Top 20 players of 2019: Brollan (19)

Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin makes an incursion into a top 20 player of the year list for the first time at the age of 17. He slots into the 19th place of the 2019 ranking, powered by Xtrfy and LOOT.BET, thanks to his high-impact performances in fnatic's deep playoff runs.

Top 20 players of 2019: Introduction

Brollan has been around the game of Counter-Strike since he was a little boy. At the age of four, he would ask his brothers to let him try what they were playing. Early on it wasn’t very serious, with fun maps and servers or 1vs1 duels against family members and friends taking up most of his playtime. It wasn’t until CS:GO was released and at a much older age that Brollan started to take the game more seriously. Grassroots Nordic events were his first steps in the scene, like one of the Yoggi Yalla Cup qualifiers which he played with Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson, back in 2017, King of Nordic, or the Nordic Championships, to name a few, with several deep enough runs in open qualifiers with Swedish subtop mix-teams sprinkled in to make it on our database.

During that period Brollan played in mix-teams with Alfred "⁠RuStY⁠" Karlsson, Nicolas "⁠Plopski⁠" Gonzalez Zamora, Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser and the likes, all trying to pave their way towards the top of the scene. "I played grassroots tournaments to have exposure on HLTV," Brollan says. "I think it’s way easier to show yourself on HLTV compared to other tournaments that are not on HLTV because many people are looking at results there."

The Swedish youngster played a season of ESEA MDL in Europe with Gatekeepers and several qualifiers with AWTR and passions. He also made it to the final stage of GAMERZ, the reality show for Counter-Strike players, which gave him some exposure, and received an invite to FPL-C. Brollan acknowledges the importance of parental support at a time when he was just a 15-year-old still trying to make a name for himself.

"My parents have supported me a lot since I jumped into GAMERZ. My dad has always played computer games so he understands a little bit how I was thinking back in the days. He told my mother how esports work, about the money and such, and now they watch all of my matches and travel to events when they have the time.

“When I realized I had a shot at going pro I had to prioritize one of the two things, CS or education, and it would only be more difficult to go half-hearted in CS. Education will always be available when there's time for it, since it’s never too late to go back to studying.”

The first big break in Brollan’s career came when he was called up to join Jesper "⁠JW⁠" Wecksell and Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist at the WESG 2017 Europe & CIS Regional Finals. With Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson sidelined, fnatic scrambled to find a free agent to stand in for them at the event in Barcelona, but it would eventually be the 15-year-old who got called up as their first choices were unavailable. A tournament with 20 teams and 12 spots at the WESG 2017 World Finals, the EU & CIS Regional Finals were the perfect trying grounds for the youngster.

“I played in the Swedish Pro League around the time I stood in for fnatic at the WESG 2017 EU & CIS Regional Finals,” says Brollan, referencing the struggles of becoming known online but with little LAN experience under his belt. "And people were calling me an onliner, so of course I was nervous because I wanted to prove that I was not. That event went okay for me, I don’t know how I was handling the pressure but I was thinking about it in the back of my head sometimes." The event went better than okay for him, as JW went on to say he had been impressed with his young compatriot. "My first impression playing with the boys was huge," Brollan recalls. "I was nervous because all of them had been my idols for ages and it was a pleasure to read JW's words."

Just weeks after Brollan’s showing in Barcelona, where fnatic qualified in fourth place and where he ended with a 1.09 rating, Brollan signed his first professional contract at the age of 15 when GODSENT came along and offered him and hampus the two slots on the roster that had been left vacant by Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg and Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman. Brollan went to the WESG 2017 World Finals with that team, where he finished in 5-8th place, losing to the eventual runners-up, Space Soldiers, and ending the tournament with a 1.10 rating. Other notable results with that roster would be winning the Qi Invitational with victories over Imperial, Valiance, and TYLOO, and finishing in 3-4th place at DreamHack Open Tours 2018. By now, Brollan had already been invited to FPL thanks to his dominance in the Swedish Pro League, something that helped him keep maturing as a player.

”It was a weird feeling—being 15 and becoming a professional player was a dream come true, you know! I always have high goals and I believed I could become a professional player one day, but I didn’t think it would be this early. Playing against all the pros and talking to them a little on FPL was a good experience. My individual level got better and better each month by playing there."

GODSENT then moved to a new organization, Red Reserve, but the team didn’t manage to keep up the good results, placing 7th-8th at DreamHack Open Summer 2018 and 5-6th at the FACEIT Major’s Europe Minor, DreamHack Open Montreal 2018 and Games Clash Masters 2018—the last three being the only time Brollan has had a streak of negative ratings on LAN.

A poor run at the FACEIT Major by fnatic, who went out in the group stage, saw the team part ways with flusha and William "⁠draken⁠" Sundin. Brollan would then follow in the footsteps of his Red Reserve teammate Simon "⁠twist⁠" Eliasson and join fnatic, and he immediately stepped up to the plate wearing the black and orange jersey, going on to post 1.11 and 1.20 ratings at IEM Chicago 2018 and PLG Grand Slam 2018 to help fnatic secure a 3rd-4th place in the USA and a victory in Abu Dhabi.

The turn of the year proved to be a hard moment for Brollan, with the first event, the iBUYPOWER Masters, being his worst rated of 2019 (0.95) and only one of two in the red. fnatic lost their opener to Cloud9 at the LAN in Los Angeles before going out in the semi-finals to the champions Liquid for a 3-4th place finish. The year didn’t get any easier for Brollan in February, when a 0-2 start at the IEM Katowice Major Main Qualifier put fnatic against the ropes in the Swiss stage. A victory over Grayhound gave them some breathing room, but then they were sent packing by G2, making it the first time the organization did not make it to the last-16 stage of a Major.

"The worst moment in my career [so far] was probably the Katowice Major because it was a huge disappointment," says Brollan, “I was disappointed because fnatic had always been a top team at Majors and going out after those bad results was just awkward. That loss hit me hard for like two weeks and after that I felt kind of okay." Brollan’s third event of the year was the WESG 2018 World Finals, a Medium Event, where fnatic placed fourth and he averaged with a team-high 1.11 rating.

The year really kicked off for Brollan and company at the end of March, when they flew to Shanghai to play at StarSeries i-League Season 7. fnatic passed the Swiss group stage with flying colors, winning three matches in a row against Ninjas in Pyjamas, NRG, and Vitality before eliminating North and NRG in the playoffs, although they eventually lost 0-3 in the final to Natus Vincere. On an individual level, Brollan scored a 1.08 rating, and was discreet in comparison to some of his teammates.

The team’s next Big Event was IEM Sydney, where the Swedes once again made it to the final, this time losing to Liquid, who were on their way to becoming the best team in the world at the time. In Australia. Brollan started to show some of the qualities that would propel him into this year’s top 20 ranking, scoring a 1.17 impact rating and being named one of the EVPs of the tournament. He also won a year-high eight clutches and matched his previous rating of 1.08.

After these two final runs, the darkest period of the year came for fnatic, who went out in 9-12th place at three Big Events in a row, DreamHack Masters Dallas, ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals, and ESL One Cologne. The debacle started in Dallas where a victory over Cloud9 gave way to losses against FURIA and Renegades in their first of the three group stage exits. Personally for Brollan, despite the all-around failure of the team and a near-average 1.02 rating, he still managed to lock down a high impact rating of 1.12.

At the ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals the young Swede scored a 1.05 rating in his team’s three-match run, spearheading their only victory in a 2-0 series against Grayhound with a 1.23 rating, +13 KDD and 82 ADR. Brollan then had his second and last tournament of the year with a negative rating at ESL One Cologne, where fnatic were humiliated by Astralis in the group stage upper-bracket semi-final, 16-1 and 16-6. Only JW posted an above-average rating in that match, followed by Brollan, who was the team’s second-best with a 0.63 rating. They then lost to Vitality in two close maps that went to overtime, once again going home early.

One last disastrous result was all fnatic had in it before the team would go on to be restructured, and that came at the StarLadder Major’s Europe Minor, where a fourth-place finish meant the Swedes would miss the biggest competition in the game for the first time.

"That loss didn’t hit me as hard [as Katowice]. It was a disappointment once again, but it was not the first time.

“I didn’t believe that much in what we were doing in the last lineup, but in this lineup Golden is doing a great job calling and flusha is such a smart player that I trust what he says all of the time. That’s why I’m feeling more comfortable with them.

"We got some new energy in the team and we had a nice bootcamp before DreamHack Masters Malmö. Golden had some nice stuff the whole team was comfortable with and I got some confidence individually. I like to search for many duels and I was thinking ‘if I die my team can still win a 4v5 without me,’ since with this new lineup we are very good at winning 4v5, 3v5, 3v4 and situations like that."

With flusha and Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim back on the roster, improvements were seen immediately as fnatic went on to win DreamHack Masters Malmö, raising silverware for the first time since IEM Katowice 2018, 19 months prior. Brollan ended his first Big Event title run with a 1.12 rating, which matched his 1.12 impact rating, as well as 75.9 ADR and a 1.14 playoff rating—his second-highest of the year.

"My best moment was surely winning DreamHack Masters Malmö because it was in Sweden and my family and friends were there. That was an unbelievable moment because we had bad results with the previous lineup, so it was a great feeling.”

fnatic maintained their high standards in Belek, the resort city in Turkey where the eighth season of StarSeries was held. They played a grueling 21 maps in a second-place run, and this time Brollan was particularly fiery in the group stage, accruing a year-high 1.26 rating—although he dropped down to a rather unimpressive 1.03 rating in the playoffs, which brought his tournament rating down to 1.14. Other notable stats from the event in Turkey were his impact rating, which hit the 1.20 mark, a 77.7 ADR and five clutches, all of which got him an EVP mention. He had particularly strong showings against MOUZ (1.21 rating), MIBR (1.51 rating) and Vitality (1.40) in the group stage and against G2 (1.22 rating) in the playoffs.

As the year neared its end, Brollan showed his lack of consistency at the last two events, dipping down to a 1.01 rating in fnatic’s 3-4th place finish at the ECS Season 8 Finals before springing back up to the highest rating he had all year at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, where he boasted a 1.22 rating. At the ECS event, in Arlington, Brollan once again got a better rating in the group stage (1.05) than in the playoffs (0.95), although he maintained a decent 1.13 impact rating despite his year-low 67.5 ADR. In Odense, Brollan knocked it out of the park with an 85.2 ADR and a 1.38 impact rating, and he improved as the tournament wore on, averaging a 1.27 rating in the playoffs after posting a 1.12 rating in the group stage.

“The ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals was the last event of the year so I wanted to give all I could. I feel like I’m improving a lot from tournament to tournament, but mostly I feel like some people are afraid of my SG552 and I just take all the duels I can."

Asked about his future goals, Brollan hopes, like every CS player out there, to win a Major, and he says that scooping an MVP medal somewhere down the road would be fun. "I don’t look so much into the future at the moment," he adds, “but it would be fun to play with some international players someday!”

Why was Brollan the 19th best player of 2019?

Brollan was able to break into the top 20 player of 2019 ranking in large part thanks to the immense impact he had in fnatic’s four runs to the grand finals of events, which in turn earned him four EVP mentions —and include being a runner-up in the race for the MVP medal at the ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals.

Although Brollan has stated that fnatic don’t have roles, it is clear that he has excelled at entry-fragging, becoming the fifth player with the most opening kills on the T-side (0.12). What makes his ability to find opening frags more impressive is that he served not only as an entry, but was one of the best at getting 3+ kills, doing so in 5.5% of all rounds and ending up in ninth place overall in this regard, something that positively affected his 1.16 impact rating, the 12th highest of the year.

On the other side of things, missing both Majors [the New Challengers Stage of IEM Katowice is perceived as a qualifier for historical reasons] hurt Brollan’s case for a higher position in the ranking, but what really put a damper on his place in the final standings was his lack of consistency. The young Swede had the highest number of bad maps of all top 20 players in 2019, with his rating dipping under 0.85 in 26% of the maps he played this year. This is something he will have to improve as he matures if he wants to keep climbing up the ranks in future editions of the player ranking.

Bold prediction:

Brollan still recalls what he felt upon learning that he had been picked by Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer in his bold prediction two years ago. "I was so shocked," he says. "I remember saying I was not good enough at that time, so sorry to him for making the top 20 one year late!" This time around it is his turn to make a selection, and he chose another Swedish rising star from his generation, Ninjas in Pyjamas’s Plopski.

Nicolas "⁠Plopski⁠" Gonzalez Zamora

“More and more talents are coming every month, but I'll go with my friend Plopski. He is such a talent and I think he is proving it more and more after every event he plays. I really believe he can become a superstar one day!”

Stay tuned to our Top 20 players of 2019 ranking and take a look at the Introduction article to learn more about how the players were selected. This year's ranking is supported by:

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