Top 20 players of 2019: Brehze (8)

The best trade-fragger of 2019, Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte, takes home the eighth place in the Top 20 players ranking, powered by Xtrfy and LOOT.BET, in his first appearance on the list.

Top 20 players of 2019: Introduction

Brehze's first emerged in our records back in mid-2015 when the American was playing for VeloX and attended a couple of regional qualifiers for competitions such as the FACEIT League and Game Show Global eSports Cup. Yet to attend his first notable LAN tournaments, he wouldn't get into the spotlight much until he joined up with a new roster in Obey.Alliance alongside names like Cory "⁠APE⁠" Bate and Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White later that year and played at his first Minor ahead of MLG Columbus.

"When I first started playing CS back in December 2014, I started playing for fun just like most people. However, if I never met vaL, a good friend of mine who let me join his ESEA Open team at the time, I probably would have never even started playing competitive CS. I played with that team for a while until I was eventually offered to be a ringer for a team in an online tournament, a team that I would later join, known as Obey/TeamKaliber. From there I played in ESEA Premier and qualifiers and got some experience playing against better players, and the rest is history."

They were then eliminated last in their group, but during the first half of the year the team who later became known as Without a Roof and Kaliber went on to find some success with runner-up finishes in various online leagues and tournaments like the 21st season of ESEA Premier and Stream.me Gauntlet.

One qualifier in particular had a big effect on Brehze's life at that time when he carried his team to a best-of-five victory over Selfless. Along with a spot in the first season of ECS North America, the standout performance earned him cheating accusations from the opponent organization's owner, Steve "⁠Ryu⁠" Rattacasa, which circulated for a while until the same person offered Brehze a place — and an apology — on the team in the latter half of 2016.

Brehze didn't play with Selfless for long, only a few months, but it was enough to give him an opportunity to fight off those accusations for good with a breakout tournament at Northern Arena in Toronto, where the up-and-comer led the new roster to the playoffs with a 1.41 rating, impressing against teams like Lukas "⁠gla1ve⁠" Rossander's Heroic and Immortals.

"Northern Arena was an exciting LAN because I had just joined Selfless, my first Pro League team, with a group of young guys, who just like me wanted to improve and get better. It was my first event as a 'pro' in my eyes and there was some outside pressure because of the controversy about the whole Ryu calling me out for cheats and then picking me up for his team situation, and the question was: 'Can he show up on LAN?' So I just really wanted to perform and show I had what it takes to be there."

A third consecutive last-place finish at the ELEAGUE Major Americas Minor and the 9th-12th place at his first tournament outside of North America, WESG 2016 World Finals, marked the end of Brehze's tenure with the young squad. At the beginning of 2017, he made another step up to a new NRG roster led by Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele, with whom he got to travel abroad more.

"Honestly, it was a little nerve-wracking in the start because I was playing with bigger names in FugLy, daps and ptr. What made it easier was that I joined with someone with more or less the same experience as me in MarKE, so we were in the same boat. The first couple of LANs were a little brutal for me, but I knew I wasn't on the same level just yet and needed to improve because I was competing against European teams I have never played before."

The year was riddled with lineup changes around the core of Brehze, daps, and Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina, and none of the versions found any success. In the meantime, Brehze showed off his undeniable talent at some of the smaller tournaments like the DreamHack Open stops in Valencia and Atlanta, but the best teams in the world were a tough nut to crack for him while he attended his first Big Events at the ESL Pro League finals in seasons five and six.

"2017 was pretty rough with constant changes and bad placements. Always having to start from scratch every time we made a change was awful. We just never really found the right five and it took us some time, but I'm happy with where everything ended up."

Things changed when the roster finally stabilized in early 2018 after the additions of two more upcoming players in Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov and Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold. Early on the new constellation showed promise regionally by placing second and first in the regular seasons of ESL Pro League and ECS, respectively, and winning another online tournament iBUYPOWER Invitational, with the young trio spearheading that progress. Brehze started to perform against some of the best European opponents, as well, and in the middle of the year that helped NRG reach their first big-event final at StarSeries i-League Season 5.

"I think once we were able to get Ethan our team reached a new level because he brought so much skill. Even then if you looked at our lineup we arguably had one of the most skilled teams in North America. Although we were doing pretty well online, I don't think we were playing the best as a team, I think we just out-skilled others and won more on individual talent rather than team play, which is something we would learn more about and touch upon as time moved on."

The Ukrainian event proved to be a big milestone and a springboard for the squad. daps & co. attacked high placings consistently on the back of that initial success, with top-four finishes at ESL One New York and StarSeries i-League Season 6 and their first triumphs at IEM Shanghai and cs_summit 3 also seeing Brehze secure his first awards in the latter half of the year, including an MVP medal at the closed event in Los Angeles, California.

"Generally, we were just playing better and now we actually had some time to practice and prepare. I think that, in turn, helped improve my performance."

With the first international titles under his belt and a permanent residence in the top 10 throughout the entire second half of 2018, Brehze's career was undoubtedly at its highest point, and he looked to improve on that as he and NRG set their sights on 2019 and two things they hadn't been able to achieve until then: to win a Big Event and to play at a Major.

The second goal came true immediately at the beginning of the year. Having previously suffered five group stage exits at Americas Minors, Brehze spearheaded a dominant run through the IEM Katowice precursor and maintained fantastic form during the first stage of the Major itself. En route to a 3-0 record, he put up one of the biggest carry performances of the year in a closely-contested, spot-deciding match against TYLOO, where a 1.77 rating from the American star pulled NRG over the finish line.

"IEM Katowice was the first Major for myself but also for a few of my teammates (Ethan, CeRq), it was a big moment for all of us, one I won't forget. As for the TYLOO series, I feel that we always play well against Asian teams. I'm not sure why, but every time we play an Asian team we always seem to play well and especially me, I'm just comfortable playing against their style."

Brehze was then one of the best fraggers of the second stage and put up and impressive 1.19 rating, but against all expectations his team ended up eliminated early nonetheless after being unable to close out any of the four close maps they played against NIP, AVANGAR, and Complexity.

"My worst memory from 2019 is going 0-3 at the Katowice major in the second portion because we lost a close game to Complexity and had to go back to another Minor instead of securing our spot at the next Major."

After the Major, the first roster change came when Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik took FugLy's place. If there was an adjustment period, it did not show in results, as over the next two months the new lineup went to the semi-finals at StarSeries i-League Season 7 and at IEM Sydney, with fnatic ending their campaign on both occasions. Staying on the path he had started on in the latter half of 2018, Brehze's standout contribution at the two events earned him consecutive EVP mentions, and he kept up a good level despite two shaky tournaments at cs_summit 4 and DreamHack Masters Dallas, where NRG finished in the bottom half.

"The Major definitely helped my confidence, and confidence is everything in a game like CS. I just wanted to have a good year and maybe grab some more trophies."

The 21-year-old was back on the list of awardees thanks to some peaks against FURIA, Vitality, and G2 while the team cultivated their semi-finals curse, going out in the top-four stages at the next two stops again, at ECS Season 7 Finals and ESL Pro League Season 9 Finals, despite a favorable matchup in Kenny "⁠kennyS⁠" Schrub's team in the playoffs of the latter.

"We were right there with the best of them, we knew we could win these events. However, we got stuck and couldn't get over the hurdle. We weren't satisfied, but we couldn't be mad at ourselves because we were so close."

Wishing to take the next step and start contending for titles after always getting so close but never managing to break through the top-four barrier, to everyone's surprise NRG decided to remove one of the core members, daps, in favor of a different in-game leader in Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz.

"The team felt that it was time for a change at the time. I had already been playing with daps for two years and we just needed to bring in a fresh face and a new way of looking at things, so we looked at stanislaw. Most of us have never played with him before apart from tarik and Chet [ImAPet], so I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew he was a good leader who has led some great teams, so I was excited to work with him."

Three events were left before the end of the first half of the year. ESL One Cologne was the first with the Canadian in charge, and the North American squad made it to playoffs on the back of three great maps from Brehze, but two rather unremarkable series against Liquid and Vitality in matches for spots in the semi-finals kept the American from adding a fifth EVP to his tally. BLAST Pro Series Los Angeles was a similar story, as NRG put up their sixth top-four placing in California, with Brehze missing out on another award due to a sub-par performance in the playoffs match against FaZe.

Fresh off a second dominant Americas Minor victory at the end of July followed by the player break in the first weeks of August, NRG traveled to Berlin for the second Major of the year. They shook off a surprising loss to DreamEaters in the opening round to go on a convincing run through the New Challengers Stage, and this time topped it off with a 3-0 record in the second stage, beating Astralis in match featuring a grueling quintuple-overtime Train opener to earn Legends status.

After taking down Natus Vincere, stanislaw & co. made it to the semi-finals again, where they lost a rematch with the Danish powerhouse despite heroic efforts from Brehze, which went a long way in earning him another EVP, as he finished the event as one of the best damage dealers (85.6 ADR).

Empowered by the strong Major showing, NRG went back home to compete at ESL One New York under the new banner of Evil Geniuses. Brehze kicked off the tournament with an amazing group stage, where he led the team to revenge against Astralis, and continued to play at his peak in the playoffs while putting up another team-leading performance against the Danes in a best-of-five title decider to win his first Big Event and fulfill his primary goal for 2019. As he topped the charts in rating (1.29) and kills per round (0.84), and placed high in several others, the 21-year-old won the MVP; his second overall and his first at an event of such stature.

"It was pretty unexpected how well we did. It was right after the player break and our performance at the Berlin Major, so we had already been playing hot, but we were playing really well in New York, it was probably our strongest showing. It was honestly quite a surprise, I think we just got off to a hot start and kept the momentum going at that tournament. Having the home crowd and playing against the best team in the world and winning was an unforgettable experience."

The gla1ve-led squad would be EG's most common opponent by the end of the year, and as shown in New York, Brehze was left unfazed facing the best team in the world, as he averaged a 1.20 rating in the matchup across 16 maps throughout 2019.

A hard fall followed the tremendous achievement when Evil Geniuses had to fly to Malmö immediately after the New York grand final and went on to bomb out of the Swedish tournament in last place, while Brehze put in his first below-average event of the year. He quickly made up for it with his sixth EVP award at the next stop as part of the main fragging trio at StarSeries, helping EG go back to winning ways with an especially noteworthy grand final series against fnatic (1.73 rating). However, the Turkish event marked the end of his — and the team's — spectacular run, which was followed by a brief appearance at No.1 in the ranking.

Brehze dropped off again while the North American side finished outside of the playoffs after they traveled to China twice in two weeks in November for IEM Beijing and CS:GO Asia Championships. His shaky form continued at the two big leagues' finals in Arlington and Odense, with Brehze's good play in the wins — which still helped Evil Geniuses make it to the playoffs each time — contrasted by some poor series against Liquid at the former and Natus Vincere and MOUZ at the latter tournament.

"I'm not sure what caused my dropoff, I was playing the same as always. I think teams just started to watch us more now that we were fighting to stay in that consistent top3-5, so I felt I was being countered, but nothing I can put my finger on."

EPICENTER concluded Evil Geniuses' exceptionally busy schedule late in the year, with Brehze unable to play from the start as visa issues prevented him from traveling to Russia until day three. While Igor "⁠crush⁠" Shevchenko was standing in, EG managed to make it through to the playoffs, setting up a good recovery from the 21-year-old, who came back in time for the bracket stage to help them beat Natus Vincere in the quarter-finals before adding another great series against their nemesis, MOUZ, albeit with no success.

"[What we learned from the last few months?] Don't go to as many events (laughs)."

Why was Brehze the 8th best player of 2019?

Brehze made it all the way up to eighth place in his first appearance in the Top 20 players as one of the best fraggers of 2019, putting up 0.76 kills per round (eighth most) and a multi-kill in 19.1% of his rounds (eighth most). He especially stood out in another category connected to fragging with 0.16 trade kills per round; the most out of everyone.

"What I think makes Brehze so good at trade fragging is for starters his aim. Whenever I watch Brehze play not only does he position himself really well, but his aim is so good that when he is put into tough situations he is just able to win one-on-one duels that aren't even in his favor," his coach, Chet "⁠Chet⁠" Singh, said on the topic of Brehze's trade-fragging ability.

"He wins more left hand peeks than any other player I've had the pleasure of coaching and that's a really impressive thing to do. Also, since we've been together for so long there is just a lot of natural chemistry and his playbook has expanded so much that when you even face him in a spot like ivy for example, when he's defaulting he just has so many ways to get map control and punish other people. There is very little you can do right now to surprise him when he plays."

The fragging ability led to his first-ever Big-Event MVP at ESL One New York and six more EVP awards, all earned at Big Events, which includes one in Evil Geniuses' second title-winning campaign at StarSeries i-League Season 8 and one in their run to the semi-finals at the StarLadder Major.

"My goals for 2020 are to keep up my performance and to win a Major."

Brehze's performances in big matches cemented his status as one of the world's best. In addition to being the best performer in both finals he played — against Astralis in New York and fnatic in Belek —, he averaged the sixth-highest Big-Event playoffs rating of 1.18 over a solid sample size of 41 maps.

However, while the first 10 months of 2019 would have likely placed him higher on the list, Brehze demonstrated some consistency issues in the sub-par period at the end of the year, which put a stop to his climb at No. 8.

Bold prediction

Once a bold prediction by Keith "⁠NAF⁠" Markovic himself, Brehze reckons Ricky "⁠floppy⁠" Kemery from the former ATK roster, who recently transferred to Cloud9, could have a breakout year in 2020. The 20-year-old averaged a 1.15 rating on LAN in 2019 and most recently had some highlight moments at his first Big Event at ESL Pro League Season 10 Finals, helping the team eliminate North and G2 from the tournament.

Ricky "⁠floppy⁠" Kemery

"I've said it before somewhere, but I think floppy from the new Cloud9 roster could have a breakout year if he keeps up the level he's been playing at and can do it against the best teams in the world."

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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