One of the most competitive tournaments of the year took place near the end of October and even though somewhat later than usual, we will now look back to see who the top players of ESWC 2011 were, as well as pick the MVP and the All-Star lineup of the tournament.
The last and the biggest event in the action-packed October month was ESWC 2011, which took place in Paris, France. Almost every world's top team was in attendance which, as expected, provided us with one of the most interesting tournaments of the year.
SK Gaming came out on top of it, taking the victory and the $12,000 cheque in front of Natus Vincere, in the opposite turn of events compared to last year. This was the Swedes' first ESWC title ever and the biggest one this year so far, although they already won a quite competitive DreamHack Summer, as well as GameGune and IEM6 GC New York.
100 players from 20 teams had a chance to display their skills at this event during 60 maps played and we will now point out the very best. Fifteen players from teams that made it into the playoffs stood out in particular, along with two who had to end their participation in group stage, so let's inspect what their strengths were and then pick the MVP and All-Star lineup together.
Skip to the vote!
Best rated players
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Three-time MVP this year, Filip "Neo" Kubski didn't have one of his best tournaments this time, but neither did his team AGAiN as they finished fourth. However, the Polish superstar did leave his mark as the team's second best and one of the best players during the first part of the tournament.
Kubski was top rated in 3 matches, all of them in the group stage, including victories that secured them the top spot in the group over ESC Gaming and Lions, finishing with an excellent 1.48 group stage rating (4th best). After that, he somehwat underperformed with a 0.90 playoff-rating.
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Natus Vincere's Sergey "starix" Ischuk has been on a good run of form lately, with All-Star nominations at his last two tournaments, e-Stars and SEC. Although in France he wasn't the team's primary AWPer as he was in Poland, Ischuk was their second most influential player on the road to another second place.
He made a solid contribution in every stage of the tournament, particularly impressing in two important victories. The first one is the last group stage match, a 16-5 win over WinFakt, which secured his team's passage to the playoffs (1.86 rating, 25:10 individual score), while the other one is the semi-final clash versus AGAiN, when Ischuk was the second best rated over the two maps (1.31 rating, 49:34 score).
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After top 3 placements at IEM6 GC Guangzhou, SEC 2011 and IEM6 GC New York, the best Finnish team WinFakt exited ESWC 2011 earlier than they grew accustomed to, due to a quarter-final loss to SK Gaming. Their latest addition, Jirka "jigetus" Ryhti has apparently settled in quite well, as he finds himself among an event's top players for the third time in a row, this time as the only representative from his team.
He was the team's best in both group stage and their only playoff match, particularly shining in a 16-9 win over Anexis which promised them the group's first place at that time. Ryhti was by far the best participant of that match with a 30:16 score (1.69 rating), while he also put up the most fight in their losses that followed, against Natus Vincere and SK Gaming.
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Without showing any signs of their old glory this entire year, the German team Alternate was expected to exit the tournament early. However, they became the revelation of the event thanks to reaching the quarter-final in front of fnatic, and even giving AGAiN a run for their money in the playoff clash. The best player of their campaign was 19-year-old Tobias "Troubley" Tabbert, who showed great promise in his first major international event ever.
It was exactly in those two big matches that Tabbert excelled the most, as he was shared-best rated in the 16-8 group stage win over fnatic (23:13 score, 1.56 rating) and after that was the team's best in the quarter-final clash versus AGAiN (1.07 rating in 3 maps). His performance in the second map against the Poles was particularly admirable as he was the most responsible for equalizing the score to 1-1 in maps with a 27:13 score (1.72 rating, 49% above team average).
Additionally, he was the 5th best in pistol rounds, while another notable moment of his was a highlight in the first map against the Poles.
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As his team mousesports reached their biggest success this year by placing third at ESWC, Roman "roman" Ausserdorfer was naturally one of the most responsible, once more as the team's second best rated, just like during their second place campaign at IEM6 GC Guangzhou.
He didn't put up many amazing scores, apart from a 32:16 performance in the second map of the quarter-final against Lions (where he also recorded a pistol-round ace), but he did play well throughout the entire tournament. That is best demonstrated by the fact that he had the 4th most total kills (241) and the 5th best kill-death difference (+52). Additionally, he was one of the players who had the most entry kills at the event (43).
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Johan "face" Klasson displayed his worth to SK Gaming during another title-winning campaign where he was only their 4th best rated, but managed to be among an event's top players for the 6th time so far in 2011.
Klasson was as usual the team's backup player at most of the matches, but there was one clash where he stepped up largely and had one of the best individual performances among all players at the event. In the last map of the semi-final against mousesports on de_dust2, he carried his team with a 20:3 score in the first half along with several amazing rounds (31:17 overall in the match, 1.73 rating, 64% above team). Earlier in the tournament, he had another highlight-worthy round against DTS.
Furthermore, Klasson was one of the hardest to kill with only 0.57 deaths per round (3rd best).
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After a poor performance at SEC 2011, SK's latest addition Marcus "Delpan" Larsson returned to his usual good form, which reflected in the team's success.
He had a very consistent display in France, recording a rating above 1.00 in 9 of 11 maps, while also being his team's most dominant player, recording 21 rounds with 3+ kills. He particularly performed great in a 16-13 group stage win against Moscow Five (28:20 score, 1.36 rating, 34% above team) and in the quarter-final versus WinFakt where he was also the best overall (44:26 score, 1.48 rating). Larsson did well in their most important match too, the final against Natus Vincere, where he had a very good 1.22 rating over the two maps.
His main assignment was of course handling the big green weapon, at which he excelled by recording the 2nd most total AWP kills of the tournament (83) and 2nd best awpKPR (0.30). His standout performance in that regard was 19 AWP kills in the group's first-place-decider against Moscow Five on de_forge.
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We haven't seen any Lions' players among a major event's best in a long time, while Niklas "niko" Johansson in particular was last noticed in January for his performance at IEM5 European Finals. He is finally back, thanks to his display during their quarter-final campaign at ESWC 2011.
Although Johansson didn't impress much in any match, he had a rating above 1.00 in 5 of his 6 maps. Aside from overall solid play, he stood out due to being the only player at the event to have a better rating in the playoffs, 1.31, compared to 1.12 in the group stage. He managed that despite suffering a heavy defeat to mousesports in Lions' only playoff encounter, as he had a 47:34 score while his team won only 17 rounds in two maps.
In addition to that, Johansson also did quite well with the AWP, having the event's 4th best 0.26 awpKPR, an example of which is his highlight round against Antwerp Aces.
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Moscow Five probably left the best impression of all teams that didn't make it past the quarter-final, as they barely lost their group's first place decider to SK and then were defeated by Natus Vincere in a close 3-map encounter. One of their two star players at this event was Mihail "Dosia" Stolyarov, who recently had a great showing at SEC 2011.
Stolyarov was once more one of the best fraggers of an event, having the 3rd best KPR (0.85). He managed that thanks to playing well in almost every match, with a rating above 1.00 in 6 of his 7 maps.
Moreover, Stolyarov was the best entry killer of the event (1.40 EK-rating) and shared-5th best in pistol rounds. Pistols actually seem to be a specialty of his, as he was previously the best in first rounds at SEC 2011, while at both of his last tournaments he had the most pistol frags per round among all players.
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After being his team's fourth best rated at SEC 2011, Yegor "markeloff" Markelov is back as Natus Vincere's main star with an impressive individual performance which helped them to another 2nd place finish.
The Ukrainian superstar was top rated in 5 maps, more than any other player, while four of those were in the playoffs (4th best playoff rating of 1.19). His most impressive display was in the quarter-final against Moscow Five when he was top rated in each of the three maps (71:48 overall score, 1.39 rating). After that, he was also the best overall performer of the semi-final versus AGAiN (51:33 score, 1.40 rating), meaning he was by far the most responsible for Natus Vincere reaching the final.
After SEC 2011 where he surprisingly wasn't the team's primary AWPer, he reclaimed that role with 81 total kills (3rd most at the event) and 0.29 awpKPR (3rd best).
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MVP of SEC 2011, Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas, continued with amazing form at another major tournament, although this time his team AGAiN failed to reach the podium, finishing in 4th place.
Wojtas once again showed amazing consistency, playing well practically in every match, with his lowest rating just below average - 0.92. He was his team's best rated in each of their 3 playoff encounters – vs Alternate (1.27 rating in 2-1 quarter-final victory), vs Natus Vincere (1.23 rating in 0-2 semi-final loss) and vs mousesports (1.06 rating, 1-2 loss in 3rd place decider).
His overall performance was quite similar to the one at SEC 2011, as he was once more one of the best fraggers overall (3rd most total kills – 253), the second best entry killer (1.35 EK-rating) and was the best rifler again (0.75 kills with rifles per round).
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The best rated player outside of the top four teams is Moscow Five's Eduard "ed1k" Ivanov, whom we haven't seen as one of an event's stars since the early parts of the year, when he was nominated for All-Star lineups of IEM5 European Finals, IEM5 World Championship and Xperia PLAY.
Ivanov was rated higher than his teammate Stolyarov thanks to highly impressive man-of-the-match performances in their first two matches, against eSrael (28:7, 2.08 rating) and 3DMAX (24:8, 1.87 rating), while in the rest of the tournament they played quite similar. He played above team average in almost every map, while also being the team's best in their only map-win of the quarter-final clash with Natus Vincere (24:14, 1.36 rating).
On average, he was one of the best fraggers of the tournament (0.84 KPR, 4th best) and one of the hardest to kill (0.59 DPR, 4th).
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MVP of GameGune 2011, Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg, had another great tournament as the second best rated from the winners SK Gaming. His consistent good play along with some exceptional moments was one of the key factors in winning the first ever ESWC title for SK Gaming and himself.
In his first match at the tournament, Lindberg opened up with a bang, demolishing eSrael during a 16-2 victory with a 25:5 score and a 2.30 rating, which turned out to be the highest match rating by any player at the event. He continued playing well throughout the group stage, ending up as the best rated player of the first part of the tournament (1.52 group-stage-rating). He didn't disappoint later on either with a solid 1.16 playoff-rating, capping it off by being the best rated of the final against Natus Vincere (1.30 rating, 51:32 score).
Overall, he had at least a 1.00 rating in 9 of 11 maps, while he was the best in 3 of them. He had the third best kill-death difference of +77 and was the hardest to kill of all players (0.55 DPR).
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The best rated player from the winning team SK Gaming was Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund, who has been in truly impressive shape lately with two impeccable tournaments behind him. At SEC 2011 and IEM6 GC New York, Alesund had a rating above 1.00 in every map, a record he further improved at ESWC, which is now totaling 24 maps in a row with above average ratings at international LANs.
The world's best fragger according to our statistics didn't just play well in every match, but was even top rated in 4 maps. The most notable of those are the first two maps of the semi-final match against mousesports, of which he was the best performer overall (70:46 score, 1.36 rating). He also did great as the second best rated in his other two playoff matches, the quarter-final against WinFakt (41:22, 1.41 rating), and the final against Natus Vincere (54:37, 1.23 rating). Thanks to that, he was overall the 2nd best rated player in the playoffs, with an impressive 1.33 rating against tougher opponents.
On average, he was the best fragger of the tournament, with an amazing 0.92 kills per round, while also being the hardest to kill with only 0.55 deaths per round. In total, he had the 2nd most kills (254) and the best kill-death difference (+101).
Additionally, Alesund was the best in pistol-rounds, as well as the second most successful in clutch situations (won the round 6 times in a 1vsX).
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Despite of being a familiar name, and even recently being nominated for MVP of IEM6 GC Guangzhou, mousesports' star player Finn "karrigan" Andersen played on such a high level throughout the three days in Paris, that we could easily name him the revelation of the tournament.
Andersen was the player who carried his team the most, as his 1.38 rating was an incredible 27% above his team's average. Also, having a rating above 1.00 in 11 of his 12 maps made him one of the most consistent performers at ESWC.
What's even more impressive, even though he was the team's best rated in the group stage, is that he didn't boost his statistics against easier opponents at all, as he was the best rated player in the playoffs with a 1.38 playoff-rating, same as his overall. His performance against Lions in the quarter-final was particularly impressive, as he had an incredible 1.85 rating in the two maps (55:27 score) and recorded several highlight rounds (clip #1, clip #2). He was also the team's best in the semi-final defeat to SK Gaming (58:51, 1.11 rating), as well as in the 3rd place decider that mousesports won over AGAiN (79:51 score, 1.35 rating).
In total, he had by far the most kills at the event (290), although on average he was the 2nd best fragger (0.91 KPR), while he also had the 2nd best K-D difference (+99). He was the most dominant player at the tournament in regard to rounds with 3 or more kills (28) and he also excelled at pistol-rounds (4th best) and entry kills (5th best).
However, that's not all we saw from Andersen, as the aspect he excelled the most in was AWPing. The big green was never wasted in his hands before either, but now he brought it to a higher level and cemented himself as one of the game's greats. His 125 AWP kills and 0.39 awpKPR were by far the best at the event, recording at least 3 AWP kills in every map, while going into double digits in 7 of his 12 maps. His best performance with that gun was in the Lions match, where 33 of his 55 total kills were made with the AWP, while apart from several highlight rounds with it in that match, he also had one 4-kill round against fnatic in the group stage.
Note: This ranking is based on Rating (read about it here). It doesn't necessarily represent an ordered list of the best players at the event, but instead singles out the ones who played well in their matches using the formula described in the page linked above.
Top Awpers
| # | Player | Team | awp Kills | awpKPR | % of kills |
| 1. |  Finn 'karrigan' Andersen |  mouz | 125 | 0.39 | 43% |
| 2. |  Marcus 'Delpan' Larsson | SK | 83 | 0.30 | 38% |
| 3. |  Yegor 'markeloff' Markelov | Na´Vi | 81 | 0.29 | 37% |
| 4. | Niklas 'niko' Johansson | Lions | 37 | 0.26 | 32% |
| 5. |  Timi 'aslak' Verkkoperä | WinFakt | 34 | 0.25 | 34% |
Top Pistol Round players
| # | Player | Team | PR KPR | PR DPR | PR Rating |
| 1. | Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund | SK | 1.36 | 0.64 | 1.81 |
| 2. | Tomi 'lurppis' Kovanen | WinFakt | 0.92 | 0.33 | 1.73 |
| 3. | Jim 'zneel' Andersson | Lions | 1.00 | 0.67 | 1.67 |
| 4. | Finn 'karrigan' Andersen | mouz | 1.08 | 0.63 | 1.64 |
| 5. | Tobias 'Troubley' Tabbert | Alternate | 0.93 | 0.50 | 1.49 |
| 5. |  Mihail 'Dosia' Stolyarov | M5 | 1.07 | 0.71 | 1.49 |
Top Entry-kill players
| # | Player | Team | EKpR | EDpR | EK-Rating | Won% |
| 1. | Mihail 'Dosia' Stolyarov | M5 | 0.16 | 0.09 | 1.40 | 64% |
| 2. |  Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas | AGAiN | 0.14 | 0.08 | 1.35 | 65% |
| 3. | Ioann 'Edward' Sukhariev | Na´Vi | 0.13 | 0.06 | 1.35 | 69% |
| 4. | Roman 'Roman R.' Reinhardt | Alternate | 0.12 | 0.05 | 1.32 | 70% |
| 5. | Finn 'karrigan' Andersen | mouz | 0.13 | 0.08 | 1.31 | 64% |
Top Riflers
| # | Player | Team | rif Kills | rifKPR | % of kills |
| 1. | Wiktor 'TaZ' Wojtas | AGAiN | 225 | 0.75 | 89% |
| 2. | Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund | SK | 199 | 0.72 | 78% |
| 3. | Jirka 'jigetus' Ryhti | WinFakt | 93 | 0.68 | 85% |
| 4. | Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg | SK | 186 | 0.67 | 81% |
| 5. | Johan 'face' Klasson | SK | 174 | 0.63 | 83% |
Additional stats leaders
Best Fragger:Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund (0.92 kills per round)
Hardest to kill: Patrik 'f0rest' Lindberg (0.55 deaths per round)Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund (0.55 deaths per round)
Best pistoleer: Mihail 'Dosia' Stolyarov (0.19 pistol frags per round)
Most kills: Finn 'karrigan' Andersen (290 total kills)
Best kill-death difference: Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund (+101)
Most dominant:Finn 'karrigan' Andersen (28 rounds with 3+ kills)
Most frequent fragger:Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund (59% of rounds with at least 1 kill)
Best clutcher: Danylo 'Zeus' Teslenko (8 times won 1vsX)Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund (6 times won 1vsX)
Most consistent: Christopher 'GeT_RiGhT' Alesund (96% of matches above 1.00 rating and above team average)
Top individual match performances:face vs mouz on de_dust2 - 31:17 (+14), 1.73 rating (+64%)karrigan vs Lions on de_dust2 - 27:11 (+16), 2.02 rating (+50%)roman vs Lions on de_tuscan - 32:16 (+16), 1.74 rating (+53%)GeT_RiGhT vs mouz on de_mirage - 23:10 (+13), 1.89 rating (+47%)Troubley vs AGAiN on de_inferno - 27:13 (+14) 1.72 rating (+49%)
Honorable mentions
Along with these 15 players who helped their teams at least reach the playoffs, two members of teams who didn't make it through the group stage managed to leave quite an impression.
The home team Virus Gaming didn't have much to be happy about after their group stage exit, winning only one map against a team from Reunion, while losing to mousesports, fnatic and Alternate. However, the performance of their star player Mickael "mSx" Cassisi reminded us of his emuLate days and their WCG 2007 glory, as he displayed dominance despite the defeats he faced. In each of their four matches, Cassisi had a rating above 1.00 and played above team's average, while he also managed to record a couple of highlight rounds in the clash versus fnatic (clip #1, clip #2).
Danish side Anexis provided two big surprises in their group stage adventure, initially losing an already won match to Defining Stars 14-16, but later rising from the ashes to beat eventual finalists Natus Vincere 16-4. In the end, they didn't make it to the playoffs, but their main star at this tournament, Nicolaj "Nuggi" Larsen, had an amazing display which has to be praised. Not only was he the team's best in each of their four maps, but he was top rated in 3 of them. His AWP was impeccable, recording 50 total kills and 0.50 awpKPR with it, while also having an amazing 0.99 kills per round, which earned him the highest rating of all players at the event (1.49).
MVP and All-Star lineup vote
MVP nominations were pretty straight forward this time, as we had four players from the top three teams stand out from the rest.
Finn "karrigan" Andersen carried mousesports to a third place finish as the highest rated player of the event and the best AWPer, in what was probably the most impressive performance of his career so far.
The main star of second placed Natus Vincere was without a doubt once again, Yegor "markeloff" Markelov, who was already nominated for MVP three times this year.
ESWC champions SK Gaming had two players excel more than others, the impactful Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg and the most consistent player of the tournament, Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund.
[playerpoll=19]
We will also be choosing the All-Star lineup, so go ahead and select the 5 best players of this tournament in your opinion. Whether you want it to be a realistic squad where each player would have a role or simply the 5 best performers is up to you.
[playerpoll=20]
Just like during our previous votes, we will be having a separate poll for "experts" only, which will later together with the public poll decide the outcome of the vote. The experts will consist of players who took part in this tournament, as well as journalists from other websites.
For more statistics from this tournament you can go here, HLTV demos can be found here and all the POV demos that we managed to gather are here. We will be announcing the results after we've gathered enough votes, so stay tuned to HLTV.org to see who will be the MVP and who will make it into the All-Star lineup.
(责任编辑：csgo crates)
Antwerp Aces (Group stage, nuke)
Defining Stars (Group stage, nuke)
Our Game (Group stage, inferno)
eSrael (Group stage, nuke)
viva Algeria (Group stage, dust2)