Throughout August, we here at BLAST.tv have been celebrating AWPgust, a month where we look throughout Counter-Strike history at some of the best AWPers to ever touch the game.
We've looked at names like MSL, cadiaN, and allu, but now it is time to turn our heads to the main who replaced allu on FaZe, GuardiaN.
Regarded as one of the best players to never win a Major, GuardiaN had a legendary career, so let's take a look at one of the greatest ever to touch the game.
Hailing from Slovakia, GuardiaN comes from a nation that, outside of him, has very little to shout about in CS:GO.
With such potential, he'd need to leave his national scene to realise that, and he departed it by joining Virtus.pro. After spending just seven months with the organisation on a team that contained names like Dosia and ANGE1, he would leave the team to join NAVI.
Styko: "GuardiaN showed our little scene that breaking through is indeed possible. Before he made it into international CS, I was very young, not even a pro player.
Seeing him playing at the top level showed us that even if we have a hard time breaking through with team from our local scene, if you are individually good enough you can embark on this adventure by yourself, in international squads."
With NAVI, GuardiaN would enjoy the best years of his career. One of the best AWPers in the world, GuardiaN was a revelation and recorded six MVP awards from nine tournament wins, an incredible record for any player.
Regarded as the tenth-best player in 2013, the year he joined, he would peak at number two in 2015, when he lost his first Major final.
Dropping down to seventeenth in 2016, a year in which he would lose another Major final, this was the lowest placing he would have in any of the six consecutive years he featured in HLTV's top twenty, a display of incredible consistency.
As s1mple made his way to NAVI, GuardiaN's services were eventually found to be no longer required, and after a short period of inactivity (five days), he was bought by FaZe Clan as they looked to move on quickly from their torrid PGL Krakow performance and complete their superteam.
A second lease of life for GuardiaN; if anyone had wondered if he was declining with his lower top-twenty placing in 2016, they would quickly be proved wrong with his time on FaZe.
Winning three significant events before the year was out, including ESL One New York 2017 and ECS Season 4 finals, GuardiaN and FaZe showed they had the ability to become the dominant force in Counter-Strike, and with the first Major of 2018 just around the corner, they were ready to stake their claim to becoming one of the greatest teams of all time.
Entering ELEAGUE Boston as one of the favourites to win, FaZe performed as favourites for the whole event. Only dropping a single map on their run from the Challengers Stage to the Grand Final, GuardiaN was having one of the best tournaments of his career. Having ended the event with a 1.24 HLTV rating, no one can say that the AWPer wasn't determined to put his Major woes behind him.
Sadly for GuardiaN then, everyone knows what would happen in the final. One of the most iconic matches in CS:GO history, despite GuardiaN's strong performance in the final, FaZe would lose to Cloud9 as the NA side won their region's only Major in CS:GO on home soil.
STYKO: "Never winning Major is definitely going to hurt. He played multiple finals and the one from ELEAGUE against Cloud9 is going to hurt.
Despite all of this, his legacy is cemented as one of the best AWPers to ever touch the game which, to me, is bigger achievement. The Major is just one tournament, but his signature AWPing style was refined for years and to me, the longevity and dedication means much, much more."
The loss in the ELEAGUE Boston Major final crushed FaZe, and while they would go on to win tournaments after the event, they were never quite the same team.
IEM Sydney, ESL One Belo Horizonte, and EPICENTER 2018 would all be won before the year was out, with GuardiaN claiming his seventh MVP award in Sydney, but as Astralis rose to power, it was clear FaZe's time to be the greatest had already passed.
Eventually, GuardiaN would depart for a second stint with NAVI, one where he would take up the mantle of AWPer from s1mple, who at that point thought he could have more impact with a rifle in his hands.
An ill-fated experiment, GuardiaN lasted just four months with the team, and at that point, it was clear that he would never be able to recreate the levels that had made him such a formidable opponent.
Returning to his home scene after years away with Team Sampi, Guardian would continue to wind down his career, and now finds himself inactive on the roster in 2023.
BLAST ApS., Hauser Plads 1, 3., 1127 Copenhagen