Top 20 players of 2018: suNny (16)

Miikka "suNny" Kemppi takes the 16th spot in our top 20 player ranking of 2018, powered by EGB.com, for his key role in mousesports' successes over the year and great fragging output.

Top 20 Players of 2018: Introduction

suNny began to make waves in the Finnish scene during the final months of 1.6, when he took part in the gather style tournaments Areena, in Helsinki. In these competitions, in which teams were formed by a draft, he competed with some of the players that would help to shape Finland's CS:GO scene, including Aleksi "allu" Jalli, Joona "natu" Leppänen and Slaava "Twista" Räsänen.

He got his big break in early 2013 as his then team, TOOMUCHVIDEOGAMES, joined the ranks of ENCE, forming the first line-up of the organisation, which has since earned legendary status in the Counter-Strike scene. But in those days, the Finnish pool of talent was not nearly as rich as it is today, and suNny spent a couple of years confined to domestic success, with international tournaments often leading to frustration as far as results were concerned.

"When CS:GO came out I knew it was my chance to get more of a name for myself and maybe one day be professional. The first team in which I played a bit more seriously also had Twista, KHRN, jOELZ and two other guys, it felt good to try a bit harder, but CS:GO had like 15-25k players daily peak at the time and, since I was already 18 and we were not getting anything out of it, I took a break from gaming and started to think about what I should do in life even though I loved CS. When you become an adult, you can still challenge yourself with the game or aim to be at the top, but you have to think about how and where you will get your income, and that is why I took a break.

"Before 2015, I played on and off, and after the first attempt with ENCE in 2013 and 2014, I was never even at 40%. But in 2015 my good friend allu got into NiP, and that pushed me forward a lot. I got so much motivation because I saw that at least one Finnish player could compete at a top level. So getting allu on board in 2016 was the thing, I had always looked up to him and I wanted to prove that I could be there with him."

The 2016 iteration of ENCE finally put Finland firmly on the map, though the team still continued to be plagued by lineup issues, which included having to attend the Europe Minor leading to ESL One Cologne 2016 with Niko "naSu" Kovanen as a stand-in for Tom "stonde" Glad due to health reasons. At the event, which was held in Tours, ENCE finished in a respectable fourth place, with suNny posting a team-leading 1.09 rating.

He continued his streak of hot performances, curiously taking things up a notch after allu left for FaZe. He averaged a sensational 1.36 rating at his last five events of the year, helping ENCE to win the iESF World Championship over TYLOO.

"At the end of 2016 it was kind of natural to look abroad because I had quit my job and studies at the beginning of the year and instantly got some results, individually and as a team. There was not a realistic chance to make a decent living out of CS in my own country after allu had left for FaZe, so I just knew that I had to do it my own different way, and I did it."

suNny ended 2016 in hot demand, and just two weeks into the new year he was signed by PENTA, forming a promising lineup that proved all critics wrong in May, when it won the ESEA S24 MDL Global Challenge over BIG, with the Finnish player once again raising eyebrows as he put in a 1.40 rating. Just months later, the team made history as they secured a spot at PGL Major Krakow after going all the way from the open qualifiers. The Polish Major was suNny's very first Big Event, but he held his own, posting a 1.21 rating despite PENTA losing three of their four games played.

"Actually, it was 50/50 if I created a team for PENTA or joined a new team together with jkaem, fox and RUBINO, which would eventually become dignitas. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had followed the other path, but, obviously, I do not regret anything. When I put my name on the PENTA contract I just told myself that if the team did not work out, I would just go back to my ‘real life’ and forget about a professional career in CS. I will forever be thankful to the PENTA boys for the effort everyone put in at the time and for believing. We started from a point where we did not even know how to take short control on Dust2 to make it all the way to the Major. That felt so damn good"

PENTA ended up being a victim of their own success as suNny was recruited by mousesports in the off-season along with Martin "STYKO" Styk, who was signed from HellRaisers, replacing Christian "loWel" Garcia Antoran and Denis "denis" Howell in the line-up. The team’s first LAN outing ended in disaster as they were eliminated at DreamHack Masters Malmö following losses to FaZe and Gambit, but they quickly bounced back by winning ESG Tour Mykonos following a nail-biting five-map final against Liquid.

The event in the Greek island showed just how high mousesports’ ceiling was, with suNny playing a key role in the team with a 1.23 rating, though the MVP award would be claimed by Tomáš "oskar" Šťastný. mousesports would be back on the road just days later as they attended ELEAGUE Premier, cutting a frustrating figure as they went out 13th-16th after losing to Immortals (with Raphael "cogu" Camargo acting as stand-in) and fnatic.

“It was mostly oskar who wanted to get me on the team, so I am thankful to him for giving me a shot. We had only one week of practice before our first three tournaments, so we kind of used these events to see where we were and what we had to work on. Obviously winning Mykonos felt good, but we all kind of knew it was a fluke.

"The hardest thing ingame was moving from my own system to a completely different “system” that did not make any sense to me. It felt like, ‘OK, boys, let’s run there and let oskar clutch’. I am happy that we started to be more professional in those tournaments later in the year and found some balance in the team. It was also a bit challenging at the start because I used to call in all my previous teams so it took some time before I found my place in the team and 'proved myself' to others and started to call more mid-round.”

With more practice under their belts, mousesports got back to winning ways at the ROG Masters EMEA Finals before placing third-fourth at DreamHack Open Denver and second at DreamHack Open Winter. Those were all medium-sized LANs, but the team ended 2017 with a bang as they placed second at the ECS Season 4 Finals. suNny had mousesports' highest rating in Cancún at 1.18 and wowed the scene with a 40-bomb in the last game of the final against FaZe - still not enough for the team to claim the title in this clash of two European mixtures.

“Our goal for the rest of 2017 was just to get some groove on and be ready for 2018, so it went OK. I think one of the most important things that happened to me in 2017 was the 40-bomb third map against FaZe in the ECS grand final. That changed me as a player and, after that, I knew I was up there competing with them. One year before, I was playing in Indonesia against tier 3-5 teams.

"My goals for 2018 were to win a big one, to be a Major legend and to be the best Finnish player in CS:GO."

suNny achieved one of his goals for the year right in his first tournament as mousesports placed top-eight at ELEAGUE Major Boston after coming from the New Challengers Stage. The team’s campaign in the last-16 stage was not without its scares for the team, though, as defeats to SK and Quantum Bellator Fire, the surprise package of the tournament, put them on the brink of elimination before they eventually pulled through in a close Mirage affair against Space Soldiers.

The Finnish player, who ended the tournament with a 1.18 rating, the second best in the team, showed his predilection for big performances against FaZe as he pulled off another 40-bomb, but, like in Cancún, it amounted to nothing as his team would suffer a 0-2 loss to Finn "karrigan" Andersen’s side, who would eventually finish in second place.

"I had high hopes after ending 2017 in a good way. It was my first time going to a Major and I knew we would win it. Pretty good feeling, right? We beat Na`Vi and Astralis there pretty easily and everyone on our team was in form. I played OK, not the best but not the worst. After the QBF disaster, I remember that ropz and I were lying in our beds, just staring at the wall for many hours and asking ourselves if that had really happened. It was honestly the worst feeling I have ever experienced. But I am still happy that we made it to the Champions stage. I also 40-bombed against FaZe again and then had a suicide on that map. Pretty mixed feelings, but nowadays I can laugh about it, sad I did not get a graffiti!"

The 24-year-old then had one of his best events of 2018 as he helped mousesports to win StarSeries i-League Season 4, lifting his first-ever Big Event trophy. In a tournament that began with a gruesome best-of-three Swiss stage, suNny had 16 out of 22 maps with above-average ratings and an impressive nine maps with ratings higher than 1.30, earning the second spot on our EVP list for the tournament, behind teammate oskar, who was more effective in the playoffs.

"We all still wanted to prove ourselves so much that we went into every match with a really big hunger. That feeling should be there every time, but it is hard to get it for every single game. That event was played in a Swiss best-of-three format and had all the top 10 teams in the world, so, yeah, we finally proved ourselves, and when I had the trophy I gave it a little kiss. I just fell complete and so happy that it is impossible to explain. You cannot be afraid of anyone ingame if you want to win, but there are these situations like walking towards the B site without utility in a 4vs5 and you hear the crowd starting to shout ‘s1mple, s1mple, s1mple’ through noise-canceling headphones, and you start to think whether you should go there against a 30-bombing s1mple [laughs]."

mousesports followed up on the StarSeries title with another victory, at the V4 Future Sports Festival, a smaller-sized event that also had FaZe in attendance. Against most people's prediction, the grand final did not pit the two European mixtures against each other as karrigan's men were sent packing by Virtus.pro in the semi-finals. suNny was far from his best, putting in above-average ratings on just two of the five playoff maps that he played to end the tournament with a 1.05 rating - 7% lower than the squad's average.

suNny bounced back with a strong showing at DreamHack Masters Marseille, where he led mousesports to a playoff appearance with a 1.16 rating, 11% higher than the team's average. The Finnish player boasted a 1.29 rating in the group stage of the French tournament but remained in the red in the quarter-final series against Na`Vi, who ran out 2-0 victors on the back of an inspired performance from star player Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev.

Next on the calendar was IEM Sydney, where mousesports managed to make the semi-finals before being stopped by Astralis. The Danish side appeared to be kryptonite for suNny, who had just good one map in five against Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander's troops, leaving Australia with a -27 KDD (a year low for him) and a 1.01 rating.

"We played too many events. I think the biggest mistake was that we did not want to stop after V4 and instead went to Marseille. We should have spent more time at home to relax and prepare better for Sydney. We are not a team that can compete against the world’s best on individual skill alone, and we stopped creating new strats, moves and so on. Maybe we became a little lazy after winning two in a row, but the real issue was that we forgot that we are humans and need to rest. Who knows if we would have made more finals and got more titles with that, but it just felt that we ran out of fuel and that we did not have enough preparation/practice. Anyway, it was the first year for all of us at this level, and it was a lesson in terms of what to do and what not to do again."

mousesports continued their streak of playoff finishes at the ESL Pro League Season 7 Finals, finishing in 5th-6th place after beating Sharks, NRG and Heroic. suNny impressed as he averaged a 1.41 rating in map wins leading to victories and a 1.33 impact rating, his second highest of the year.

The next two events, StarSeries Season 5 and ESL One Belo Horizonte, were suNny's personal best of the year as he averaged 1.20 ratings at both tournaments, earning two EVP mentions. The Finnish player was mousesports' top performer in Kiev, with just three below-average-rated maps in 17 and an impressive 1.24 rating in the playoffs, while in Brazil, where the team competed with Jordan "n0thing" Gilbert as a stand-in, he boasted a whopping 1.54 group stage rating and a 1.43 rating in map wins that resulted in victories - his highest of 2018.

"I think at the time I just found more time to play and enjoy the game. There was nothing special, to be honest, our schedule had just been too busy before that. ESL One Belo Horizonte was an event that we attended with a nothing-to-lose mentality, we just went there and had fun. Jordan filled the gaps better than anyone else could and pushed us to play better. I love that human being [laughs]. Hopefully, our paths will cross again at some point.”

After Belo Horizonte, the team pushed for changes with hopes of being more than just a top-five side, replacing STYKO with Janusz "Snax" Pogorzelski from Virtus.pro. Understandably, the first tournament with the Polish talent ended in disappointment as mousesports bowed out of ESL One Cologne in the groups after losing to G2 and to ENCE, suNny's old team.

mousesports fared much better at their next two events, ELEAGUE Premier and DreamHack Masters Stockholm, making the semi-finals on both occasions. In Atlanta, suNny recorded his lowest impact rating since the start of the year, 0.96, and had just 55% of above-average-rated maps, but he still impressed in the group decider's 2-1 victory over fnatic with a team-leading 1.43 rating/102 ADR to send his team into the playoffs, in which they would be downed by Astralis. In Stockholm, the Finnish player had the exact same percentage of maps with above-average ratings, but he did reach greater heights, ending the tournament with a 1.17 rating (a considerable increase from his 1.05 rating in Atlanta) and an 87.9 ADR, a year-high for him.

"I felt like, if we had worked well from day one inside and outside of the game with Snax, we could have been a top 1 contender; sadly, we did not, and I am not going to go into details, that is just what happened. We did not give him the space he needed and tried too much to use him like STYKO. We should have started from scratch but we did not, and that backfired instantly. I was confident after those two events, yes, but we, as a team, did not do things properly at the time and just went into the server and played. That is why everything escalated quickly. There are no hard feelings, though."

mousesports attended the FACEIT Major hoping to build on their recent top-four placings and retain their Legend status, but things quickly fell apart for the team as they went out 0-3 in the last-16 stage, sending them out of the Major cycle following the recent changes to the event's slot allocation.

"Attending too many events and not having enough practice earlier in the year made us kind of forget the working fundamentals in our game. After we benched STYKO, I knew deep inside that he was not the reason why we did not reach finals anymore. Do not get me wrong, every player in our team felt that we needed something fresh. That was the mistake at that time, we should have given 110% first and tried a different approach. But what was done was done, I was really hyped to play with Snax, too. After the player break I played a lot, maybe too much, for two months straight. It felt pretty bad because we, as a team, did not try enough. The approach did not change and we faced the same problems as before; we also did not have the team play that we had built with STYKO, that is why the results were more inconsistent.”

With a dark cloud hanging over them, mousesports attended ESL One New York hoping to make amends for their shocking display at the Major. FaZe, Natus Vincere and Liquid were also in attendance, so it looked like a playoff appearance was the most that they could hope for, but Chris "chrisJ" de Jong's side surpassed all expectations as they beat fnatic, Gambit, NRG and Liquid en route to the title. For a team that many believed to be dead and buried, mousesports showed incredible mental fortitude as they came back from a 4-13 deficit while being down 1-2 in the series.

ESL One New York marked suNny's return to an EVP list, this time sitting at the summit. The Finnish player led his team for rating (1.16), ADR (82.0) and KAST (74.0%), impressing in all three of the team's map victories against Liquid, which contributed to his 1.21 rating in map wins over the course of the tournament.

"We sat down after the FACEIT Major and made some things clear for all. I personally felt that we could still win New York; after all, we had only lost three best-of-ones against top teams at the Major. Deep inside me, I still knew that this team was a ticking time bomb. What happened in New York was like the final boss, it felt like we were going to disband if we did not win it, and maybe it could happen even if we won it. I think it was the same for Snax, he wanted to prove everyone wrong and to play his heart out, like we all did. I am not going to lie, I cried a little when I saw him lift the trophy and smile after the heart-breaking Major run.

"That event helped a lot. For the first time, we went out with the whole squad and had a good time. Robin’s family was also there, and it felt like we had finally understood what it took. Looking back, we learned a lot last year. I learned how to be a professional with a tight schedule, how to keep my mind fresh and stay hungry. I would have just skipped some events to get more practice, prioritize some tournaments and establish some goals in the middle of the season instead of just flying around the world and trying to win everything with just 50% of energy.”

mousesports looked to be on their way back to the top, but they would be brought crashing down to earth at StarSeries, the event that had given the team a title and suNny two EVPs earlier in the year. After winning their first two matches in Kiev, mouz lost to ENCE, OpTic and BIG to finish in a disappointing 9th-12th place. It was also then that suNny hit his lowest point of the year as he recorded a 0.95 rating - the second worst in the team.

Despite mousesports then getting back to a familiar set-up, with STYKO once again in the line-up, suNny would not be able to reach the same heights as before. He had the occasional peaks (1.44 rating against BIG at IEM Chicago and 1.59 against Natus Vincere at the ESL Pro League Season 8 Finals), but, overall, he looked a far cry from the player who had impressed everyone earlier in the year. He averaged a 1.05 rating at his last three events of the year, posting above-average numbers on just 52% of the maps that he played.

"It is always easy to find excuses, but probably the biggest thing that affected me was the stress from all the struggles in the team and the lack of preparation. When we decided to part ways with Snax and bring STYKO back, it was extremely hard for me, harder than I thought. I did not instantly want to go back to that line-up because I felt that STYKO had not been the problem in the first place. I would rather change one of us than go back to our 'comfort zone' because I knew that the reason why we did not improve or achieve better results was in the five of us, not in STYKO or Snax. The reason for my dip in form was pretty clear, I practically did not play during the last two-three months of the year, I was more focused on bringing myself back together than on the game itself."

After a year that saw him achieve all of his personal goals but also hit a couple of bumps in the road towards the end, suNny reflects on his best and worst memories of 2018:

"There are two moments that I would mention as my best memories. The first was winning StarSeries, it was the first real tournament that I won, and performing well against the world's finest is something to be proud of. New York is obviously the second one. Doing a pretty insane comeback against the home team in front of their own crowd is always special. You can feel the adrenaline pumping, and, at the time, it actually made me more focused and calmer than I usually am. After such a win, the feeling of relief is indescribable, and all those feelings you go through are so damn addictive. Winning is pretty fun!

"Worst memory? I was thinking about the QBF match, but that was not it. Later in the year, I became a pretty sad person at some point. The team's struggles and the busy schedule got in my head. I think that was the worst memory, or the worst period. I lost the fire to win and to give my best, and that is dangerous for someone who always puts in 110%. At one point, benching myself even crossed my mind, but I am happy I did not do it. I can only thank my teammates, who cheered me up."

Why was suNny the 16th best player of 2018?

suNny made a strong case for a top 20 selection from an early point in the year with a great showing at StarSeries Season 4, where he was third in the race for the MVP award. For the rest of 2018, he remained a key player for the team, putting in EVP performances at three other Big Events (StarSeries Season 5, ESL One Belo Horizonte and ESL One New York).

He ranked 14th for Big Event rating (1.13), in part thanks to his great fragging ability (0.74 KPR, 11th highest) and high damage dealt (81.7, eighth best).

But with a tendency to fare better in the group stage of Big Events (1.17 rating) than in the playoffs (1.05, the joint lowest among the players in the top 20), and a low match to match and round to round consistency (only 65% of maps with 1.00+ ratings, the joint lowest, and the second-lowest KAST at 70.1%) when compared to other contenders, suNny could not have placed any higher on this list despite registering some great numbers over the year.

"In 2019 I want to be more consistent individually against the top three and win more titles, including a Major. I am certain that I can stay at the top, but the number on this list is not my priority. I am more than happy not to be on the list if that is the price to pay for my team to be better. After all, my biggest goal is to make us more of a team, not just six guys."

Bold prediction

Quite the easy pick as suNny named Jere "sergej" Salo, who began to prove himself at the highest level last year, when he picked up an MVP medal after helping ENCE to win StarSeries i-League Season 6. The mousesports player expects more of the same from his compatriot in 2019.

Jere "sergej" Salo

"I trust my long lost son to surprise the world. He has a great mind for Counter-Strike, and if ENCE just get to play enough tournaments I am sure he will be there. Just stay humble and grind hard, you will be the next Finn on the list."

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.