IEM Katowice, and the WESG 2017 World Finals.

While autimatic did perform well against all levels of opposition and didn't crumble under pressure, he didn't prove himself enough in high-stakes matches. The 22-year-old played the majority of his best games in the group stage, and over the whole year, only recorded 13 Big Event playoff maps (least in the Top20)—eight of which were at the ELEAGUE Major. Even though his Big Event playoff rating in itself is respectable, 1.11, the statistic is less relevant than it is for some other players simply because of the low number of playoff matches autimatic played this year.

In conclusion, autimatic had a good base level, but a lack of more significant peaks throughout the year, in comparison with other players on the list, stopped him from placing any higher than #17.

Bold prediction

When asked to name a player who could break out and make the top 20 list next year, autimatic joined Valdemar "⁠valde⁠" Bjørn Vangså and went for refrezh, the 20-year-old Dane who stood in for Cloud9 at BLAST Pro Series Lisbon:

Ismail "⁠refrezh⁠" Ali

"I don't think he's unknown anymore but I believe refrezh will be a great player. During my time playing with him, I really enjoyed talking to him about different ways of playing and theoretical situations. Knowing that he's the type of player who thinks about these things at such an early stage in his career suggests that it's only a matter of time until he's in the top 20."

Stay tuned to our Top 20 players of 2018 ranking powered by EGB.com and take a look at the Introduction article to learn more about how the players were selected.