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NiKo
Esports athlete From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Nikola Kovač, better known as NiKo, is a Bosnian professional Counter-Strike 2 player who plays for Team Falcons. NiKo is often cited by many professionals and analysts alike as one of the greatest Counter-Strike players of all time and the best rifler in the history of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.[2][3] He has been named a Top 20 Player Of The Year by HLTV nine times, tying dev1ce for the most top 20 player appearances in Counter-Strike history.[4] NiKo is widely considered as one of the most mechanically skilled players in Counter-Strike and has been in contention for the title of the best player in the world at multiple periods throughout his career. NiKo is also known to be the best professional CS player to have never won a major despite appearing in 15 of them.[5]
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Early life
Nikola Kovač was born in Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina.[6] His parents were owners of an internet café where Nikola would play the earlier Counter Strike games with his cousin Nemanja aka "huNter-".[7][6]
Career
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2011
NiKo began his playing career on Counter-Strike 1.6. His first professional team was FullProof. Other teams he played for included eu4ia, neWave, maksnet and DEFUSE.maksnet.
2012–2014
His first Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team was iNation. He shuffled through myDGB, e-Sports.rs, Team Refuse, GamePub and aimface while taking breaks from iNation.
2015
His impressive performance with iNation gained him notoriety throughout Europe. He would be signed by mousesports in March 2015. That led to a sensational rookie run where his team was often dubbed "Nikosports" due to his amazing individual performances, most notable of them being his desert eagle ace on Cache.[8]
2016
NiKo stayed on mousesports for the entirety of 2016. During this time they won Acer Predator Masters Season 2 and were ranked 3-4th in ELEAGUE Season 1, ESL One: New York 2016 European Qualifier, ESL Pro League Season 4 - Europe and ESL Pro League Season 4 - Finals.
2017
In February 2017, NiKo was acquired by FaZe Clan as they formed a star-player team. Kovač's first big tournament win was at StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3, followed by a winless period of five months with a near miss at Esports Championship Series Season 3. Following a re-shuffle of the FaZe roster, bringing in two of the highest rated players of 2015; Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer Gustafsson and the star AWP player, Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács,[9][10] FaZe was rejuvenated and managed back-to-back flawless victories at ESL One: New York 2017 and ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2017. At ESL One: New York 2017, NiKo dropped 1.70 HLTV rating, a record that was only equaled by donk's legendary Katowice run in 2024.[11] Following this, the team went two months without a win before taking the Esports Championship Series Season 4 trophy over mousesports at the end of the year. He was ranked in #2 in the year end HLTV top 20 and had a rivalry with SK Gaming's coldzera throughout the year.
2018
Faze Clan fell just short at the finals in ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, choking a 15-11 lead in map 3 to the home region team Cloud9. The Major finals is widely acknowledged as the best professional matches of CS:GO ever played by the community.[12][13] After choking another grand finals at IEM Katowice 2018 to Fnatic, FaZe entered another lull. However the team managed to take home Intel Extreme Masters XIII - Sydney with Richard "Xizt" Landström standing in for olofmeister, and the ESL One: Belo Horizonte 2018 event with Jørgen "cromen" Robertsen as a stand-in.
In October 2018, FaZe came first place in the EPICENTER 2018 event in Moscow, Russia, making this his seventh first-place victory at a premier event with FaZe Clan. NiKo was ranked No. 3 at the HLTV top 20, having been in contention for the title of best player of the year for the at the beginning but exited the race after his form cooled in the 2nd half.[14]
2019
FaZe went through a number of in-game leaders (IGLs) during this time after the removal of karrigan last year, before settling on NiKo. By the end of 2019 Faze's trophy count had gone up to ten as they won BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen, but didn't finish top 4 at either major. Statistically, this was the worst year of NiKo's career thus far as he had to settle for 11th place on the HLTV top 20 list as a result of his IGL duties and he finished outside of the top 10 for the first time since 2016 in the HLTV top 20.
2020
2020 marked another victory for FaZe and now IGL Kovač, as they won the European division of IEM New York 2020 Online over OG.[15] On October 28, 2020, after a three-and-a-half-year venture with FaZe Clan, Kovač was acquired by G2 Esports and was united with his cousin huNter.[16]
No longer an IGL, NiKo was back in his old form again this year and was ranked No. 4 in HLTV top 20.
2021
NiKo led G2 to the grand finals of the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 but lost to a dominant Na'Vi team. The grand finals also featured the infamous NiKo whiff on s1mple at Nuke in map 2,[17] which ultimately Na'Vi won to lift the major trophy.
They had also been runner-up to the same Na'Vi team at Intel Extreme Masters XVI - Cologne earlier in the year. He went through a career best run in the second half of 2021 with CSGO's return to LAN, posting a consecutive 34 map 1+ rating streak, the highest of his career and of any top 20 players that year. He finished third in the HLTV top 20, behind ZywOo and S1mple.[18]
2022
G2 signed a young prodigy Russian awper, m0nesy[19] leading G2 and Niko to a 2nd place at IEM Katowice.[20] NiKo's G2 fell 3-0 to FaZe Clan in the grand final, with FaZe forced to field jks as a substitute. The match featured the legendary Mirage map, extending to 58 rounds before FaZe clinched victory with a 31-27 scoreline.[21][22]
Soon the team's form dropped as Blast Premier Spring Finals and ESL Pro League Season 16 were their only top 4 finish till December 2022.[23] G2 did not qualify for the IEM Rio Major,[24] with Niko commenting that these times are his toughest months of his career but reassured that he will never give up.[25] NiKo and G2 bounced back and won the Blast Premier World Final 2022.[26] He finished 5th in the HLTV Top 20.[27]
2023
On 12 February 2023, G2 won IEM Katowice 2023 undefeated, only suffering a loss on a single map to the hands of Heroic in the grand finals. This was NiKo's first win at IEM Katowice and having lost the previous three finals there in 2017, 2018, and 2022.
NiKo and G2 qualified for the 2023 Blast.tv Paris Major 2023 through the RMR into the Challengers stage, where they would qualify for Legends stage following a 3-0 run in the Challengers Stage. NiKo and G2 would go on to be eliminated in the Legends stage by Fnatic in a 1-2 elimination game, thus ensuring NiKo would never win a CSGO major.
G2 became the champions of IEM Cologne 2023, where NiKo earned his eighth MVP award.[28]
NiKo's exceptional numbers at the biggest events and against the best teams saw him place second on HLTV's Top 20 Players of the Year list, behind ZywOo.[29]
2024
2024 began rough for NiKo, who suffered a dip in form compared to his CS:GO performance, averaging a 1.15 rating in the first half of the season in contrast to his usual 1.2+ performances.[30] However, NiKo exhibited more sublime form in the latter half of the season, which earned him the 4th place on HLTV's Top 20 Players of the Year list after another year of overall strong individual play. NiKo also set a new record for most consecutive appearances in the top 20 with 9 consecutive appearances.[31]
NiKo finished in the top 4 of the PGL Copenhagen major. He, however won IEM Dallas 2024 with a stand-in Stewie2K.[32] NiKo struggled against Na'Vi throughout the season, enduring nine consecutive losses before finally securing a victory at the BLAST Premier Fall Final.[33] G2 rebuilt the roster adding malbsMd and veteran Polish player, Snax, in place of the players, Hooxi and Nexa.[34] The revamped lineup went on to claim the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024, defeating Team Vitality in the semifinals and Na'Vi in the grand finale. During the semifinal clash against Vitality, NiKo made headlines by smashing a hole in the table after failing to convert a 1v5 clutch attempt.[35] However, his struggles continued in the following tournament IEM Rio, where he posted a career-worst 0.51 HLTV rating and exited in 13th–16th place. Despite this setback, G2 rebounded strongly, winning the BLAST Premier World Final with a triumph over Team Spirit in the grand finale.[36] NiKo’s run with G2 ultimately ended in the semifinals of the Perfect World Shanghai Major, where he fell to FaZe Clan.[37]
2025
On January 3, 2025, NiKo departed G2 and joined the Saudi organization Team Falcons, becoming a key part of their efforts to rebuild and assemble a star-studded roster.[38] On February 23 2025, NiKo won his 9th HLTV MVP[39] at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 despite losing the finals to MOUZ.[40]
On April 13th 2025, NiKo along with his team Falcons won their first trophy together in PGL Bucharest 2025, beating G2 Esports in the Final.[41] Soon, NiKo reunited with G2's star AWPer, m0NESY, in Team Falcons. With m0NESY and NiKo, Falcons immediately showed strong results, finishing second at IEM Melbourne after choking a 12-6 lead in map five (Nuke) to Team Vitality. They then competed at BLAST Rivals, where they once again fell to Team Vitality in a 3-2 series in the finals.[42]
Falcons however, where shockingly eliminated from Blast TV Austin Major in 20-22nd place after suffering shocking losses to B8, Lynn Vision and MIBR.[43]
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Awards and recognition
- Was voted the 11th best player of 2016 by HLTV.[44]
- Was voted the 2nd best player of 2017 by HLTV.[45]
- Was voted the 3rd best player of 2018 by HLTV.[46]
- Was voted the 11th best player of 2019 by HLTV.[47]
- Was voted the 4th best player of 2020 by HLTV.[48]
- Was voted the 3rd best player of 2021 by HLTV.[49]
- Was voted the 5th best player of 2022 by HLTV.[27]
- Was voted the 2nd best player of 2023 by HLTV.[50]
- Was voted the 4th best player of 2024 by HLTV.[51]
- Was voted the MVP of 9 different tournaments.[52]
Tournament Results
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References
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