Top 20 players of 2021: electroNic (7)

Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov comes in seventh place of the top 20 players of 2021 ranking powered by GG.BET thanks to a high volume of peaks and remarkable performances at the year's most prestigious events.

Top 20 players of 2021: Introduction

electroNic's competitive background dates back to the early 2010s in Counter-Strike 1.6, but being just 11 years old the Russian only appeared at some local events without finding much success at the time. It wasn't until he was 16 and when CS:GO had gained widespread popularity that he started to make it in the top CIS scene, getting noticed by one of the veterans in the scene in Dmitry "⁠hooch⁠" Bogdanov and appearing in HLTV.org's records with ACES in 2015.

Playing alongside names such as Roman "⁠CyberFocus⁠" Dergach and Ilya "⁠fix⁠" Golovko in Empire in 2016, electroNic quickly made his name as an up-and-coming player. Within a year and a half from his first HLTV-recorded match he made another step up to the second-best team in the region, FlipSid3, teaming up with Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy for the first time and getting to hone his craft further under the tutelage of the seasoned in-game leader.

The following year saw electroNic play at both Majors and several other big tournaments and become the team's standout player and star rifler as he continued to impress, so much so that by the end of 2017 he got the call up to Natus Vincere to replace Denis "⁠seized⁠" Kostin. The CIS side were overshadowed by the all-powerful Astralis, but with the injection of firepower in electroNic they picked up four titles in only his first year and several runners-up finishes, including one at the FACEIT Major.

electroNic made a seamless transition to the tier 1 scene, immediately establishing himself among the world's biggest stars despite his superstar teammate Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev often hogging all of the attention. The Russian made his first appearance in the top 20 list in 2018 in fourth place, and although the team did not live up to the same level over the next two years, he kept his status as NAVI's clear second star.

In 2019, electronic placed sixth in the top 20 after somewhat of an off-year for the NAVI squad, who were undergoing big changes in the anticipation of the retirement of their long-time in-game leader Danylo "⁠Zeus⁠" Teslenko. He then returned to the top five in 2020 in spite of Natus Vincere's momentum in the early stages of the year coming to a stop amid the beginning of the pandemic, putting up world-class numbers as usual when competition went online.

At the beginning of 2021, NAVI were still experimenting with their six-man roster featuring both Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and Egor "⁠flamie⁠" Vasilyev.

To kick off the year, they played in the BLAST Premier Global Final, where they secured their first and only title with the extended lineup despite immediately falling to the lower bracket at the hands of Liquid. electroNic was there to help them back up, in particular in a surprisingly close series against a Valentin "⁠poizon⁠" Vasilev-less Complexity and in the rematch against the North American side, but after Natus Vincere reached the consolidation final he dropped off while the supporting cast of Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov and Ilya "⁠Perfecto⁠" Zalutskiy stepped up to secure the title.

electroNic finished the event as only the fourth-best player of the team with a 1.07 rating, putting up somewhat average numbers for his standards overall as a result of his dip in the late stages of the tournament, a tendency that would continue to haunt the 23-year-old in the next few appearances.

After a successful run in the BLAST Spring Groups it was time for IEM Katowice. Natus Vincere secured a playoffs berth without much trouble but then faltered to Liquid again in a close series in the group final, before disappearing in the quarter-finals as they faced the eventual champions and new CIS superpower Gambit.

ESL Pro League Season 13 came next, and it was another shaky showing from the Russian-Ukrainian squad as well as from electroNic. The star rifler had a few bright moments but was far from his best, and just like in the previous two elimination series at the Global Final and at IEM Katowice, he wasn't there when Natus Vincere took a beating from Complexity in the first playoffs round.

"At that moment, we were trying new things out, positions on maps. I think I needed some time to fully adjust to those new things."

Placing only 9th-12th, the team suffered their toughest elimination yet, but their results were about to took a turn for the better after they decided to stop the six-man experiment and promote b1t to a permanent member of the squad ahead of DreamHack Masters Spring.

Natus Vincere went back to winning ways, losing only to Gambit in an otherwise convincing group stage showing and took revenge on the CIS squad in the grand final, clinching their second title of the year. electroNic had had another underwhelming Big-match display in the semi-finals against Heroic, but in the title decider he was the difference-maker, leading the way with a staggering 1.47 rating and 102.8 ADR across the best-of-five series against the regional rivals — a performance that earned him his first EVP nod in 2021.

"I think we lacked some fresh energy, which is something that Valera [b1t] brought in. We started working even more to achieve our goals."

EPIC League CIS followed as an event the team would likely rather forget, as they placed only fifth in the tournament offering points in the RMR, suffering losses to three different CIS teams who weren't even their main rivals: Entropiq, Akuma, and Spirit.

Gambit were soon in their path again when NAVI returned to the international stage in the BLAST Premier Spring Final. electroNic and company had some other close calls en route to the final at the event in tight series against FaZe and G2, but only the Vladislav "⁠nafany⁠" Gorshkov-led side actually took them down, and it was on two different occasions during the tournament. electroNic put in another solid showing with a 1.09 tournament rating, grabbing his second EVP award of the year for his efforts in some of the tight affairs.

"We had met Gambit too many times, so at a certain point we had to come up with new things, more than ever. I think they were playing well individually; they prepare well."

Natus Vincere would go on to play Gambit an unbelievable three times at the StarLadder CIS RMR, but despite losing the first two (one in groups and one in the upper bracket final) they edged out their nemesis the third time around in another best-of-five final between the two giants from the region, with electroNic topping the scoreboard in two of the three map wins and coming away with his second EVP in a run of eight in a row.

The Major Ranking event was a mere precursor to IEM Cologne, where LAN play returned for the first time in a year and a half. If the opening series was of any indication, you'd think NAVI were more than a little bit off after they had to come back from a deficit in a series against a Renegades squad that had mostly been competing in Oceania, but they would quickly prove you wrong. Rather convincing victories facing Vitality and Astralis followed, earning NAVI a berth in the playoffs, where FaZe and G2 fell by the wayside as well as Natus Vincere clinched their first LAN trophy of the year.

Clear-cut MVP s1mple was of course the focal point as he put up other-worldly numbers, but in his shadow stood electroNic as the second-best player of the first of the four big LANs in 2021. In his best individual performance of the year up until that point, the Russian was back to his consistent self with 1.00+ ratings on 12 out of 14 maps, scoring some impressive numbers overall such as a 1.23 rating (#3), 85.8 ADR (#3), 0.76 KPR (#4), and 0.17 APR (#5).

"My goal is to be as useful as possible for the team. I don't think about personal achievements because team achievements mean much more to me. I'm happy for Sasha, he's an incredible player and never ceases to amaze us with his game," electronic said on the topic of always being in s1mple's shadow.

When competition returned after the summer break, Natus Vincere picked up where they left off with another title-winning run at ESL Pro League Season 14. A loss to BIG was just a small blip in an otherwise dominant group stage display from the CIS giants, as they advanced to the playoffs from first place anyway and brushed ENCE aside in the quarter-finals. Heroic and Vitality proved themselves much more resilient opponents in the final two stages, but s1mple was too hot to handle in the former series before electroNic put in three great maps in the best-of-five grand final, denying the Frenchmen the ultimate upset on the way to another EVP nod.

Two weeks later, Natus Vincere locked in first place in their BLAST group featuring OG, Complexity, and FaZe as they beat all three of the international rosters without too much trouble to advance to the Fall Final, and then it was time to prepare for the lead-up to the Major.

Having already secured their place at the PGL Major Stockholm, NAVI entered IEM Fall CIS without much to lose. They finished atop their group despite a couple of close maps against teams like Entropiq and already ensured Legends status in Stockholm, before the playoffs saw them best Virtus.pro and concede the grand final to Gambit, in a series the team has openly admitted held little to no meaning to them. That match turned out to be one of just two that Natus Vincere would lose before the year came to a close, with three events still to go: The PGL Major itself, the BLAST Fall Final, and the BLAST World Final.

In Stockholm, as massive favorites Natus Vincere finally clinched their first Major title after having appeared in three grand finals in past years, and they did it in historic fashion by becoming the first team to win a Major without losing a map in the process. It was a masterclass from beginning to end — only on two occasions did they look in danger of dropping a map, both in Nuke affairs against Vitality and G2 in the quarter-finals and the title decider, respectively, where Natus Vincere came back from big deficits each time.

[Favorite memory?] It's the Major win, no doubt. I think I couldn't grasp what happened the night we won, we won a Major."

"It meant that long and hard work paid off, and that everything was done right."

s1mple came away with a well-earned MVP medal, while electroNic received another big EVP mention in what amounts to his best tournament of 2021. With 1.00+ ratings on all 10 maps and some highlight performances on the way — the two tight Nuke wins included —, the 23-year-old played a key role in NAVI's dominant run. He appeared in several leaderboards of the biggest event of the year, recording a 1.28 rating (#4), 87.1 ADR (#4), 0.80 KPR (#5), 0.17 opening kills per round (#5), and 1.43 impact rating (#3); numbers that were in many ways his peaks and rivaled the ever-present Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, even if not quite the two standout players of the Major in his teammate s1mple and grand final opponent Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač.

The year came to a close with two more EVPs going the way of electroNic at the two BLAST Finals, rounding off a fantastic final stretch of 2021 for the Russian. He put up a 1.26 rating the first time around in Copenhagen, where NAVI looked dominant as ever despite losing a couple of maps on the way this time, and a 1.19 the second time when the team opened the event with a loss to Liquid before running the lower bracket gauntlet to win the whole thing, beating world's No. 6 Heroic, No. 3 G2, No. 2 Vitality, and No. 4 Gambit in the impressive campaign.

Why was electroNic the 7th best player of 2021?

With nine EVP awards in 2021 to his name and some of the best supporting performances of the year at the PGL Major, the BLAST Fall Final, and IEM Cologne, electroNic comes as the first in a series of the year's truly elite players who stood head and shoulders above the rest thanks to a high volume of great performances and strength of their peaks.

With some of his most notable statistics being 80.1 ADR (#17), 0.12 opening kills per round (#17), and 53 1vsX situations won (#18), the Russian rifler didn't stand out in any particular category when looking at his high placing on the list. However, he simply performed at a very high level against some of the toughest opposition on average and in the late stages of tournaments, sporting a 1.13 rating against top 10 teams (#7) and a 1.13 rating in Big matches (#8).

electroNic was in particularly impressive form in the latter half of the year in 2021's most prestigious and competitive tournaments, averaging a 1.21 rating (#5) in the five events marked as 'Elite' that NAVI attended, coming away with EVPs from four of them at IEM Cologne, PGL Major, the BLAST Premier Fall Final, and BLAST Premier World Final.

It was a somewhat unremarkable first part of the year that detracted from his resumé, however. The 23-year-old didn't have any bad tournament per se, with the lowest rating he put in being a 1.04 at ESL Pro League Season 13, but the slow start hurt his consistency when compared to the incredibly high end-of-year standards he ended up setting for himself, which is why he couldn't climb higher than seventh.

"My goals don't change. I want to be as useful as possible for the team, and I want my team to win every trophy there is."

Bold prediction by GG.BET

electroNic picked fellow countryman Petr "⁠fame⁠" Bolyshev for his prediction of a player who could make it big in the future.

The Russian rifler first appeared on HLTV with SG.pro, while in the past year the 18-year-old has been playing with K23, averaging a 1.10 rating in 2021.

"Fame. I think that this guy communicates well and always does everything for his team," electroNic said about his pick. "Furthermore, he has a great aim and understands his role on the map."

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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:

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