Top 20 players of 2020: PashaBMW (17)

Few players entered 2020 further away from the top of the game than PashaBMW. When the year began, the then-17-year-old had yet to face a top-30 team, and he was still playing for Bimmer Gaming, a Russian tier-three side assembled by in-game leader Kirill "⁠kombat⁠" Somov in 2018. The team spent a year and a half in CIS open qualifiers and second-tier online leagues, with a runner-up finish in the CIS Rising League and a December win at the AOC & Western Digital Winter Clash, a $10,300 online cup, as its best results, but PashaBMW was its standout player throughout.

PashaBMW at a local LAN in 2018 (Photo credit: PashaBMW)

"Bimmer Gaming was not a good team, but for me it was a very important time," he says. "We played every qualifier we could find, against teams who were much better than us, and I learned how to lose without giving up in the next round. When I left, I knew I was ready to play at a higher level, I just needed somebody to give me a chance."

That chance came in April, when Heroic, left without a fifth player after their deal with FunPlus Phoenix fell through, called him up for ESL One: Road to Rio - Europe. In 11 maps he averaged a 1.37 rating, the highest in the competition, and by the end of May he had signed with Virtus.pro.

Two weeks with Heroic were enough to put PashaBMW on the radar of bigger teams (Photo credit: Heroic)

The first months with the bears were uneven. Virtus.pro finished 5th-6th at DreamHack Masters Spring and bottom of their group at the BLAST Premier Spring Showdown, where PashaBMW put up a 1.05 rating. A third-place finish at cs_summit 6, where he was among the EVPs, and a quarter-final exit in Cologne followed.

"In summer I was playing like a stand-in who forgot he is not a stand-in anymore," he admits. "I was too careful, I was thinking about mistakes more than about my own game. After Cologne we talked a lot with Jame and dastan, and in September I started to play like myself again."

ESL Pro League Season 12 was the turning point. Virtus.pro lost to BIG in the upper bracket and were knocked out by Astralis in their first playoff series, but PashaBMW finished the event with a 1.34 rating, the 2nd-highest among all players, and picked up his second EVP mention of the year.

What followed was a run of three titles in less than two months. Virtus.pro swept Nemiga 3-0 in the final of IEM New York CIS, with PashaBMW going 74-44 across the series for a 1.50 rating and his first MVP medal. In December they beat OG 2-1 to win Flashpoint 2, where his 1.39 rating earned him a second, and a week later he picked up a third at DreamHack Open December after a 1.51-rated final against SAW. Across the three events he averaged 1.44, 1.39, and 1.51 respectively.

PashaBMW won all three of his 2020 MVP medals from the Virtus.pro bootcamp (Photo credit: Virtus.pro)

"The end of the year was the best period of my career so far," he says. "We found our system, everybody knew their role, and I had a lot of freedom. Three trophies in a row is something I will remember for a long time, but I also want to show that I can do the same on LAN, when LANs come back."

Why was PashaBMW the 17th best player of 2020?

On numbers alone, PashaBMW had a case to be ranked higher. He finished the year with a 1.33 rating over 135 maps, 95.9 ADR, 0.88 kills per round, and a KAST of 78.2%, and he rated 1.00 or higher on 88.1% of his maps.

He also got better as the stakes went up. His playoff rating stood at 1.33, and across 10 grand final maps he averaged 1.53, winning all three finals he played. Three MVP medals and two EVP mentions is a haul that only a handful of players in this ranking can match.

But there were significant gaps in PashaBMW's case. His 135 maps are a modest sample by the standards of this ranking, a consequence of starting the year in tier three, and only a fraction of them came at the most competitive events or against top-10 opposition. Two of his three medals came at IEM New York CIS and DreamHack Open December, whose fields were well below the level of the big European tournaments.

That meant he could not go any higher than 17th.

Bold prediction

Artem "SHAKAL" Zuev

PashaBMW predicts a breakout year for his former Bimmer Gaming teammate Artem "⁠SHAKAL⁠" Zuev, who is still looking for a team.

"Artem is the best AWPer I have played with. He has everything to play at a higher level, he just needs a team that will give him time, like Virtus.pro gave me. I think in 2021 people will hear his name."

Stay tuned for the rest of our Top 20 Players of 2020 ranking. This year's ranking is supported by:

Xtrfy - Built on experience

GG.BET - Online betting and odds on sport and esports