Saudi organization Falcons nearly secured NiKo—one of the most skilled and popular CS:GO players ever—to spearhead its CS2 lineup for 2024, but the deal fell through after a shocking U-turn on Nov. 6.
Despite Falcons reportedly reaching an agreement with G2 over NiKo’s buyout, the Bosnian chose not to join what many expect to be the next superteam in Counter-Strike esports and will stay on G2 for the foreseeable future.
Though finding a rifler as good as NiKo isn’t an easy task by any means, Falcons will need to recover quickly and set a new target to assemble the superteam.
There are at least five CS2 stars who Falcons could sign for 2024 and still make a huge impact: ropz, frozen, KSCERATO, Spinx, and s1mple—and here’s why they’re good options despite not being exactly like NiKo.
The players’ stats in 2023
To understand why NiKo was such a great pickup for Falcons, we looked at his CS:GO and CS2 numbers in 2023 and compared them with the players we mentioned.
| Player name | CS:GO numbers in 2023 | CS2 numbers in 2023 (Until Nov. 16) |
| NiKo | 1.22 rating, 1.23 K/D, 85 ADR, 54.7 HS percentage in 121 maps played. | 1.07 rating, 1.0 K/D, 72 ADR, 60.8 HS percentage in seven maps played |
| ropz | 1.15 rating, 1.23 K/D, 79.7 ADR, 56.4 HS percentage in 120 maps played. | 1.23 rating, 1.33 K/D, 81.5 ADR, 54.8 HS percentage in 38 maps played. |
| Spinx | 1.17 rating, 1.22 K/D, 79.3 ADR, 53.4 HS percentage in 115 maps played. | 1.18 rating, 1.17 K/D, 79.1 ADR, 60.2 HS percentage in four maps played. |
| frozen | 1.22 rating, 1.33 K/D, 84.2 ADR, 50 HS percentage in 99 maps played. | 1.19 rating, 1.19 K/D, 80.6 ADR, 57.6 HS percentage in 30 maps played. |
| KSCERATO | 1.20 rating, 1.25 K/D, 81.5 ADR, 48.3 HS percentage in 93 maps played. | 1.08 rating, 1.10 K/D, 71 ADR, 61.5 HS percentage in 18 maps played. |
| s1mple | 1.18 rating, 1.24 K/D, 77.4 ADR, 39.8 HS percentage in 106 maps played. | S1mple never played an official CS2 match. |
Although stats don’t tell the whole story, they can be helpful. HLTV has a unique stat called Rating 2.0, which encompasses the number of kills and deaths, assists, damage dealt, opening kills, clutches won, and more. It essentially tells you whether a player performed well or not in a match.
When it comes to star players like the ones we’re discussing in this article, having a high rating is essential as these players often take privileged spots across many maps and are the ones who are set up for success by their teammates.
As you can see, frozen and KSCERATO’s stats in CS:GO this year are the ones most similar to NiKo’s own numbers. Now that we’ve compared NiKo’s stats with numbers from the other players, we can talk about the other factors in determining who Falcons could sign.
Why is ropz a good pickup for Falcons?
Ropz has actively been playing CS2 since the game was still in beta and is the person responsible for FaZe’s great form in the new game thus far. The Estonian is the best CS2 player right now, according to Twistzz, and is also finding “cool grenades” and helping karrigan build new strats, according to karrigan himself.
On top of that, ropz has a huge following—over 310,000 on Twitter and over 290,000 on Twitch—and could convince his fans to cheer for Falcons as they did for MOUZ and FaZe.
Why is frozen a good pickup for Falcons?
Frozen has been a part of MOUZ since 2019 and has been consistently good for years, independent of the roster he had to work with. MOUZ never built a team full of stars like other organizations and, more than often, frozen had to play alongside players who weren’t on the same level as him.
Given frozen has performed well even when MOUZ weren’t as competitive as they are nowadays, we can only imagine what he’d be able to do when surrounded by other stars and coached by zonic, who’s the best to ever do it in CS:GO.
Why is Spinx a good pickup for Falcons?
Spinx has proved he’s a rifling star since his stint with ENCE between 2021 and 2022, and he’s only gotten better since joining Vitality in August 2022. And, much more important than his stats, he helped turn Vitality into the team that went on to win the BLAST Paris Major in May.
This move would practically be a no-brainer as not only was Spinx playing with Magisk and zonic on Vitality, but he also played under Snappi—the IGL Falcons is reportedly signing—on ENCE. Getting Spinx for the new team would give the squad a massive chemistry boost as he knows half of the squad.
Why is KSCERATO a good pickup for Falcons?
KSCERATO is a lurker who is as good as NiKo, frozen, ropz, and Spinx—if not better. The Brazilian star, however, hasn’t been able to guide FURIA to win championships since the end of the online era in 2021 as the squad has been dysfunctional and inconsistent for the majority of that time, which is something FURIA hopes FalleN can help fix.
Moving to Falcons could be KSCERATO’s opportunity to win the big events he never won and the organization would certainly benefit from his following. Brazil is an immense country with thousands, if not millions, of CS fans and KSCERATO would bring them over to Falcons through Gaules’ popular broadcasts.
Why is s1mple a good pickup for Falcons?
Why would he not be? To put it simply, he checks all the boxes. S1mple was named the best player in the world three times throughout CS:GO‘s history, is undoubtedly the GOAT, is more popular than any other player, is currently on NAVI’s bench, and already said he’s willing to become a primary rifler in CS2.
Falcons is also one of the few organizations in the world that has the money to buy s1mple out of his NAVI contract as the Ukrainian organization will certainly not sell him for cheap. If this doesn’t scream “perfect wedding” to you, I honestly don’t know what does.
