Top 20 players of 2021: blameF (13)
Excellent consistency and big performances against the best opposition secure Benjamin "blameF" Bremer 13th place on the top 20 players of 2021 ranking, powered by GG.BET.
Top 20 players of 2021: Introduction
Despite feeling like part of the furniture, blameF has only been a part of the upper echelons of the CS:GO scene since 2019. Before that he was merely another talented fish in a sea of Danish talent, playing with a small group of players that included close friend Bjarke "miNd" Benjaminsen. But unlike most Danes, who work their way through the local scene, often playing under names such as Danny "BERRY" Krüger or Dennis "sycrone" Nielsen before being picked up by one of the elite Danish squads, blameF took a different route.
"I never really knew many people from the Danish scene. I mostly only played with my friend miNd and a handful of other players, so I never really got to build that personal relationship with other players, which is very helpful when you are looking to get picked up by a better team because people will vouch for you and help you get opportunities."
Instead, blameF joined Great Danes, not exactly a household name but the most notable team that he had gotten the chance to play on to date, and with them he began to accrue some all-important LAN experience. One notable tournament was the BYOC qualifier for Copenhagen Games 2018, where with Great Danes blameF was able to catapult himself into the spotlight with an upset victory over Mathieu "Maniac" Quiquerez's LDLC squad. His individual performances impressed, so much so that he was eventually signed by tier-one feeder team, Epsilon.
"The first time I realized I had some real potential was at the Copenhagen Games 2018, which was my first LAN tournament ever. I remember that 14 days before it started I told myself I wanted to prove some of the people who told me I was a cheater wrong and I started playing three hours of deathmatch/aim_botz a day to improve. I was very nervous, not only because I had to see how it was to play in a LAN environment, but also because it was the first time I would meet anyone in person from the gaming community and I didn't really have the best reputation. But I ended up playing really well individually and we had some good upsets against some bigger teams as well."
Whilst his time in Epsilon bore little fruit in terms of accomplishments, the team did take some scalps during his time, and it provided him with a platform to further showcase his skills. One of the aforementioned scalps was that of Heroic, and he would later join this team in place of Andreas "MODDII" Fridh as the year ticked over into 2019. This would be his home for the next eight months as he began to establish himself as a true tier-one player. The team struggled to produce results as the lineup was chopped and changed throughout blameF's time with the team, with not a single notable finish at a top-tier event, however it was not all bad news for the Dane; his individual performances were impressive, with just one of the highlights being a team-leading 1.21 rating at IEM Cologne 2019, and this team was where he first became an IGL. When he first joined neither Patrick "es3tag" Hansen, nor Adam "friberg" Friberg, nor Asger "AcilioN" Larsen impressed when taking the reigns for the team, and so blameF put himself forward as a potential solution, and the solution he became.
It was this combination of star-power and in-game leading that attracted the attention of Jason Lake, who made the Dane the centerpiece of Complexity's Juggernaut project. He finished 2019 playing with the North American version of the roster, one that included Rory "dephh" Jackson and Shahzeb "ShahZaM" Khan who have since opted for an quiet retirement in Valorant, but going into the next year the organisation made ambitious moves to build a strong lineup that could contend for trophies in 2020; Kristian "k0nfig" Wienecke and Valentin "poizon" Vasilev were signed to complete the original Juggernaut roster.
2020 was a mixed year for the Juggernaut squad, with lows such as the 13-14th finish at the ESL One: Road to Rio event contrasted by highs like the victorious run at BLAST Spring Finals 2020, but throughout blameF produced an incredibly high individual level; at the latter event his 1.27 rated performance was the best in his team and second of the entire event, and he was only beaten to the MVP medal by the superlative Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut. Such was his consistency that he managed to earn a staggering seven EVP nods across the year as his team were a regular playoff contender, although they did struggle to quite reach the heights of the BLAST run earlier in the year.
Thanks to this consistency as well as his very high floor and an incredibly well-rounded game, blameF earned himself the number six spot on the HLTV top 20 players list for the year, an amazing achievement that was testament to his continued growth and development into one of the best players in CS:GO. This was achieved even in the face of adversity, as Complexity went through several roster changes throughout the year that disrupted the team's overall development, both permanent in the form of Owen "oBo" Schlatter leaving to return to NA, and temporary in the form of poizon's absence due to medical issues.
blameF| TournamentEvent | Team (place) | Rating 2.0 (in team) | ADR | KPR | DPR | Impact | KAST | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 |
  |
1.03 | 69.4 | 0.67 | 0.62 | 1.06 | 66.9% | |
  |
|
0.86 | 71.1 | 0.59 | 0.76 | 0.92 | 58.2% | |
 |
|
1.15 | 81.0 | 0.70 | 0.59 | 1.05 | 72.9% | |
 |
|
1.08 | 76.4 | 0.67 | 0.61 | 0.86 | 73.7% | |
 |
|
1.17 | 84.9 | 0.78 | 0.62 | 1.02 | 73.1% | |
 |
|
1.19 | 82.6 | 0.74 | 0.60 | 1.13 | 74.3% | |
 |
|
1.08 | 74.6 | 0.65 | 0.63 | 1.06 | 72.3% | |
 |
|
1.20 | 81.9 | 0.75 | 0.60 | 1.24 | 74.9% | |
 |
|
1.18 | 79.6 | 0.74 | 0.58 | 1.35 | 67.2% | |
 |
|
1.18 | 86.7 | 0.73 | 0.67 | 1.28 | 72.0% | |
 |
|
1.02 | 77.9 | 0.61 | 0.70 | 1.00 | 69.9% | |
|
|
 |
1.17 | 85.5 | 0.74 | 0.62 | 1.12 | 70.8% | EVP |
|
|
|
1.16 | 87.0 | 0.73 | 0.67 | 1.11 | 72.2% | |
|
|
|
1.18 | 90.4 | 0.78 | 0.66 | 1.30 | 68.1% |
These roster issues unfortunately bled over into 2021, as poizon was still absent from the team as they participated in their first tournaments of the year, first BLAST Global Final and then cs_summit 7. It is therefore maybe understandable that Complexity struggled to make an impact with stand-in AWPer Jakob "JUGi" Hansen; the team won a single map across both tournaments and outside of that only really mounted serious resistance on the final map of their cs_summit tournament, an overtime loss on Train to #29 team in the world Dignitas. Whilst blameF's individual perfomance at BLAST was a respectable 1.03 rated VP performance, cs_summit proved to be one of the worst events of blameF's year and indeed his career as a whole; he failed to post a single map above a 1.00 HLTV rating and finished with a 0.86 rating and -19 K-D difference over four maps.
Fortunately the Dane would quickly put the cs_summit event behind him as the team moved on to play at the BLAST Spring Groups, and would get back to the form that saw him named the sixth best player of the previous year. With the full roster back together as poizon had returned from his medical leave of absence Complexity showed the type of form that had won them the Spring Finals in 2020, brushing aside all in their path as they swept their group in six straight maps to secure their spot at 2021's Spring Finals; they comfortably put to bed world number 2 at the time Vitality in doing so. blameF was back to his best, posting a 1.31 rating that put him third at the event as well as 80 ADR and +49 K-D diff, only beaten out amongst his teammates by the incredible performance of k0nfig, and sitting third at the event statistically behind k0nfig and ZywOo. blameF attributes the excellent performance to the fact that it was the first event with the main roster reunited:
"I think the main reason was that we got our roster back. Before this tournament we had played with so many different stand ins due to Poizon’s health issues that when we finally had the chance to play with our full roster the chemistry was extremely good. Also, if I remember correctly this was the first time we got the full roster together in a bootcamp in Serbia and first time we met Jks which also helped with the atmosphere."
The team followed this success up with a disappointing failure at the IEM Katowice play-in, where, despite blameF's 1.24 rating and 87 ADR across seven maps, the team failed to qualify for one of the biggest events of the year. This inconsistency would continue to plague Complexity as a team for the first half of the year, but they followed this up with a string of better performances, starting with success at the DreamHack Masters Spring qualifier, where blameF again impressed with a staggering 1.52 rating over five maps. Next was one of the most important events of the year, EPL Season 13; Complexity produced another good showing, making it all the way to the quarter-finals whilst taking down some big names down along the way including two of the world top-three, Virtus.pro and Natus Vincere. blameF was once again key in getting his team so far in the event, particularly in the play-offs where he was the top rated player in the server in both series against Natus Vincere and Virtus.pro, displaying his prowess as a big-game player. Unfortunately the team could not make it past an inspired Ninjas in Pyjamas to make it to top-four, but it was nonetheless a successful event for both the team and blameF, whose 1.15 rating, +59 KD-diff and whopping 10 1vsX wins earned him a VP nod for his efforts.
The Funspark ULTI Finals were the next port of call for COL, and the inconsistency struck again as they struggled to make a real impact in this tournament. A routine 2-0 win over HAVU in the opening round was followed up with two losses, first to forZe and then BIG, the team crashing out in 5-6th place. The loss to the Germans was understandable, as they were a team ranked a mere two places below them in the world rankings, and both maps were close overtime affairs that could have gone either way on a different day, but falling to a #46 ranked HAVU in the upper bracket was a result that Complexity should have avoided. It wasn't a vintage showing from blameF either in this event, but his 1.08 rating and consistent solid map performances earned him another VP award. Once again Complexity bounced back, this time at the Flashpoint 3 Closed Qualifier, where the team marched all the way to the grand final with straight series wins, their only loss coming to MOUZ in a game that didn't matter as both team had already qualified. Whilst they were the highest rated team in the qualifier, it was still impressive the way Complexity marched through the event with minimal fuss, with blameF accruing the third highest rating in the event with a 1.24.
"I actually think that that we kept the decent results up a little while. Next tournament we ended up placing 5-6th at Pro League and after that qualifying for Flashpoint 3. We were also in the top10 on hltv’s rankings the first 4’ish months of 2021, so I honestly think we did okay in the first part of the year, but the biggest issue with our results was that people expected more. It wasn't enough to ‘just be’ top10 in the world because we had peaked at top5 with oBo and we were supposed to get better. Also we were never really a title contender, so even though we did some upsets sometimes we never really got close to winning anything important."
This brings us to DreamHack Masters Spring 2021, and it is at this point that Complexity's form for the year takes a worrying dip. An opening win against Vitality is followed by two 0-2 losses to Astralis and FURIA, neither team being at full strength having recently lost their star AWPers, with both series featuring an overtime loss for Complexity. blameF is the shining light for his team throughout, posting a 1.17 rating and 85 ADR across five maps, despite losing four of them, and picking up another VP appraisal. Flashpoint 3 is next, where the team fall to a weak 10th placed finish with a 3-3 series record and 6-6 map record, their series wins coming against then-world number 26 fnatic, number 30 Sprout and number 43 Anonymo. Complexity only manage to beat sub-tier-one opposition, falling to the three decent opposition they played in the form of Heroic, BIG and FunPlus Phoenix, the most egregious being the loss to FunPlus Phoenix as they were ranked lower than Complexity themselves. Of course blameF is once again his team's redeeming factor, with his 1.19 rating, +43 KD-diff and 83 ADR over 12 maps putting him in the top five players statistically at the event.
This trend continues up until the player break in August, with the team struggling to make playoff runs at the events they attend, beating sub-top-15 teams but failing to challenge the elite, whilst blameF maintains his own impressive individual level. A 7-8th finish at IEM Summer sees the 1.08 rated blameF pick up another VP, as does his impressive 1.20 rating in a 5-6th at BLAST Spring Finals. A morale-boosting victory at Snow Sweet Snow is achieved by a near-event leading performance from blameF, and going into the first LAN in many months in Cologne, it feels like Complexity desperately need to build on this result. They fail to do so, successfully navigating the play-in but crashing out of the main event in straight series; as is a familiar tale by now, blameF performs well even in defeat, particularly impressing in his server-topping 1.31 rated performance in a close defeat to Virtus.pro that sees the team eliminated in joint-last place. blameF's 1.18 rating and admirable 1.35 impact rating rack him up yet another VP. His closest teammate was rated 0.97 for the event. By this point change in the team was inevitable, and it comes in the form of the removal of coach Jamie "keita" Hall and player William "RUSH" Wierzba.
"Towards the middle of the year, our form started to drop even more and we realized that both the teams results and the chemistry on the team was too bad to continue. Both the players and the organisation agreed. We (the players) and coach wanted to make a change earlier but compLexity wanted to wait and see if the results would get better when we went back to LAN again, because cologne was gonna be on LAN, so we were all kinda waiting to see if some sort of magic would happen when the studio/LAN environment came back."
es3tag is the player that comes in, reuniting with blameF for the first time since their days together in Heroic in 2019, and Luis "peacemaker" Tadeu is brought in to fill the vacant coach role. With the shakeup of the team complete, and EPL around the corner, disaster strikes the Complexity roster and disturbs the lineup yet again. With a sense of déjà vu, a medical issue side-lines a key player, this time k0nfig is forced out with a wrist injury; in a less than ideal scenario, the team is forced to play with Niels Christian "NaToSaphiX" Sillassen as a stand-in for the first event after the player break. They perform admirably given the circumstances, managing to squeeze into the playoffs, where they fall in the first round in a reasonably close series with a resurgent Vitality. As is now the norm, blameF posts big numbers, 87 ADR, 1.28 impact rating and seven 1vsX wins being the highlights on his way to a 1.18 rating overall and another VP nod. Just after this event there is yet another chop and change in the squad, with Marcelo "coldzera" David coming into the team to serve as a longer-term replacement for k0nfig.
"We were told after Pro League (where we played with NaToSaphiX as a stand-in instead of k0nfig who got his wrist injury) that we had to get a free agent. We had a couple guys with a buyout in mind which me and peacemaker thought would make a good fit but in the end we had to get a free agent, and everyone in the team including me thought it was better to get coldzera on a short team deal so we could see if it could work even tho we knew the playstyles on the team would be clashing a lot. We had talks about this, because obviously having blameF, jks and coldzera all in same team would be too many passive players but the alternative of getting a free agent in to play k0nfig's roles didn’t seem very smart as k0nfig was arguably the most important player on the team. We knew coldzera would fit in very well on CT sides but not on T sides but we tried to make it work and I tried to play a more aggressive style after we lost k0nfig than what I was used to."
"I see coldzera getting a lot of hate, but I was actually really surprised by how good of an attitude he came into the team with. He did everything he could to make it work, he put in a ton of hours and stayed pretty much every day after prac with me and peacemaker for hours to talk about CS and how we could make this work and I didn’t feel like he came in to the team with the attitude that he wanted to show the world how good he can be but instead it felt like his first priority was to make the team work despite the problems we had. I don’t wanna put words in his mouth but at one point towards the end I do think he gave up (not the perfect word to describe it but you get the point) a little bit when he saw the attitude of some players on the team at the major. So yeah I enjoyed my time with him overall, but the results were so bad that it's hard not to think back on this period in the team as a negative memory unfortunately."
BLAST Fall Groups serves up yet another disappointing result for the Complexity squad, as they miss out on yet another potential playoff berth. This time they suffer the ignominy of being on the wrong end of a 16-0 scoreline in the process, being spanked by that scoreline on Ancient by FaZe to exit the event. IEM Fall follows, and it feels like last-chance saloon for this iteration of the Complexity roster; if they fail to make the Major, there seems little recourse left but to blow up the roster and start again. In their most spectacular failure of the year Complexity crash and burn at the tournament, winning a single map against tier-two team Endpoint, who were playing with a stand-in, and with that result fail to qualify for the PGL Major Stockholm. It is also the lowlight of blameF's year individually, his 1.02 rating the lowest of any MVP-level event in 2021, and it is one of the few where he did not bag himself a VP award. At this point Complexity felt like a dead team walking and they accomplished nothing of note at BLAST Fall Showdown and the IEM Winter Qualifer, crashing out of both with a single map win between the two, the latter event with Aleksi "allu" Jalli on the team in place of poizon.
"Not making the Major was rough, but not as rough as the overall feeling of not going in the right direction. The amount of problems we had built up this year with all the roster changes and everything else people built up individually as well was just too overwhelming. I wouldn’t mind not making the Major if we had success in other tournaments but we didn't really make anything good happen."
It came as something of a shock that blameF was released by Complexity. He was the clear leading light for the team throughout the year, and throughout the majority of his time on the roster, being the foundation upon which the 'Juggernaut' roster had been built. It seemed likely that Complexity would rebuild the roster around him yet again, but that was not to be the case, revealing in a live stream that organisation "chose to part ways" with him, rather than him choosing to leave the team. It was not long that he would be without a home however, as the Danish powerhouse and most successful organisation in CS:GO history, Astralis, came knocking on his door. The move made plenty of sense; Astralis had struggled to find any semblance of form since the departure of star AWPer Nicolai "device" Reedtz earlier in the year, and were now searching for options outside of keeping the four-time Major winning core intact. blameF and his teammate k0nfig were without a team, and two of the best Danish players in CS:GO. It was a no-brainer, and the two Danes were quickly snapped up to join Lukas "gla1ve" Rossander, Andreas "Xyp9x" Højsleth and Philip "Lucky" Ewald, with blameF transitioning away from the IGL role for the first time in years. He says it was a struggle to adjust to the change:
"I have to change my mind from thinking less about what we do as a team and more what I need to do as an individual. Everytime something happens on the map my immediate reaction in the head is to think how we should react as a team but I need to think more about what gaps I can abuse as an individual."
I give input to gla1ve everytime I can on the server, but I let him call and make all decisions. So if I see an opening then I will let him know what I think we can do but it's up to him whether or not he wants to use that information. I told myself before I joined the team I was gonna do everything I could to listen to gla1ve and not try to force my opinions or anything upon him. This is the first time in my career I am playing with a top IGL and now playing with the greatest IGL of all time I do my best to listen as much as possible. It’s more on CT sides I feel like I'm talking more as I am playing a lot of rotation spots so I need to stay active with making plays and talk a lot.
The upturn in Astralis form was immediate. The next event in the calendar, BLAST Fall Finals, was a roaring success, with the team taking down Heroic, Ninjas in Pyjamas and FaZe as they made a lower bracket run all the way to the consolidation final, where they lost a reasonably close series to Vitality; a third place finish was secured in the team's first event together. blameF produced one of his best performances of the year in this run, in one of the most stacked events he attended, grabbing himself his only EVP of the year with an 86 ADR, +44 KD-diff, 1.17 rated performance. The following two events, IEM Winter and BLAST World Final, were not quite as successful for the team, a 9-12th and 5-6th place finish achieved respectively, but blameF continued his personal run of form; he bagged two more VPs with a 1.16 and a 1.18 rated performance to take his tally for the year to 11.
"The team was very good individually at BLAST, especially k0nfig had a stellar tournament. We didn’t have much practice and we didn't set any high expectations for ourselves for this event but just wanted to enjoy playing together in this new lineup and that worked out great. We told each other before the tournament that if we won at least one match we would be happy because of the lack of preparation."
Why was blameF the 13th best player of 2021?
blameF's impressive play against top opposition and in the biggest events, combined with his outstanding consistency, earned him the 13th spot in the top 20. He excelled at dealing damage and clutching, putting up 81.7 ADR (8th most) and winning 66 1vsXs (6th most in total, or 9th most on a per-round average), and he also ranked 3rd in utility damage (7.3 per round). Overall his 1.15 rating for the year ranked 11th, and although he played in a number of qualifiers and medium events that went into consideration, his rating stayed at 1.15 when filtering only for Big events, and on that list he ranked 8th. His only EVP of the year came at BLAST Premier Fall Final, and he was at least a slightly valuable player (VP) at every other Big event he attended, which when combined with his high frequency of 1.00 or higher map ratings (73%, 8th), made him if one of the most consistent players on the list yet.
However, having just the one EVP and a handful of VPs meant his peaks were perhaps lower than some of the players below him; what set him apart was his performance against the very best teams. He put up a 1.15 rating versus top five opposition (5th highest) across a very strong sample size of 48 maps, as well as 1.14 in 77 maps when expanding to top 10 opponents (6th highest). Although those performances are on paper better than even some players who will be ranked above him, he couldn't go higher as he mostly met those big teams in qualifiers and group stages, seeing as he had just 19 big match maps, and he didn't particularly shine in them (1.06 rating).
Bold prediction by GG.BET
m0NESYOnce again, as with previous years, we asked our top 20 players who they felt was a future candidate to make a top 20 list. To ensure we got a bold prediction, the player had to be under 20, and not have previously played on a top 20 team.
"I have to chose m0NESY," the Dane said. "It might be a bit boring answer now that he is signed with G2, but I have watched a lot of his games and also his stream and I really think he is an amazing player already. He can most definitely be one of the best players in the world. I hope he does well and gets a good start in tier-one so he can build up some confidence quickly."
Stay tuned to our Top 20 players of 2021 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:
GG.BET - Online betting and odds on sport and esports
Mike 'mikeS' Tuns
Oskar 'oskarish' Stenborowski
Kia 'Surreal' Man
Justin 'jks' Savage
Ismailcan 'XANTARES' Dörtkardeş
Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev
Bjarke 'miNd' Benjaminsen
Luka 'emi' Vuković
Martin 'STYKO' Styk
Pavle 'Maden' Bošković
Timur 'buster' Tulepov
Sanjar 'SANJI' Kuliev
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis
Mathieu 'Maniac' Quiquerez
Håvard 'rain' Nygaard
Russel 'Twistzz' Van Dulken
Niels Christian 'NaToSaphiX' Sillassen
Valentin 'poizon' Vasilev
Konstantinos 'tsack' Theodoropoulos
Antoine 'to1nou' Pirard
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Aurimas 'Bymas' Pipiras
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