Top 20 players of 2019: NiKo (11)

Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač makes his fourth consecutive appearance in the ranking, clinching the 11th place in the Top 20 players of 2019, powered by Xtrfy and LOOT.BET, as one of the most impactful players of the year.

Top 20 players of 2019: Introduction

Starting his career at a very young age, NiKo competed on the local Balkan scene in Counter-Strike 1.6 and got to experience international competition as just a 14 to 15-year-old as part of eu4ia and iNation. With some of the scene's veterans at his side in Nemanja "⁠k1Ng0r⁠" Bošković and later also Aleksandar "⁠kassad⁠" Trifunović, he got to play at Adepto BH Open in 2011 in Sarajevo and at one of the game's last tournaments in late 2012, DreamHack Bucharest, getting experience from playing one of the best teams in the world as he lost to different versions of fnatic in the quarter-final stages of both tournaments.

The Bosnian's stint with the local side iNation (at different times also known as e-Sports.rs, Refuse, and GamePub) continued after the switch to CS:GO as he kept garnering more pedigree on the international scene, competing at Mad Catz Vienna in early 2013 and at DreamHack Bucharest and SLTV StarSeries VIII Finals later that year, with NiKo beginning to make his name as a rising star after putting up impressive numbers each time.

After a rather unremarkable 2014, during which NiKo was left with little motivation and spent a few months without a team, even declining the first offer from MOUZ, in early 2015 he accepted a second call from the German organization, who had up to that point been trying to make their mark with additions from outside of Germany in the likes of Chris "⁠chrisJ⁠" de Jong and Aleksi "⁠allu⁠" Jalli unsuccessfully. But despite the young star's efforts in a promising run at ESEA Invite Season 18 Global Finals, he was soon placed on the bench as the organization brought in a trio from a Major-successful PENTA team to return to a German-speaking lineup in the middle of the year.

"I didn't want to play Counter-Strike [at the end of 2014], I didn't have any motivation and I didn't think I could succeed because the scene in the Balkan region was very bad, almost non-existent. Even though I got an offer to join mousesports in that period (when I wasn't playing), I didn't accept it as I couldn't imagine myself playing for an international team. I could say that I was scared about how it would work out, one of the reasons being my English and also my age at the time," NiKo said in the Top 20 players of 2016 article.

"But after returning to the scene, after seeing it grow my motivation came back as well. I played with iNation for some time and then another offer from mousesports came - this time I took it without a second thought. At that time I decided that I'll give it all and sacrifice everything I need to succeed."

Just three months later, NiKo was called back to the main roster nonetheless to replace Timo "⁠Spiidi⁠" Richter, after the previous lineup failed to keep Legends status at ESL One Cologne. With some impressive individual showings, he started becoming the face of the team, who ended the year with their best result yet on the back of the Bosnian player's carry performances — a runners-up finish at CEVO Season 8 Finals.

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A big shift in his career came in late 2015 when Fatih "⁠gob b⁠" Dayik's departure meant that NiKo would assume a new, previously unexplored role of the in-game leader for the following year. But even though the move seemed unwise for such a young player, unlike others he seemed unaffected by the additional pressure — in fact, it looked like the opposite was the case. Basing the team around his aggressive lurking style, NiKo immediately found world-class form, leading the new-look MOUZ to their first title at Acer Predator Masters and to a couple of deep runs at ELEAGUE Season 1 and ESL Pro League Season 4 Finals, earning a place on the Top 20 list of 2016 as the 11th-best player.

In 2017, NiKo improved on that after a move to FaZe saw him move away from leadership and push the team to high placings for most of the year, winning his first big-event title at SL i-League StarSeries Season 3 while also earning his first MVP award. Three more titles came in the latter half of the year when the European mixture brought in Ladislav "⁠GuardiaN⁠" Kovács and Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer and became the best in the world for a brief period, spearheaded by NiKo. Fascinating consistency saw the Bosnian superstar claim two MVPs and EVPs at all but three tournaments he attended, placing him as the runner-up to Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David in the year's Top 20 list.

Although individually it was more of the same incredible prowess from NiKo in 2018, it began with a heavy blow, as FaZe missed out on a Major title following Cloud9's famous comeback on the deciding map of the ELEAGUE Major grand final. The team went on to suffer from roster instability as olofmeister took a three-month leave in the first half, and late in the year they stopped seeing eye-to-eye with in-game leader Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen, who ended up passing on the mantle to NiKo in the middle of the FACEIT Major and was placed on the bench by the end of the year. Despite all the trouble, however, FaZe still managed to win three tournaments and place deep at several others, and NiKo clinched the third place in the Top 20 ranking.

"The goals for 2019 were obviously to get back to the top, to make it to semi-finals all the time, make it to finals, competing with the best teams in the world, and just competing for trophies."

With a gap in the roster left by karrigan's benching at the end of 2018, FaZe looked for replacements. Unable to find an in-game leader in the short amount of time before the IEM Katowice roster lock, the team welcomed Dauren "⁠AdreN⁠" Kystaubayev and NiKo was once again faced with a decision to take up the head role more permanently.

"Once we removed karrigan, it was never a plan for me to be the in-game leader. We made a mistake in removing Finn without having a set player that can join us. The thing is, we wanted to be fair with him and us because there wasn't much time left for the roster lock, so we had to make a decision, either to remove him or not so he can find a team for the Major. I believe the IEM Katowice roster lock was on December 31, so we had to make a decision right after BLAST Lisbon.

"We didn't want to keep karrigan as a backup, so we removed him, but we didn't really have a replacement for him so we started thinking that we'd get a stand-in for the Major and try something after. Everything started once we removed karrigan. Once we didn't have a replacement, we just started using stand-ins, and that affected us the most. Janko was the one who wanted to keep Finn in the team, but it was too late for Finn to stay. Even he himself admitted that it's not going to work, him being the in-game leader in the team, it just couldn't work anymore, you just have that feeling, it just didn't feel right, and he knew it himself, so that's why we did it.

In the meantime, one of his former iNation teammates, Janko "⁠YNk⁠" Paunović, came in as the new coach to replace Robert "⁠RobbaN⁠" Dahlström and help with the responsibilities.

"Bringing in Janko, I wanted to do it for a very long time because RobbaN had wanted to step down for some time. We had always liked RobbaN, he was more of a manager to us than a coach, but it was up to him if he wanted to keep going it or not because I believe he had a huge impact on our team. That's the reason why we brought Janko. Obviously, I was the main reason why Janko is with us, I pushed for him a lot, he's my friend and I know how well he knows the game and how dedicated he is, so it's just great to have him on the team. It's just great to have friends on the team rather than just teammates, as well, so it's good to have him."

Although the new lineup struggled at first at iBUYPOWER Masters, getting eliminated in groups at the hands of Ghost, the Bosnian seemed unaffected by the new role, putting in three admirable maps and averaging a 1.41 rating at the first event with the new roster to earn a rare EVP mention — an accolade that is otherwise normally earned with the help of a good playoffs performance.

"I don't know why in-game leadership doesn't affect me. I just play my game. It affects me in some situations; I cannot make some plays that I should have made. You don't want to die in certain situations because you have to make a call for the late round, but, other than that, it doesn't affect me. It doesn't take away too much of my focus that I have to call in the beginning of the rounds or something. The only bad thing about being the in-game leader for me is just that I can't make some moves that I would have made if I wasn't the in-game leader. That's the only thing that affects me."

The second time turned out much better for FaZe as they won their first title of 2019 at the four-team ELEAGUE Invitational only a few days later despite an opening loss to Cloud9 in the double-elimination bracket. After beating everyone present in Atlanta — Complexity, BIG, and Timothy "⁠autimatic⁠" Ta's squad — in a run through the lower bracket, NiKo finished the tournament as the team's highest-rated player at 1.10, but he was beaten by teammate GuardiaN to the MVP award, in the end.

After the campaign in America, it was time for preparations for the first Major of 2019 and, finally, IEM Katowice itself. A fantastic level from the Bosnian in wins over HellRaisers, Cloud9, and Complexity ensured that the European team survived a tough New Legends Stage by the skin of their teeth and retained Legends status with a 3-2 score, but his dropoff in a quarter-final loss to Natus Vincere meant that he would miss out on a third EVP in a row in spite of a team-leading 1.15 rating.

"Making it to the playoffs at IEM Katowice felt good. We were 1-2 down and then we managed to come back, and we had this close match against Complexity. Making it to the playoffs back then we just felt like 'you have to do it, no matter how bad you are, you have to make the playoffs'. Being that close to not making it, once we did it felt good."

The future looked uncertain as AdreN was originally only meant to stay until the Major, but the team took their time to find a new leader and the veteran's stint got prolonged for four more tournaments. The first — BLAST Pro Series São Paulo — went poorly, with FaZe winning just one in five maps while NiKo played an underwhelming tournament overall. A week later, StarSeries i-League Season 7 followed with the 22-year-old looking in much better form, but despite a 2-0 start in the Swiss stage followed by NiKo's heroic efforts in close series against Renegades and ENCE, YNk & co. finished outside of the playoffs once again after three losses in a row.

The drought ended at the next stop in Miami. A poor first day in which the European squad got blown out of the water by Liquid and tied MIBR at first made a grand final appearance unlikely at best, but the team came in reinvigorated on the second day and put in three convincing wins in the group stage to make it to the grand final, where NiKo's 1.53 series rating against the Nick "⁠nitr0⁠" Cannella-led team saw FaZe hoist their first Big-Event trophy and the Bosnian claimed his first MVP after a flawless tournament, worthy of an incredible 1.44 rating.

"We were all surprised by the way we played on the second day in Miami. After the first day, we just gave it all, it just felt way different compared to the way we had been playing. That was the best CS we had played since we brought in AdreN back in January. I'm just happy that we could pull off that second day, it was just great CS that we played and it was good for our confidence that we could show we can still be that team who can just run over opponents no matter who is on the other side. It just happened and we carried that form on to the ESL Pro League group stage.

By a stroke of bad luck, NiKo had to sit out IEM Sydney next due to visa issues, so a successful Pro League group stage in the middle of April marked his last appearance with the first version of the 2019 FaZe.

"The biggest regret that I have from 2019 is that I didn't get my visa for Sydney. I believe that if I got my visa for Sydney, I think that we had a big chance of winning it. It was right after ESL Pro League, we felt really, really confident, we finally clicked together, and then I didn't get my visa. And because we wanted to bring in an in-game leader, we switched out AdreN, and everything started going kind of downhill."

AdreN's temporary tenure came to a close shortly after the Australian tournament because the team finally found a new in-game leader in Filip "⁠NEO⁠" Kubski, whose trial began in May and was set to last until the StarLadder Major, for which the roster deadline was just about to close. NiKo seemed unaffected at the beginning, recording another solid tournament at DreamHack Masters Dallas in the run to the semi-finals, but his consistency seemed to fade as the first half of the year was drawing to an end.

Although he was still able to hit the same peaks, which eventually earned him Valuable Player annotations thanks to being a key player in victories, his numbers dipped at ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals and ESL One Cologne due to some poor maps over the course of the two tournaments, which saw the team go out in the quarter-finals and in the group stage, respectively.

Traveling back to the States in July, FaZe were in Los Angeles for another BLAST Pro Series stop to end the first part of the season on a better note. After the two shaky events, NiKo came away with his third EVP of the year on the back of a solid group stage showing and especially a team-leading 1.58 rating in a semi-final series triumph against NRG, as the European side placed second to Liquid.

After everyone went on a break in August, NiKo briefly dipped once again. The StarLadder Major was a huge disappointment, with the star having a completely unremarkable tournament (a rather fitting 1.00 rating overall) as FaZe lost the Legends status that they had held since the ELEAGUE Major in 2018, with a tight loss to Renegades playing a key part in their elimination once more after the Aussie side had defeated them in narrow fashion in Shanghai in April.

"Not making it to the playoffs in Berlin was really, really bad for us, especially because we lost to Renegades back then, where we had a good lead on the third map."

The Berlin result also meant the end of NEO's trial and the core of FaZe decided that one change wouldn't cut it this time, and GuardiaN accompanied the Pole out of the door to make room for two new additions: a young up-and-comer in Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants and NiKo's friend and rival, coldzera. The shakeup resulted in difficult last-minute adjustments from the team, who had olofmeister shift to a primary AWPer and switched other roles around to accommodate the Brazilian star as well as the Latvian while NiKo was back in the leading position, and the new FaZe bombed out of ESL One New York in last place, with a horrible series against Evil Geniuses driving the Bosnian deep into the red.

"New York was terrible. It was the worst event of my career and I think coldzera's, as well. I don't know why it was my worst event, but I think cold put too much pressure on himself, because he hadn't competed for a few months back then, so I think he really felt like he had to perform at his best.

"We also only had like two days of practice. We didn't know until the media day in New York if we were going to play with coldzera, it was really weird at that point. Once we figured out that he was going to play, it was a relief, but it was still no excuse for how we played. I think I can blame it on myself because I think we tried to complicate things too much instead of making it more simple and playing just on our individual skill, and that's why lost in groups and lost to a team like OpTic. EG were at a peak at the time, but we had a chance against them too, we had 9-2 lead on the first map, and we still managed to throw it away."

Things already looked up in the first stage of ESL Pro League the following week, but it was a month later that it became clear just how high the new mixture can peak when they started their BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen campaign with a 16-2 victory against Astralis and went on to dominate Natus Vincere and Ninjas in Pyjamas. Looking in amazing form again, NiKo became the frontrunner in the MVP race already and held on to his case with a solid finish, leading FaZe to their second big-event trophy after beating the Swedes in the grand final.

"We just came straight from a 10-day bootcamp in Warsaw, we came really prepared. We didn't come with high expectations for BLAST Copenhagen, we just came there to get experience as a team, it was only our second event with the team after the Pro League group stage, which wasn't that bad either.

"The biggest reason why we managed to perform that well in Copenhagen was the mood in the team and the chemistry. No matter what was happening, no matter how down we were, we were always positive and we always managed to come back to win the game at that event. And, obviously, the 16-2 win against Astralis was a huge, huge boost of confidence for us. We just carried it on from then and we played great. I believe that's our peak. When we have that, I think we can be really, really dangerous."

The remainder of the year was far from as glamorous, but NiKo still made his impact known at two of the last three events. FaZe made it to the playoffs at IEM Beijing, where a terrible team showing in a whitewash of a semi-final loss to Astralis contrasted an otherwise great tournament from the 22-year-old, and he added another VP mention at ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals highlighted by a peak performance against TYLOO, though the team's run was cut short in groups by 100 Thieves. It was only the BLAST Pro Series Global Final that left a lot to be desired, with NiKo diving into the red in Bahrain for the second time in 2019 after losses to Ninjas in Pyjamas and Liquid.

"The personal goal is to try to get back to the level that I was at for the past three or four years. I don't want to be on the same level that I've been at for the last half-year. I just want to come back to where I was and it is going to come back, I believe. I showed some peaks at the end of the year, so it's going to come back."

"Now that I took the in-game leader role, I want to be the guy, I want to be the best in-game leader in the world if I can, I want to be the best in-game leader that can also perform the best in the world, as well. I don't want to be the guy about whom people say 'He's the in-game leader, he doesn't have to perform.' I want to be the guy who leads and performs the best on the team if it's possible. That's my goal for the next year and I'm going to do my best to achieve it. If it doesn't work out, then I'm the one to be blamed for it, but I want to try to achieve that."

Why was NiKo the 11th best player of 2019?

Although he didn't live up to his standards from previous years, NiKo was still one of the most impactful players of 2019, as shown in numbers such as 0.77 kills per round (seventh most), 82.6 ADR (seventh most), 0.13 opening kills per round (seventh most), and multi-kills in 19.6% of his rounds (fifth most).

Only four players won multiple MVP awards last year and the Bosnian was one of them, claiming the highest accolade at BLAST Pro Series stops in Miami and Copenhagen. He also earned three more EVPs at iBUYPOWER Masters, ELEAGUE Invitational, and BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles, and finished a few other events on the brink of awards: StarSeries i-League Season 7, DreamHack Masters Dallas, and IEM Beijing.

However, while his very high averages in a strong sample size (105 maps at Big Events) combined with the number of awards might look good enough for a spot well inside the top 10, the fact that none of NiKo's peaks came at the year's most competitive events detracted from his position, as did the lowest round-to-round consistency (70.0% KAST) among all Top 20 players and the several lows he suffered throughout the year.

Bold prediction

NiKo has had an good track record so far, picking out Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool in his Top 20 players of 2016 article — at a time when the Estonian was months away from joining MOUZ —, his cousin Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač in 2017, and Jere "⁠sergej⁠" Salo in 2018.

This time, he opted for another FPL-inspired, truly bold prediction in Aurimas "⁠Bymas⁠" Pipiras, who recently won the Baltic Masters Season 3 Finals with 1337HUANIA:

Aurimas "⁠Bymas⁠" Pipiras

"There's this guy Bymas from FPL who really surprised me. I watched him a couple of times and I think he's pretty good and a pretty versatile player. He's not going to be in the Top 20 next year, but I believe he's going to be a big thing. I believe he has the potential to make it to the top and do some good things."

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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