The Best Esports Athlete award includes some famous names as well as some notable exclusions.
The Game Awards nominations were announced a few days ago and it featured some of the biggest video game releases of this year. Having been around since 2014, this yearly awards show has been one of the most celebrated prestige one can attain in video games and esports. And this year, the nominees for ‘The Best Esports Athlete’ award is stacked with top professionals from some of the biggest games in the world.
- Read more: The Game Awards 2023 nominees
This list includes two League of Legends professionals, one of which just eliminated the other from contention of lifting the Summoner's Cup. The other four nominees, however, are all FPS-related with Counter-Strike 2, Call of Duty, VALORANT, and Apex Legends professionals all getting the nod instead. And like how it goes every year, there will be certain portions of fanbase that will be displeased with the nominations, especially this year when it is skewed towards MOBA and FPS titles.
Notable Exclusions
While this in no way disparages the players involved in The Best Esports Athlete award, it is worth pointing out that some notable exclusions from the nominations. And one of the major points of the exclusion comes from the Rocket League community with many pointing out one player who failed to receive a nomination. Team Vitality's Alexis “zen” Bernier has been one of the game's best talents this season despite being only 16 years of age.
Zen was part of the team that rain riot at the RLCS Spring Split Major where he also won the Spring Major Offensive MVP as well as the Spring Major MVP title. It also happened to be his RLCS LAN debut, which goes to show just how well he played in his first major tournament. And just a month later, he would go on to be the catalyst for his team to win the RLCS World Championship as well as claim the tournament's overall MVP title.
Dota 2 players would also irregularly feature on the nominations list as 
Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov was nominated back in 2021, the year he won his first TI. But before Collapse, Dota 2 fans had to wait four years as the last TI winner to get nominated was 
Kuro “KuroKy” Salehi Takhasomi in 2017. Dota 2 coaches also rarely get the nod when it comes to the award show as 
OG came the closest with both of its coaches in 2018 and 2019 got nominated after its historic back-to-back TI victories. OG also got nominated for the Best Esports Team award in both years but never won.
However, 
Gaimin Gladiators did get nominated for The Best Esports Team award after they dominated the DPC 2023 season with all three Valve Major titles under their belt alongside a second-place finish at TI12. This was won by 
Team Spirit, which also made them two-time winners but didn't get a nomination due to the team's lacklustre performances prior to TI.
Speaking of which, TI12's nomination for The Best Esports Event award is somewhat surprising given how small the prize pool was as compared to its predecessors from years before. But then again, this was arguably one of the better TIs of recent years with its overall production and quality. Dota 2 in general would always get nominations in certain categories but for someone within the space to win the award is almost next to impossible, which has been evident for some time now.
The Best Esports Athlete Nominees
Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok
When one thinks of League of Legends, they will almost immediately think of 
Sang-hyeok “Faker” Lee, who has been arguably the biggest player in the game for quite some time now. One of the reasons why League of Legends is the number one esport in South Korea is down to Faker's dominance on the Summoner's Rift since he made his debut back in 2013. That was also the year he won his first regional title to go along with his first-ever Summoner's Cup during the Season 3 World Championship.
Since then, Faker would go on to add two more world titles to his name when 
T1 won it back-to-back in 2015 and 2016. He also has two Mid-Season International trophies added to his resume, which were won back-to-back in 2016 and 2017. Faker has since won 10 LCK regional titles to go with his recently acquired gold medal from the 2022 Asian Games to make him the most successful South Korean esports player right now.
And while he hasn't had the best of performances this season due to an injury sustained during the LCK Summer Split, Faker and T1 are on-course to lift their fourth world title together. Their journey through Worlds 2023 has been nothing short of a miracle given that they were the only team left in the competition against the top four from the LPL.
But over the past couple of weeks, Faker and T1 have made light work of both 
LNG Esports and China's number one seed, 
JD Gaming. They will now go up against 
Weibo Gaming in the grand finals of Worlds 2023 in just a few days time. If Faker were to win his fourth world title, he would be a shoo-in for the award, which he has only ever won once in 2017.
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut
CS:GO has long been heralded as the best FPS esports and nobody encapsulates that more than 
Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, the French AWPer for 
Team Vitality, who are also nominated for The Best Esports Team award. Since his breakthrough in late 2018, ZywOo has grown to become part of a growing population of French pro players that grace the hallowed halls that is CS:GO. And with the BLAST.tv Paris Major being the final CS:GO Major championship, it was written in the stars for a French team to win it alongside its star player who walked away with the tournament MVP.
Vitality's run at the BAST.tv Paris Major was nothing short of spectacular as they went undefeated the entire way, which started from a clean 3-0 sweep in the Legends Stage. This ensured Vitality was just one of two teams to qualify for the Champions Stage early, which still did not stop the team's momentum. Vitality would go on to take out 
Into The Breach in the quarter-finals, 
Apeks in the semifinals, and 
GamerLegion in the grand finals.
And Vitality won all three matches 2-0, which meant that they did not drop a single game throughout the entire tournament. It also helped that the majority of the Parisian crowd were Vitality fanatics, which no doubt spurred on the boys in black and yellow. ZywOo himself won the MVP title of the tournament after just 10 matches with plenty of clutch moments thrown in.
According to bo3.gg, ZywOo had an average rating of 7.0 out of 10, the highest of any player during the tournament. He also had the highest average kill at 0.83 per match whilst also having the lowest average death rate at 0.51. This also included his third-highest average damage at 84.59. And in the grand finals against GamerLegion, ZywoOo placed the team on his back with an MVP performance on Nuke with the most kills at 27 and the least deaths at 12, five open duel wins, and the highest ADR at 102.
Max “Demon1” Mazanov
VALORANT's debut of its franchised leagues this year has been nothing short of spectacular as the VCT season showcased some of the greatest talents the game has seen so far. With North America bursting at the seams with it, 
Demon1's nomination should come as no surprise. North America was denied all year long at the hands of 
Fnatic but in the end, it was 
Evil Geniuses that walked away with the VCT Champions trophy. And Demon1 played a critical role in EG's road to glory this year.
Known for a rather flavourful online persona that had got plenty of rival fans riled up, Demon1 managed to back up his trash talk with a stellar showing during VCT Champions 2023. Being the newest member of EG, many expected him to perform almost instantly and that sadly wasn't the case as EG crashed out of the VCT LOCK//IN at the round of 16. They also lost four out of the five matches in the first-half of the VCT Americas League that saw them as low as ninth in the table. While they would go on to win the next three in a row, EG still lost its final game but still managed to finish just above 
Sentinels.
EG would eventually finish third in the regional league, which was enough to get them to Masters Tokyo. And it was here where EG showed its true colours by going undefeated in the group stage that also featured the likes of 
DRX. EG then proceeded to stomp the likes of 
LOUD and 
Team Liquid to set up a winner bracket final series against Fnatic. Although EG would end up losing to Fnatic twice to take second place, they still managed to defeat the VCT Pacific League champions, 
Paper Rex.
Demon1 was critical in EG's performance during Masters Tokyo but it was at VCT Champions where he truly took over. His MVP-worthy performance during the playoffs was nothing short of a masterclass as EG laid waste to the likes of 
EDward Gaming as well as DRX once again before their only loss of the tournament against Paper Rex. However, EG would once again get the better of LOUD, this time in a best-of-five. Even in EG's rematch against Paper Rex, Demon1 took it upon himself to push the Pacific League champs back on multiple occasions like his five clutch one-versus-one victories, the most of any player in the series.
Paco “Hydra” Rusiewiez
Call of Duty is one of, if not the biggest competitive FPS esports title in North America given its long, rich history during the early console days of Xbox. And since 2006, esports has been a pivotal point for the game since its release of CoD 4: Modern Warfare. The CDL itself has been around since 2020 and have had four different world champions with the likes of New York Subliners joining the exclusive list. And part of the team is Paco “Hydra” Rusiewiez, arguably the org's best player since the start of the 2023 season.
Hydra has been with NY Subliners since the beginning of his CDL career but it was only this season did they start to truly find success. The NY Subliners won both the Stage 1 and Stage 5 CDL Majors as Hydra played a huge part in both tournaments, more importantly the latter of which he won the MVP award. But it was at the CDL Championship 2023 where both Hydra and NY Subliners truly got themselves noticed.
NY Subliners managed to make it all the way to the upper bracket final where they lost to the Toronto Ultra in a clean 3-0 sweep. This dropped them down to the lower bracket final where the three-time grand finalist and 2021 CDL champion Atlanta FaZe was waiting. And in a shocking upset, it was NY Subliners who took the series 3-1 as ATL FaZe could only win the first Hardpoint in Hotel.
The grand final rematch between NY Subliners and T-dot Ultra showcased the most one-sided best-of-nine as it was the NY Subliners who took out T-dot Ultra 5-0. While it was his teammate Matthew “KiSMET” Tinsley that dominated in the first two maps, Hydra would take over in the next three games, which included Control and Hardpoint in Hotel as well as Search and Destroy at Embassy.
Park “Ruler” Jae-hyuk
Jae-Hyuk “Ruler” Park is the second professional League of Legends player to be nominated for The Best Esports Player award as well as the second South Korean who currently resides in the LPL with JD Gaming. And despite losing to T1 in the semifinals of Worlds 2023 over last weekend, Ruler still had a stellar season in which JDG almost completed the Golden Road. Having been in the LCK since 2016, Ruler's change to the LPL to start the 2023 season was something JDG needed to dominate China.
Before Ruler’s arrival, JDG had only ever won two LPL regional titles. But for this season alone they were the undisputed champions of China having won both the Spring and Summer Split titles as well as claiming its first ever international trophy, the Mid-Season Invitational. What's more, it was an all-LPL affair as JDG took on 
Bilibili Gaming in the grand finals of MSI earlier this year.
Ruler made his presence felt almost immediately during the Spring Split as he claimed the finals MVP, only his second-ever in his career with the first being the Worlds 2017 grand finals during his time with the now-defunct Samsung Galaxy. He was also voted the ‘Best of the Rift’ for four of the 10 weeks the Spring Split ran for. Despite not winning the finals MVP award during MSI and the Summer Split, Ruler still played a pivotal role in establishing JDG's dominance in the LPL.
And just like Faker, Ruler was also part of the South Korean squad that took home the gold medal at the 2022 Asian Games against Taiwan in the finals. South Korea also had to play in the group stage portion, having missed out on being one of the four invited teams who qualified directly to the knockout stage.
Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen
Apex Legends has never really been looked at in The Game Awards up until last year when DarkZero Esports got nominated for The Best Esports Team award. This was down to the team's victory at the ALGS Championship 2022. But that was last year — for the 2023 season, it was all about TSM and the team's awe-inspiring in-game leader (IGL) and CEO of Apex Legends, Phillip “ImperialHal” Dosen.
After going through a slump in the 2022 season when the rise of the controller input was starting to gain traction, ImperialHal would make the decision to swap input settings to start the new season. And with the inclusion of a new team analyst, TSM dominated the ALGS this year with solid and consistent gameplay from the get-go. TSM started off by winning the ALGS Split 1 Pro League in North America, which was followed up with the Split 1 Playoffs title that they won in some style. This also saw ImperialHal pick up his first Monster Energy MVP award.
The game would soon see a drastic meta shift that had TSM go through a bit of a learning curve as they failed to maintain its dominance over NA in the Split 2 Pro League. They ended up finishing sixth in Pro League, but that didn't matter much as TSM entered the Split 2 Playoffs with another near-perfect performance at the second LAN of the year. Unfortunately, it was all for naught as TSM were denied a chance to clinch another title in the sixth round of the finals after some perfect grief play from XSET and FaZe Clan.
However, one could smell blood in the water as TSM looked to still be the most consistent team at LAN, and they proved just that during the ALGS Championship 2023. As DZ won the Split 2 Playoffs, the pressure was also on them to perform but alas, they failed to make it out of the bracket stage. This meant that TSM was the only team in contention to win its second LAN title of the year and they did so in historic fashion with back-to-back-to-back round wins to lift the ALGS trophy in the finals. This came despite TSM being the second-last team to reach match point, which meant they denied six other teams the ultimate victory. And as expected, he walked away with the Monster Energy MVP award once again.
The Game Awards will take place in a few weeks from now as it's expected to take place on Thursday, December 7. Vote for your favourite esports athlete here.
