Esports Flashback: Best players of 2023

What a year of esports we've been treated to in 2023. The pandemic is finally behind us and live events have been constant throughout the entire year, opening doors to world events again with fans clawing at the chance to see their superstars up close again.

As 2023 comes to a close though, it's time to look back and reflect on those icons of the industry that have pioneered, invented, and dominated.

Here's the GGRecon best esports players of 2023 list.

Honourable Mentions

Max "Demon1" Mazanov

Now that VALORANT has been out for quite some time, it's getting harder for players to come along and change the meta. But out of nowhere this year, a young aggro duelist named Demon1 stepped up and obliterated everyone. 

Demon1 set the record for most kills in a competitive VALORANT series ever while appearing at the VCT Champions, before moving on to win the entire event, becoming a World Champion and winning MVP on the main stage.

Ham "SOMEONE" Jeong-wan

Panning over to Overwatch there was someone who impressively led the way. Having been a breakout talent at just 19 years old, SOMEONE's second season in the OWL saw the young Korean rocket from an average Joe to the best in the business.

As the last, and most important final piece to the puzzle for Florida Mayhem, SOMEONE embodied the tank role while the meta was shifting so drastically in Overwatch 2, and scooped three end-of-season rewards in the Role Star - Tank, the Dennis Hawelka Award, and the Regular Season MVP.

Paco "HyDra" Rusiewiez

Call of Duty esports has been waiting for HyDra to explode after being dubbed as a future superstar, and this year, the French phenom really came into his own.

HyDra led the New York Subliners to two Majors and the World Championships as the star player and earned the season-long MVP award along the way.

The best esports players of 2023

5 - Jeong "Chovy" Ji-hoon

Chovy is one of the most experienced League of Legends players of all time, and while this might not have been his most lucrative year in terms of international team-based honours, as an individual and an LCK stalwart, he stepped into a light of his own.

Having passed some incredible personal milestones this year (500 LCK games, 300 LCK wins, and 1,500 LCK kills) Chovy spearheaded Gen.G to dominance in Korea, at a time when the LCK was in its most fearsome state.

Sharing the limelight with Peanut in Spring, Gen.G's rebuffed team upset the nation's sweethearts in Spring, defeating T1 in a rather dismissive fashion in the Playoff finals, before moving on to Summer, where Chovy stole the show, becoming the MVP of the Finals, leaving legends like Zeus, Faker, and Bdd in his wake.

But even though Gen.G might have faltered on the international stage when they were expected to win everything, Chovy's regular-season discipline has proved he's the ultimate professional, winning seven Player-of-the-Game accolades in regular matches, the most in the LCK this year.

4 - Philip "ImperialHal" Dosen

ImperialHal is simply at the top of his game. Pick him up and spot him down in CS:GO and this list might have been completely different. Maybe it's just the three-man nature of his chosen battle royale game and the way the roster has been so interchangeable in the way they clutched up for TSM, but keeping ImperialHal out of the top spot on this list is largely down to some of the other names here having slightly more established titles to compete in. Maybe that's a criticism of the thought process too, truth be told.

This year, ImperialHal has been simply dominant. CEO to Apex Legends. IGL to the most lethal team in ALGS history.

In a season where TSM cruised through qualifiers, it was on all three LANs where ImperialHal shone, manoeuvring the team into winning positions time after time, winning the first ALGS 2023 Split 1 in London, grabbing second-place in Split 2, before taking home the trophy in the ALGS 2023 Championships in emphatic fashion.

With two golds and a silver in the three main events throughout the campaign, Hal also led the way in the entire LAN season as kill leader, getting a whopping 190 kills throughout the three live events.

ImperialHal is imperious in Apex Legends and earns a spot amongst esports royalty for his efforts this year.

3 - Emir "Alfajer" Beder

Ever since nAts changed the Sentinel role forever in the opening year of the VCT, the world has been waiting for the next creative genius to evolve, and this year, up stepped Alfajer.

Widely renowned as the greatest player in the world in VALORANT, Alfajer and Fnatic have been on a wild journey throughout 2023, storming their way to two global championships before running out of steam in a World Championship.

Alfajer's Killjoy and Cypher gameplay reignited VALORANT's love with unconventional playstyles which was a winning recipe with Fnatic's willingness to adapt, allowing the young Turkish superstar to be left to his own devices, lurking in shadows, shutting down flanks, and even opening gaps for his teammates to work around and execute strats off of.

In EMEA, Alfajer's disparity between K/D (1.46 - 1st) and KDA (1.77 - 3rd) shows just how much individual brilliance he brought to the table this year, and it earned him multiple MVP awards throughout the season.

Alfajer did pose serious competition from the ever-brilliant sharp-shooter Demon1 in the VALORANT department, but his innovation and longevity throughout the entire year saw Alfajer reign supreme, and earn a place on our list at number three.

2 - Park "Ruler" Jae-hyuk

Back to League of Legends and we have Ruler. The bold move to switch from the LCK to the LPL raised a lot of eyebrows, and few players have been able to make this transition and master both regions' playstyles to become the Asian champion.

But in the footsteps of Deft, and leaving his own imprint in the meantime, Ruler became the second player ever to win Worlds, MSI, LCK, and LPL this year, as his JDG side won both splits this year.

On the world stage, Ruler was also a legend in his own right. At MSI, Ruler's dominance was astounding, jotting up a whipping 8.31 KDA ratio over the 15 games played in their campaign to be crowned champions, being a full 1.5 KDA above the next player (knight). He also had the least deaths of anyone in the tournament, entering a state of near invincibility while working with Jinx and Aphelios.

Even at Worlds, Ruler pushed JDG to the limit, being by far the most impressive player on his team, sometimes dragging the roster back into games by the scruff of the neck.

What makes Ruler's success so great this year is that it also highlights the dominance that Chovy was able to muster up in the LCK, as he moved away from the Korean LoL division to compete in China and opened the door to someone else to find success in the gaping hole he left. 

1 - Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut

Well, well, well, look who we have here. If you've gotten this far then there is only one name that you can have expected to see at the pinnacle, and that's ZywOo.

It's been yet another colossal year for Team Vitality in CS:GO, as the world watches the transition to the sequel Counter-Strike 2. The Golden Hornets have won a multitude of trophies this year to add to their ever-growing cabinet, and it was a befitting end to CS:GO that ZywOo would get his hands on the last-ever Major title.

Arguably the best player of the last four years in CS, debated alongside s1mple, ZywOo moved to another level this year, taking home the Rio Masters, Paris Major, Gamers8, BLAST Fall, and BLAST Worlds titles, as the prodigy became the master.

As an individual though, it's hard to put into words just how far ahead ZywOo is from the pack, but some numbers can.

In 2023 alone, the rifler finished with a whopping 1.38 K/D ratio throughout every competitive match, fragging 2907 times, and averaging 0.81 kills per round. Either with a rifle, Awp, or pistol, ZywOo has been untouchable, ending the year off with the highest K/D in the entirety of CS esports, and on top of HLTV's rating system with an impressive gap between himself and device in second.

Having once been the European padawan of CS:GO, ZywOo ended the era as the outright best player in the world - by a long margin - and the best esports professional in the industry.