Top 20 players of 2020: Brehze (20)

Vincent "⁠Brehze⁠" Cayonte is the first entry in HLTV's 2020 player of the year ranking, powered by GG.BET and Xtrfy, after putting up solid numbers all year long, including the highest trade kill ratio in the world.

Top 20 players of 2020: Introduction

Brehze started playing Counter-Strike for fun in 2014 and made his way through the minor leagues with friends early on, taking his first steps in ESEA Open. Not long after that, he started to move up, ringing for Obey.Alliance alongside players like Cory "⁠APE⁠" Bate and Alec "⁠Slemmy⁠" White before eventually being picked up by the team, with whom he played his first LAN on record, the MLG Americas Minor Championship, in January 2016. Brehze kept growing and gaining experience in that team, who went on play under the names Without a Roof and Kaliber, putting two ESEA Premier seasons, one ECS, and plenty of qualifiers under his belt.

One particular final during his Obey.Alliance days, the ECS Season 1 Qualifier grand final, marked Brehze’s career, as he carried his team to victory over Selfless in such a manner that the rival team’s coach and owner, Steve "⁠Ryu⁠" Rattacasa, accused the youngster of cheating, an accusation he would later recant and apologize for, offering Brehze a spot on his team, which he accepted. Now a starter on an ESL Pro League roster, Brehze began to get a feel for a more professional standard of play in Selfless, and he went on to shed all doubts regarding past accusations at his breakout LAN event, Northern Arena 2016 - Toronto, where he took his team to the playoffs while showing a high level of play against the likes of Heroic and Immortals, finishing the event with a 1.41 rating.

Brehze ended 2016 playing his first LAN outside of North America, the WESG 2016 North & South America Finals in São Paulo, Brazil, which Selfless won to qualify for the World Finals in Changzhou, China in early 2017, where he put up a 1.40 rating across 12 maps despite the team’s 9-12th place finish. The budding star’s performances didn’t go unnoticed, and he received an offer soon thereafter from the team with which he would go on to gain notoriety, the newly formed NRG roster led by Damian "⁠daps⁠" Steele.

NRG was a big step up for Brehze, but the team didn’t take off immediately as the core of daps, Brehze and Jacob "⁠FugLy⁠" Medina remained while players were shuffled around them, making it hard to find a proper competitive rhythm, which translated into poor results early on. NRG did manage to qualify for several LAN events, though, and despite two last-place finishes at DreamHack Open Valencia and Atlanta, Brehze was nonetheless able to show strong individual performances, ending the two events with 1.28 and 1.15 ratings. Facing off against the top dogs was another story, however, as Brehze struggled in his two first Pro League Finals in seasons 5 and 6, with 0.88 and 0.85 ratings, respectively.

“We were really strong individually but we also trusted what we were doing, daps was a great leader in those times when playing and competing internationally was still new to a lot of us. Even before I played with CeRq and Ethan he was a huge help for me because he was one of the first real IGLs who I played with that had already competed at the highest level. We just trusted the process and I learned a lot from those times.”

NRG finally found a winning combination in 2018 following the additions of two talented youngsters, Ethan "⁠Ethan⁠" Arnold and Tsvetelin "⁠CeRq⁠" Dimitrov, who formed a deadly trio with incredible firepower alongside Brehze. The team then finished second in the North American divisions of ESL Pro League and ECS, and went on to reach their first Big Event grand final at StarSeries i-League Season 5, after which they became regular playoff contenders at international events and even won the smaller IEM Shanghai and cs_summit 3, with the event in Los Angeles seeing Brehze earn his first MVP medal.

NRG started off 2019 with a 15-16th place finish at the IEM Katowice Major, which showed that they weren’t quite ripe for the biggest stage yet, but a roster change that ended up with Tarik "⁠tarik⁠" Celik taking FugLy’s spot in the lineup had immediate effects as the team made three semi-final runs at StarSeries i-League Season 7, IEM Sydney and cs_summit 4, establishing NRG as a threatening team. They kept running into a barrier in the playoffs, however, unable to break past the semi-finals, and a change in leadership was made, with Peter "⁠stanislaw⁠" Jarguz taking daps' spot on the roster.

The change didn’t have an immediate effect on the squad and they kept hitting a brick wall in semi-finals, including at the StarLadder Berlin Major, where they once again went out in 3rd-4th place after a loss to Astralis. The roster was then transferred to the legendary Evil Geniuses organization, finally breaking through their ceiling at their first tournament under the new banner, ESL One New York, where they took revenge on Astralis as they beat the Danes twice, including in the best-of-five grand final. A tournament-high 1.29 rating earned Brehze an MVP award for the second time.

“I think we have all the right pieces to be a winning team and the right personality to go with it. The core of CeRq, Ethan and me has been together the longest and the three of us just work well together.”

Evil Geniuses then slipped up at DreamHack Masters Malmö, an event that started the day after their New York victory, but they bounced back at StarSeries i-League Season 8 in Turkey, taking their second Big Event crown following back-to-back victories in the upper bracket final and grand final over fnatic. Briefly peaking at No. 1 in the world ranking, the team then ended with a slew of playoff runs in their last five events of the year. Brehze, who had been putting up great numbers all year long and even ended as the best trade-fragger in the business, was named the eighth best player of that year.

”The deep runs and consistent placements we had definitely gave me more confidence in my play, especially on LAN, and going into 2020 I was confident in us taking even more titles. We were at a point where we played better on LAN, which had been a problem for us in the early NRG days, when we were getting really good online results compared to LAN, so it sucks that 2020 turned out the way it did with no LANs for the majority of the year.”

Evil Geniuses started 2020 with a month-long bootcamp in Europe and the BLAST Premier Spring Series in London was their first tournament of the year, where they weren’t able to qualify for the Spring Finals as they finished third of their group following a victory over 100 Thieves and two losses to OG. Evil Geniuses’ slow start continued in Poland, where they once again failed to show their best form. The team began their IEM Katowice campaign on a positive note with a victory against MAD Lions, but then fell to their North American rivals of Liquid in their second group stage match before being taken out in the lower bracket by the team they had eliminated in London, 100 Thieves, ending their run in 9-12th place. Despite the collective blunder, Brehze still managed to show up, leading the squad in their only victory with a 1.48 rating in the series and leaving Poland with a team-high 1.14 rating.

“We had good preparation for both events, honestly. We should have done a lot better than we did, we spent a month’s time in Europe bootcamping, preparing, and at the time we were playing well in our scrims, so it sucks we didn’t perform as we should have.”

Evil Geniuses then travelled back to North America in March as more and more countries started to close their borders due to the growing coronavirus pandemic, prompting play to be divided into regions and moved online. Their first event back home was ESL Pro League Season 11, one of the five most important events of 2020 in North America, in which they finished second to Liquid despite losing coach Chet "⁠Chet⁠" Singh half-way through the event following a breakdown between him and the two players, tarik and stanislaw. Brehze once again performed as he was the highest-rated player in the team with another 1.14 rating, which this time around earned him his first EVP mention of the year.

”Returning to online play was hard for us, initially. It’s just a whole different game, we were so used to playing in tournament environments and being in different countries that being home was kind of foreign to us. We were playing North American teams that did not really compete internationally and who are used to the online meta, so we had to re-adjust to playing like that again.”

The North American squad brought Wilton "⁠zews⁠" Prado in to replace their departing coach, but struggled to hit the ground running under the new skipper’s orders, finishing the two following events, ESL One: Road to Rio North America and DreamHack Masters Spring 2020 North America, in 7-8th place. Evil Geniuses lost to two weaker squads on paper at both events, Cloud9 and Gen.G, but Brehze continued putting up strong numbers, ending the RMR tournament with a 1.11 rating and the DreamHack Masters competition, another one of the five most prestigious events of the year in North America, with another 1.14 rating.

”We had an adjustment period with zews, none of us aside from stanislaw had been on a team with him, so we needed time to lay the foundation again and change little things to fit the new things he wanted to bring.”

Brehze then had his second-worst rating of the year, a still above average 1.03 in his team’s BLAST Premier Spring Americas Finals victory. While a 1.03 rating wasn't great on average for him personally, he was still a contributor, having played several solid maps in the team's first of three consecutive titles that they would win during the summer after dipping down to No. 12 in the world rankings—their lowest since 2018, when daps and FugLy were still on the team. After that, the 22-year-old regained top form, earning an MVP award in cs_summit 6 North America thanks to a 1.26 rating and a year-high 79.2% KAST as he and his team went undefeated, beating FURIA once and Liquid and Gen.G twice each. Brehze was also the standout player in the grand final, with a 1.58 rating in the two maps played against daps's side.

The team’s third victory in a row came after the player break, in another one of the bigger events of the year year in the region, ESL One Cologne North America, in which they once again went undefeated, this time beating Triumph, FURIA and Liquid on their way to the title. Brehze earned an EVP mention and he was just shy of securing another MVP award for his efforts as he ended the tournament with a 1.21 rating, posting above-average ratings and positive KDDs on all 11 maps played.

Evil Geniuses then played in ESL Pro League Season 12, the last of the biggest online events in North America this year, in which Brehze once again put up great numbers with a 1.18 rating across a total of 19 maps as the team finished in third place. He was able to secure his third EVP despite his numbers taking a hit with the losses to FURIA and 100 Thieves in the upper bracket final and consolidation final, respectively, as he put up a 0.96 playoff rating — the only time he dipped below the 1.00 mark in this stage of tournaments.

Another third-place finish ensued in IEM New York North America, in which EG once again fell to FURIA. Despite his team not going all the way, Brehze had his best performance of the year and once again finished runner-up for the MVP medal thanks to a tournament-high 1.47 rating and a 94.4 ADR, though it should be mentioned that his numbers were inflated by his performances in the group stage, in which he boasted a whopping 1.53 rating across ten maps.

”We definitely didn’t feel pressure to perform, I think at this point we weren’t improving anymore by being in North America. We were playing down to the levels of our opponents every time and maybe our confidence was a little low from losing to these teams we know we shouldn’t be losing to.”

Evil Geniuses then travelled to Europe to play the BLAST Premier Fall Series, where they would face European opposition for the first time since IEM Katowice in February. Having spent such a long time in the North American bubble, with practice conditions that were far from ideal, they quickly fell behind, losing two straight matches to OG and Ninjas in Pyjamas in a 10-12th place finish. The event, which didn’t have much of an impact on Brehze’s standing in the top 20 ranking as it was just a group stage, was the only one he ended in the red all year, with a 0.87 rating across the five maps played in the two series.

“Being away from top competition did hurt us to a degree, we knew we could beat these teams, it’s just we needed time to adjust to the European style again. After being eliminated, we continued practicing and it was a night and day difference from when we got there to the end of our time in Europe. If we had maybe gone even earlier and given ourselves more time to prepare I think we would have performed a lot better.”

EG then returned to North America to compete in what would turn out to be their last event of the year, IEM Beijing-Haidian North America, although it is not one important enough to impact Brehze’s place in the rankings as it was missing FURIA, who remained in Europe, and 100 Thieves, who had lost their organization’s backing after IEM New York. He once again put up impressive numbers, accruing a 1.23 rating, but against lesser North American opposition in Rebirth, Triumph and Chaos. The latter ended up eliminating EG in the semi-finals, denying them the chance to take one more regional title before the end of the year. The team started to plummet in the world rankings, and things went from bad to worse as they had to cancel their end-of-the-year trip to Europe due to “Covid-19 travel restrictions,” which meant missing out on their last three events of the year, BLAST Premier Fall Showdown, DreamHack Masters Winter and IEM Global Challenge.

“Honestly, I can’t really think of my best memory of the year, but if I had to pick one, maybe winning BLAST Premier Spring Series North America or maybe IEM Katowice because even though we lost there it was the last real LAN event with all of the top teams and it was still a great experience.”

Why was Brehze the 20th best player of 2020?

Taken at face value, Brehze's performances this year seem as impressive as last year's, for which he was named the eighth-best player in the world, as he was once again one of the best fraggers (0.76 kills per round, sixth-highest overall), the very best at getting trade kills (0.17 per round), and had one of the highest ratings (1.15, ninth-highest). Furthermore, this time around he also displayed great consistency, contributing well above average in every single notable event in which he competed, as well as on a map-to-map basis with 73% of maps with a 1.00+ rating (eighth-highest).

Other noteworthy stats include ending the year with the fourth-best T-side rating (1.16), the 15th-highest ADR (78.8), and the 11th-best KAST (72.9%) and KDD (+456). Brehze was also one of the most consistent at getting kills and multi-kills, as he had 50% of rounds with a frag (ranked sixth), 18.6% of rounds with a multi-kill (ranked 10th) and 6.1% of rounds with three or more frags (ranked fourth).

“I felt my individual level was still pretty good this year, it was just unfortunate we couldn’t play against all of the top teams as much.”

The biggest factor that prevented Brehze from reaching greater heights in the ranking is that he only participated in North American events after IEM Katowice, with the exception of the BLAST Premier Fall Series, which did not count much towards his placing.

The lack of appearances at the most prestigious events in Europe in the last months of the year limited the level of opposition he was able to face, and while he was one of the very best in North America, contributing greatly to his team's success with his MVP and four EVP performances, he would have needed to perform against more top teams at the biggest events for a shot at a higher place on the list.

Bold prediction

Brehze tipped Danny "⁠cxzi⁠" Strzelczyk as his player to watch in 2021 and beyond. The 20-year-old was called up to be a stand-in for Gen.G in ESL Pro League Season 12 after daps had stepped down from the team. Following his time as a ringer, he qualified for DreamHack Masters Winter 2020 North America with Rugratz, averaging a 1.17 rating across six maps.

Danny "⁠cxzi⁠" Strzelczyk

”This guy works hard and every time I watch FPL he’s calling and giving ideas. I feel like he can be good.”

Stay tuned to our Top 20 players of 2020 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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