Top 20 players of 2020: Brollan (15)

Ludvig "⁠Brollan⁠" Brolin places 15th in our ranking of the top 20 players of 2020, powered by GG.BET and Xtrfy, thanks to good performances in Big event playoffs and against the best teams in the world.

Top 20 players of 2020: Introduction

Brollan took to Counter-Strike at a very young age. His first contact with the game came when he was just four years old, playing the game in fun servers and with family members, but that experience helped him build a strong foundation for a switch to Global Offensive upon its release, when Brollan started taking things a bit more seriously. In 2017, as a 15-year-old, he recorded his first HLTV.org-featured match in a qualifier for the domestic Yoggi Yala Cup, with appearances in Swedish and lower-tier European competition becoming a common occurrence after that.

From his debut in April until the end of 2017, Brollan recorded 117 maps played, showing up with a different Swedish mix seemingly every other week. Under teams such as Gatekeepers, AWTR, and passions, he played with a number of standout players from Sweden's "next generation", including today's NIP trio of Hampus "⁠hampus⁠" Poser, Tim "⁠nawwk⁠" Jonasson, and Nicolas "⁠Plopski⁠" Gonzalez Zamora.

Participating in Counter-Strike reality show GAMERZ helped Brollan gain notoriety and got him an invite to FPL-C, but also required a lot of support from his parents. "My dad has always played computer games so he understands a little bit how I was thinking back in the day," he said in an interview, explaining that he decided to prioritize CS over education in order to succeed competitively.

Before the end of 2017, Brollan was also spotted playing under tags such as Japaleno, Kindest Regards, and TzatzikiKlubben, but changing teammates constantly didn't affect the youngster, who seemed to thrive in chaos. He averaged a 1.13 rating in his limited experience playing against top-50 teams (37 maps), and started being seen as more than just a young pugger.

The opportunity to stand in for fnatic at the WESG 2017 Europe & CIS Regional Finals in Barcelona helped Brollan kick off his career. Stepping into Freddy "⁠KRIMZ⁠" Johansson's shoes and playing alongside three-time Major winners was no easy task, but the 15-year-old impressed his now-teammates with a 1.09 rating for the event as they accomplished their goal at the qualifier by placing fourth. Another Swedish team at that tournament was GODSENT, who took notice of the performance and were quick to add Brollan to the squad as Andreas "⁠znajder⁠" Lindberg and Dennis "⁠dennis⁠" Edman left the fold at the end of the year.

Having just signed his first professional contract with GODSENT, Brollan was introduced to the life of a full-time player in 2018. He played eight LAN events in a six-month-span, competing in Belarus, China, Serbia, France, Ukraine, the UK, and back home in Sweden. While the team's success was limited, having peaked at the 17th spot in world rankings and the Qi Invitational win being their highlight placing, Brollan did well enough individually to shrug off the "onliner" tag he had earlier in his career. His standout tournament from that period was StarSeries i-League Season 5, as he posted a 1.12 rating across 13 maps at the first Big Event he played.

Both individually and team-wise, things took a turn for worse after the GODSENT roster was transferred to Red Reserve in the middle of the year. Brollan chained three LAN events "in the red" for the first time in his career, but the callup to fnatic flipped the switch on his form. Representing the "Black and Orange" as a full-time player for the first time, the Swede showed off a 1.11 rating at IEM Chicago 2018, pushing his new team to a top-four finish, and won PLG Grand Slam before the end of the year.

For ages, recycling old talent had been the way to go for the Swedish top teams, fnatic and NiP, but Brollan's showings in 2019 showed them the errors of their ways. The teenager displayed brilliant form in what was a weird 2019 for fnatic. Their year kicked off with the team crashing out of IEM Katowice in the New Challengers Stage, ending their flawless record of making top-16 at every Major. Their form picked up after that, and the Richard "⁠Xizt⁠" Landström-led lineup earned two second-place finishes at StarSeries i-League Season 7 and IEM Sydney 2019, only for a complete breakdown to follow. Before the player break, the Swedes ended three consecutive Big Events in 9-12th place before failing to make it through the Europe Minor in Berlin, making roster changes inevitable.

"I didn’t believe that much in what we were doing in the previous 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." - Brollan interview from 2020

Robin "⁠flusha⁠" Rönnquist and Maikil "⁠Golden⁠" Selim returning to fnatic saw the team get back to an elite level, while Brollan proved that he can not only hang with the best but beat them too. Against all odds, the new roster won its debut tournament — DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019 —, lifting the trophy on home soil. While his teammates had managed similar achievements many times in the past, this was the young gun's first Big Event win, and a moment he remembered as the best of that year.

Brollan wasn't a bystander in the tournament either, as he picked up an EVP mention after a 1.12 rated performance, and kept that level for the final stretch of the year. After a lot of struggles earlier in 2019, fnatic finished it off with four consecutive top-four placings, from which Brollan earned three EVP mentions . As the cherry on top, he was named as the 19th best player of 2019, living up to the bold prediction Olof "⁠olofmeister⁠" Kajbjer had given at the start of the year.

A 78-day period without a single official match played ahead of IEM Katowice, the first event for fnatic in 2020, left a toll on Brollan. The young star had a lukewarm display (1.05 rating), providing more in the group stage against Natus Vincere and Renegades than later on, but fnatic kept their top-four LAN streak alive.

As the pandemic hit the world and the Counter-Strike scene looked for ways to keep the action going despite the lockdowns, fnatic were pushed out of their comfort zone of LAN play and into the online realms. Brollan, the youngest member of the squad, hit the ground running in ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe.

The marathon event spanned nearly a whole month, with fnatic playing 34 maps in their run to lift the title over mousesports. Brollan was rewarded for his efforts (1.14 rating, 1.23 impact) with his career-first MVP, edging out veteran teammate KRIMZ and opponent Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool in the race. The youngster stood out especially in the grand final, in which he posted 1.30+ ratings in four of the five maps played. Not long afterwards, fnatic also reached the No.1 spot in the world rankings, and although they only kept it for one week, Brollan had reached another milestone in his career.

There was one more thing ESL Pro League Season 11 was notable for - being the final event of the SG553 (Krieg) era. The T-side rifle that had risen to prominence in the second part of 2019 was nerfed at the start of April 2020 after months of outcry from fans and professionals alike. As the poster boy for the rifle's strength, Brollan was at the center of a lot of criticism, with many expecting his downfall as his go-to rifle was no longer viable.

From the start of 2020 until the end of ESL Pro League S11, the scoped rifle accounted for 45.6 per cent of his total frags as he played with it not only on the Terrorist side, but also on the defense when he managed to pick it up from fallen opponents. Recognizing the importance of the moment, Brollan decided to put in additional work and practice his AK-47.

"When the Krieg was nerfed I got pretty nervous about how much hate and pressure I would get in the next tournaments, so I instantly went in and watched old demos of myself before the Krieg meta came in. The Krieg and the AK have different spray patterns, so I had kind of forgotten how to spray with AK. I played a lot of DM with it and of course, I needed to change my playstyle a little bit."

Brollan was able to rediscover his game with the AK-47 and to keep up good form as the year went on, but fnatic as a whole struggled. As it became apparent that the coronavirus pandemic wouldn't be over soon and the "online era" was here to stay, it was the likes of BIG and Heroic that gained momentum and started securing trophies, at the expense of teams like fnatic.

As LANs were converted into regional, online events, the Major that was planned to be held in Brazil was postponed and replaced by Regional Major Ranking (RMR) tournaments, leaving Brollan without a chance to have his Major debut or fnatic to redeem themselves for the 2019 woes.

They didn't show up much better in the first RMR tournament either, finishing just 12th in ESL One: Road to Rio in April, despite a good performance from Brollan who posted a 1.14 rating. He also stood out with a 80.2 ADR and a 1.23 impact rating, having impressive series against Vitality (1.19) and eventual winners Astralis (1.23 rating).

"I must say I'm playing better on LAN because I feel so comfortable and I take more confident duels! Everything is just different on LAN, I haven't been in the scene that long but I just feel at home when I'm playing in that area.

"I would say it [entry fragging in the online era] hasn't changed that much, but the hardest thing was in the beginning when people took so many risks as CT! That was kind of annoying to play against."

DreamHack Masters Spring Europe was next on the agenda, and Brollan had an average event overall, though he looked better in the playoffs against MAD Lions than the early stages of the tournament. That trend continued in cs_summit 6 Europe, the last event before the player break and the second RMR of the year. He was brilliant against Swedish rivals NIP in the quarter-finals and BIG in the semi-finals of the upper bracket but didn't deliver the same performance against Heroic in the lower bracket as a loss to the Danes saw them finish sixth. Overall, he had a 1.22 playoff rating — his second-highest of the year —, and earned an EVP mention for his performance.

"I remember we should have got that last map against Heroic but we couldn't close it out! I was disappointed that we could not get a better result than we did."

After the break, fnatic returned to action in ESL One Cologne Europe, which was another whitewash event for the team as they lost to Heroic and Astralis for a group stage exit. Brollan still did well individually (best in his team with 1.09 rating), again topping the charts against Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz and co., with a 1.23 rating in the opening match of the tournament.

Two mediocre events by Brollan's standards followed, ESL Pro League S12 Europe and IEM New York Europe, the former significantly more stacked than the latter. The 18-year-old averaged a 1.05 rating and only had a 1.00+ rating on 50% of the maps played over the course of the two events, but was still the second-best performer for the Swedish squad. In Pro League, fnatic couldn't make it past the round-robin group stage, but they managed to reach the IEM New York semi-finals after a big performance from Brollan against Complexity.

"I felt uncomfortable in the game at the time because we didn't play well as a team and I didn't feel well back then, but the more we played, the more I became comfortable! One of the reasons why I sometimes felt uncomfortable is that we were not together, sitting next to each other."

Just one top-four placing from a span of six tournaments resulted in fnatic sliding down the rankings, from No.1 at the end of April to No.15 at the start of October, ahead of DreamHack Open Fall. In the third and final RMR event of the year, fnatic were in dire need of ranking points and managed to get past the group stage, but couldn't upset Astralis in the upper bracket and were eliminated by NIP in the lower bracket. Brollan was the highest-rated member of his squad in both of those matches, but his year-high 0.15 entry kills per round and solid 1.12 playoff rating didn't amount to more than a sixth-place finish after the decider matches were played out.

Brollan's only poor event of the year was IEM Beijing-Haidian Europe, in which fnatic finished in last place after losses to Complexity and MAD Lions. At his penultimate outing of 2020, the Swede recorded a below-average rating (0.95), causing him to miss out on at least a Valuable Player mention for the first time in the year. Notably, he struggled on the Terrorist side (0.64 rating), which has been his forte since putting on the Orange and Black jersey.

"The worst moment of the year was when the Krieg got nerfed! (laughs) No, but let's be honest, the whole year was kind of shit, and especially the last three months. We worked so hard on everything but nothing went our way."

Flashpoint 2 was left to close out the year, and in a weaker pool of teams than what fnatic was used to face in 2020, Brollan came through. He set personal records in terms of rating (1.22), impact rating (1.28), T-side rating (1.20), ADR (82.7), DPR (0.64), and KAST (75.1%), albeit he did better in the group stage than in the playoffs. While he did show up in the upper-bracket final against Virtus.pro with a 1.38 rating, the CIS side managed to upset them, 2-1. Brollan wasn't able to put up the same level of performance against OG in the consolidation final, which brought fnatic's year to an end with a third place in the $1,000,000 tournament.

"Two good moments come to mind. The first one is Katowice, just because it was LAN and I love it so much. The second one is when we won EPL! Winning an online event was weird because you don't know how to react, but it felt very good in the end."

Why was Brollan the 15th best player of 2020?

Brollan's immense impact and excellent performances against the best teams and in the playoffs of Big events see him place 15th on the list of the best players of 2020.

The 18-year-old excelled at entry work, netting 0.12 opening kills per round (14th-highest), and had a multi-kill in 18.6% of the rounds he played (ninth-most), which combined for an impressive 1.18 impact rating (11th-highest). He was also impressive in pure fragging numbers, with 0.74 kills per round (10th-most) and 78.4 damage per round (17th-highest).

"Many people would see me as the 'star player', but that also comes from my teammates, who place me in the best situations possible. They trust what I want to do, so if I want any support they are always there for me!"

The Swede was great in terms of tournament-to-tournament consistency, with IEM Bejing-Haidian being the only stain, posting ratings equal to or higher than 1.05 in the remaining 11 notable events. Additionally, his strong map-to-map consistency (85% of maps with 0.85+ rating) was an improvement from 2019, when his volatility (only 74% of maps with 0.85+ rating) stopped him from placing higher than 19th.

Although Brollan was outshined by, for example, his teammate KRIMZ in terms of Elite event performances in 2020, the young star showed his class throughout the year when and where it mattered the most. He stepped up against the toughest opposition, averaging a 1.14 rating against top-5 teams (31 maps played), and excelled deep in tournaments, posting a 1.11 rating in playoffs of Big events (31 maps played).

The smallest of margins determined the player placings up to the 14th spot of this Top 20, with Brollan's stats in the most important matches being the main reason he edged out Henrique "⁠HEN1⁠" Teles and KRIMZ for the 15th spot in the ranking.

Bold Prediction

After selecting NIP's Plopski as a bold prediction last year, Brollan opted for younger and less proven Swedish talent this time around. In his opinion, two up-and-coming players who have the potential to reach the top level in the next year are Peppe "⁠Peppzor⁠" Borak and Leo "⁠Svedjehed⁠" Svedjehed.

Peppzor, who was also picked by KRIMZ, is an 18-year-old with whom Brollan recently played in the Svenska Elitserien Fall. Svedjehed, despite being a year younger, is the more experienced of the two, already recording 156 maps played on HLTV and averaging a 1.06 rating while representing Lilmix in 2020.

Peppe "⁠Peppzor⁠" Borak
Leo "⁠Svedjehed⁠" Svedjehed

"There are many, but if I would go for two I must say Peppzor and Svedjehed! I don't know that much about Svedjehed, but I see talent when I see him play!

"I know Peppzor much better and have been playing with him a lot in the last year. I know this guy will be big and can put in the work! Both have a lot of potential and will be a great addition to any team."

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:

Xtrfy - Built on experience
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