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Top 20 Players of 2021: leaf (15)

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#1
mattgg2015

Cloud9's duelist star claims the #15 spot as a result of his stunning performances at the tail end of the year.

Nathan "leaf" Orf transitioned from Counter-Strike to Cloud9's VALORANT roster at the beginning of 2021. The roster, however, was in turmoil following TenZ's decision to step down from the team. Therefore, Cloud9 was unable to secure a spot in Masters 1 North America despite leaf's powerful fragging ability on Omen.

leaf transitioned to the duelist role heading into Stage 2, leading the team to achieve far more success. Despite another rocky performance in Challengers 1, Cloud9 was able to qualify to the North America Stage 2 Challengers Finals following a 0-3 loss to Sentinels in the grand finals of Challengers 2. It was in this tournament that leaf established himself as one of the best players in North America, as Cloud9 swept both Envy and NRG Esports before barely losing in a nail-biters to Sentinels and Version1, ultimately finishing at 3rd place. leaf ended the tournament at a 1.25 rating, third highest of all players.

Stage 3 saw further roster changes for Cloud9, as leaf's team was unable to replicate the success they had found in Stage 2, losing early to Rise in the first qualifier before finally being eliminated by Luminosity in the second qualifier.

This underwhelming performance in Stage 3 led Cloud9 to bring in top IGL vanity, who instantly gave the struggling Cloud9 roster some new life. The squad was able to secure a spot in the North America Last Chance Qualifier. While the team faced an early loss to Rise, leaf led his team to an incredible lower-bracket run, with his squad defeating Gen.G, XSET and 100 Thieves before sweeping Rise in the grand finals, securing a spot in VALORANT Champions. Leaf once again demonstrated his incredible skill, performing with a 1.20 rating, second highest in the tournament.

leaf maintained his dominance heading into the biggest tournament of the year, Champions. Despite an early loss to FNATIC, leaf carried his team to a playoff spot as a result of wins over FULL SENSE and Vision Strikers. While the team was eventually swept by Team Liquid in the quarterfinals, leaf went an incredible 53-36 in this match with an ACS of 317. He finished the tournament with a 1.24 rating, third highest in the event.

Why was leaf the 15th best player of 2021?
While the star was unable to achieve results for half of the year, leaf's MVP-level performance in VALORANT Champions and Last Chance Qualifier were enough to secure him a spot this high. The lack of year-long consistency was hard to overlook, however, as his mediocre performances in Stage 1 and Stage 3 bring him to fifteenth in our ranking.

2021 Rankings

  1. -
  2. -
  3. -
  4. -
  5. -
  6. -
  7. -
  8. -
  9. -
  10. -
  11. -
  12. -
  13. -
  14. -
  15. ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ leaf
  16. ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ SicK
  17. ๐Ÿ‡ท๐Ÿ‡บ sheydos
  18. ๐Ÿ‡ฑ๐Ÿ‡น nukkye
  19. ๐Ÿ‡ฐ๐Ÿ‡ท BuZz
  20. ๐Ÿ‡ธ๐Ÿ‡ช Leo
#2
thanatos11
-32
Frags
+

Pick up the pace bro thereโ€™s no way this takes u 1 day to write

#5
mattgg2015
22
Frags
+

its not that it takes one day to write, i like to space it out like HLTV does it

#17
Asphyxia
2
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+

^^
also no one wants to sit down and write these in a row bc they take like 30 min or so prob.

#6
kocunar
16
Frags
+

L + ratio

#8
thanatos11
-13
Frags
+

Ok Fnatic fan

#12
arturo_fdez
8
Frags
+

common thanatos L

#29
PrTsty
0
Frags
+

thats actually a funny bait

#3
mattgg2015
0
Frags
+

Is he correctly placed or should he have been higher or lower? Who do you think should be next?

#30
PrTsty
0
Frags
+

shoudlve put asuna or nitr0 in top 20 (around 18/19)

#4
kocunar
0
Frags
+

based

#7
Arisqq
0
Frags
+

pog

#9
Fat_Lard
2
Frags
+

How do 2 great tournaments outweigh SicK's year-long consistency and success?

#13
mattgg2015
1
Frags
+

i think ur overrating sentinels' success a little bit... they finished 5th-8th in berlin and 9th-12th in champions and SicK played mediocre in both those touranments

also this is an individual player ranking not a team ranking... leaf performed better in champions and LCQ than SicK did in almost every big event

leaf also put up higher ratings for the whole year... if c9 replaces leaf with sick are they a better or worse team?

overall i value being the best player on a good team that is putting up incredible stats than the 3rd best player on a team that struggled half the year
it is very close tho they are 1 spot difference its 50/50

#22
Fat_Lard
-2
Frags
+

SicK performed better at everything before vanity joined C9B and was more successful by a mile. Since vanity joined(1/3 of the year), leaf was better and was more successful(outside of Berlin). For a ranking of the entire year of 2021, it feels like recency bias that leaf is on the list at all tbh because before vanity joined, leaf was nowhere near any of the other candidates for this list, even though he was still a good player.

#23
mattgg2015
1
Frags
+

lets not easily discredit the rest of leaf's year... he was one of the best players in stage 2 and carried C9 to almost qualify to reykjavik

also its not really recency bias its the fact that Champions is by far the most important tournament of the year and performance in that is simply valued more

#27
makoidk
1
Frags
+

yup C9 almost made it to iceland

#10
trembolonaRage
-10
Frags
+

lmao

extremely biased

#15
TuNyyy
4
Frags
+

Mad cuz mwzera won't make it in the list kekw

#16
mattgg2015
4
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+

dont worry mwzera #0

#11
Mortadelo
-2
Frags
+

Someone got it right yesterday

#14
ValdemieGC
0
Frags
+

His game against Liquid was superb

#18
plas
3
Frags
+

EXPECTED FROM THE GOAT LETS GOOOO

#19
mattgg2015
0
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+

ty #1 vlr user

#20
Catchamp
0
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+

Leaf was hella consistent throughout the year, he was the main person pushing C9 throughout this year. He almost took them to Reykjavik and even after that he was putting up really solid performances

#21
downbad
0
Frags
+

Wardell>Leaf

#24
item
0
Frags
+

Great articles! TBH I think leaf should be a little higher, since his team did kind of suck for a good portion of the year and it wasn't really his fault. I think this year he'll be in the top 10 100%

#25
mattgg2015
0
Frags
+

Itโ€™s interesting that some people think he should be higher and others say he should be below guys like SicK

#26
Origin
0
Frags
+

Sign this guy someone

#28
ShadowisBAD
-4
Frags
+

leaf above SicK ? Nah bro
Good job on ur work ur killing it but i disagree here

#31
mattgg2015
0
Frags
+

ty for opinion, looking back i may have made some bad decisions but im just one guy

#32
Mythical_Forger
0
Frags
+

When's #14 coming ??

#33
Carthage_Er_Pola
0
Frags
+

Come back man

#34
FightWasTaken
0
Frags
+

what happened buddy i want to see cNed #1

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