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The 10 highest earners in Counter-Strike
With a $1m Major just around the corner, we look at the highest earners in the art of virtual war.
With MLG Columbus having its prize pool upped to $1 million for the first time in a Valve Major, there’s more money than ever at stake in Counter-Strike. From the humble and not-so-humble beginnings of Counter-Strike 1.6 and Source through to Global Offensive, the series has been supporting high-level head-clickers for years. So who has managed to amass the biggest piles of cash ready for that auto-sniper buy round? Here are the top 10 tournament earners in Counter-Strike, according to eSports Earnings.
10. Nathan "NBK" Schmitt – $231,830.33 from 107 Tournaments
NBK only began his career in the Source days of Counter-Strike, unlike many of his high-earning compadrés who preferred to stay on 1.6. Starting out in 2008 at VeryGames after being scouted at a few consecutive LAN appearances, he quickly secured wins that put France on the map for Counter-Strike. Moving from a strong AWPer to an all-round Rifler in the CS:GO transition, he also took on the captain’s role. With EnVyUs he has lead the team to one Major victory at Cluj-Napoca last year and several podiums at others.
9. Ioann "Edward" Sukhariev – $232,974.81 from 124 Tournaments
Na’Vi’s joint longest-serving member, along with Zeus – who narrowly misses out on this list by $1,000 after losing out in small tournaments his team-mate won before Na’Vi’s inception in 2009. Since forming, Na’Vi have been the dominant team in CIS since becoming the first from the region to become ESWC champions in 2010. They then went on to set a team record that year after winning DreamHack Winter and earning a total of $220,000 in a single year. Edward has been present for the entirety of Na’Vi’s life (with a few months’ minor blip from joining CIS superteam Astana Dragons in 2013) and the team’s achievements echo his own.
8. Freddy "KRiMZ" Johansson – $259,590.79 from 66 Tournaments
The newest player in the top 10 came straight in at the highest level of play and has helped keep his team there since. Krimz joined Fnatic in 2014 having played CS:GO for a year under LGB eSports, long enough for him and fellow team-mate olofmeister to be noticed by the Swedish superteam. So when time came to make changes to Fnatic, they were easy choices. Since then the wins haven’t stopped, with a few clutch holds from Krimz to keep them on track. Though that’s not as many tournaments as others, Fnatic have had podium finishes for the past two years, and that’s enough to put you in the green.
7. Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer – $265,611.61 from 74 Tournaments
Unlike his team-mate, Olof began playing in 2011 and was already well entrenched with the pro scene at H2K Gaming by the time he joined LGB with Krimz. Almost immediately upon joining Fnatic he became a notorious player as he employed a little-known pixel-width boost to gain what most said was an unfair advantage over French team LDLC during DreamHack Winter 2014. Olof and his fellow Fnatic team-mates (who may or may not all be present in this list, who knows?! You’ll have to read on to find out) have moved on from then however to prove they don’t need gimmicks to win.
6. Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund – $280,888.15 from 156 Tournaments
Get_Right, AKA Get_Lurked, has successfully sneaked his way into the mid-section of this list. The Swede is a constant thorn in enemies’ sides, showing remarkable understanding of their movements and executions and finding ways to cripple them. His in-game intelligence led Ninjas in Pyjamas to their early dominance in CS:GO once most teams made the full switch over. Prior to that, alternating between SK Gaming and Fnatic meant he always had a decent team to capitalise on the opportunities he created. If NiP can regain their tournament form, expect to see this figure continue to rack up.
5. Jesper "jw" Wecksell – $283,075.72 from 81 Tournaments
The Fnatic JWonderchild, youngest of the team, began competing in CS before Krimz. In 2012, the then 17-year-old JW took first in a Norwegian LAN, netting a cool 3,400Krone ($600). Two months later he was on the Epsilon eSports team that would bring together half of today’s Fnatic. Again, he’s been on Fnatic since Epsilon let them go in 2013 and they have won everything forever so he’s made bank. Absolute bank.
4. Robin "flusha" Rönnquist – $291,236.40 from 89 Tournaments
Recruited JW to Epsilon back in 2013 and has continued to become in-game captain for Fnatic after they joined together. As consistent as players come, flusha has lead the Swedes to three Major titles and countless premier wins in the years the current team has been together. Impossible to say if without him none of them would have made this list, but flusha does a remarkable job of keeping the team rolling under pressure and when odds look insurmountable.
3. Wiktor "Taz" Wojtas – $301,786.13 from 144 Tournaments
Finally, someone who hasn’t at any point in their career been part of Fnatic. As such, it’s all the more impressive that he’s managed to outrank even the highest earning of the unstoppable lot. Taz has done it through over a decade of being one of Europe’s top players, first through Polish side Pentagram and German org Meet Your Makers throughout the CS1.6 days and then onto a cavalcade of others during the transfer to CS:GO before finding his feet at Virtus.pro. Just two months after joining in 2014, VP took the first ESL One Katowice Major, not a bad start to the year, but 2015 was the moneymaker with just over $100,000 from 35 tournaments.
2. Filip "neo" Kubski – $306,746.13 from 147 Tournaments
Alongside his long-time Polish team-mate, neo has also come through 12 years of hard shooting. Taz and neo have moved from team to team together, played every tournament side by side. Except that’s not strictly true. In 2009 neo was part of the Polish World eSports Masters team which finished third, netting him a sneaky $1,000 above his team captain on Virtus.pro. And again, in 2013, now well into his and Taz’s transition to CS:GO, he joined Netcode Illuminati as a substitute for a trip down memory lane in the ESEA CS1.6 LAN finals. The team won, naturally, netting another grand, but more recently he’s been performing quite well in the solo FaceIt Pro League ladder this year, even beating his captain. Mutiny is one way to keep yourself ahead.
1. Patrik "f0rest" Lindberg – $366,060.90 from 170 Tournaments
It just wouldn’t be right if it weren’t a Swede at the top now, would it? Since 2005, f0rest has been consistently ranked among the best players in the world at Counter-Strike. His first victory, at OptiHack when he was just 16, only paid the princely sum of 5,000SEK (about $730) and he travelled across the breadth of Sweden to compete. After that, a massive $10,000 win as part of Sweden’s World eSports Games team put him on the high rollers circuit and he’s consistently earned well since. Soon after he would go on to become part of the original Fnatic team to reign over much of Counter-Strike’s lifetime before moving onto Global Offensive with new team Ninjas in Pyjamas where he has stoically remained.
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