Bosnian CS:GO superstar NiKo played with a bunch of high-level pro players throughout his career, including legends such as coldzera, olofmeister, GuardiaN, and rain. Surprisingly, none of them gets close to m0NESY in levels of talent, according to NiKo himself.
M0NESY has been hyped up ever since he was playing at the academy level with Natus Vincere between 2020 and 2021, and he’s lived up to that hype so far, having been a great player in his two years playing in tier one. Dot Esports asked NiKo if m0NESY was truly as special as the fans think, and he didn’t save words to commend the Russian prodigy.
“He’s definitely the most talented individual player I’ve ever played with, so he definitely has potential to be in the top five throughout many years,” NiKo said in an interview with Dot Esports on Sept. 19. “And that’s all up to him, the way he approaches the work, practice, mentality, and everything. When it comes to in-game things I’ve never or never played with anyone like him, I guess that’s a good sign.”
Although there’s no doubt that m0NESY is the most talented CS:GO player of his generation, the way NiKo talked about him surprised me. Coldzera, for example, was the back-to-back best player of the year in 2016 and 2017 and the MVP of the two Majors he won, MLG Columbus and ESL One Cologne Majors in 2016. Olofmeister, on the other hand, was the best player in the world in 2015 and MVP of ESL One Katowice Major in 2015, of the two Majors he won with Fnatic.
On top of that, NiKo also played with GuardiaN, who is one of the best CS:GO AWPers of all time despite never being named the best player in the world or winning a Major, and with rain as well. The Norwegian has been a powerful entry-fragger for years and was named the MVP of the PGL Antwerp Major in 2022, the only Valve-sponsored tournament FaZe won.
Since m0NESY’s arrival in January 2022, G2 won three important trophies—BLAST Premier World Final in December 2022, IEM Katowice in February 2023, and IEM Cologne in August 2023. These were the first tier-one trophies G2 lifted since the DreamHack Masters Malmö in 2017, when the organization still housed an all-French team.
When asked if there’s anything in particular m0NESY could fix, NiKo focused on the experience the 18-year-old can get.
“There’s not too much to fix, but there’s a lot of things to kind of learn from experience as once you get older you learn how to deal with certain things,” NiKo said.
Although m0NESY is one of the most inexperienced pros playing at the highest level in terms of pure age, he’s been a solid secondary star to G2 throughout 2023. The Russian AWPer is averaging a 1.18 rating this year, according to HLTV, and is only below NiKo in that regard, who is averaging a 1.25 rating.
