Scouting Report: NiKo

This is a player I named as one of the three miracles alongside Coldzera and s1mple. One of the players in contention for player of the year. His history has him join mouz under gob. Gob couldn’t get NiKo and nex to work together and eventually gob was ousted from the org. This left the team in a lurch and NiKo became the in-game leader. He was okay in that he could force the team to play around him. Despite putting on some of the best carry performances we’ve seen in CS:GO, it didn’t get him what he wanted. He completely 180’d and tried to set up his teammates to be playmakers, but that change of the system didn’t work either.

Going into FaZe he assimilated quickly and has been used as a secondary caller and independent detachment from karrigan. As for notable games, there are too many. As for maps, the only one I don’t think he is a God on is cobble. Even then this is also a player who stomped Na`Vi into the ground on it when he was on Mouz. In total I could pick 40–50 games throughout the year where I thought he varied between very good to godlike.

So what is it about NiKo that makes him insane? He’s incredibly versatile in what he can do. I’ve seen him entry, playmake on Ct-side, lurk, clutch, anchor, retake, secure postplants, and secondary AWP. The secondary AWP has some caveats as he isn’t stable, but his strength as a secondary AWP is that when he’s on fire, he can run consecutive multi kills in critical rounds. On top of that he has some extras like being good at smoke plays and having a deagle that always gives his team a chance to win an eco. There is no range I’ve seen where he is bad at.

Overall NiKo is a player that can carry a team throughout the entire game on every map you put him on, regardless of any economic situation, with every weapon. Oh he also has pistols on pistol round. It says something that even olofmeister looks sort of disgusted when talking about NiKo’s aim.