Thorin: How GuardiaN became a CSGO legend
Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovács is one of the most legendary snipers in CS:GO history. Known for incredible consistency and lightning-fast flicks in equal measure, in his prime he was one of the deadliest players in the world with an AWP in hand.
Hailing from Slovakia, a country not exactly known for producing elite Counter-Strike players, GuardiaN had to forge his path to the top through CIS teams, working in a second language long before international line-ups were commonplace.
He joined Natus Vincere, where he would be built around as the superstar AWPer, with IGL Danylo ‘Zeus’ Teslenko forging a competitive roster around him.
The Ukrainian org would later sign young prodigy Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev and fans were excited to witness a sizzling dual AWP combo – but this didn’t quite work out as expected.
Unfortunately, this incarnation of Na’Vi would not impress in the playoffs when it really mattered, despite looking unstoppable in the group stages.
After leaving Na’Vi, GuardiaN moved onto FaZe where he would come excruciatingly close to winning the Boston ELEAGUE Major, only to lose out to Cloud9, in one of the greatest CSGO matches of all time. After that, GuardiaN would go onto win some minor titles before returning to s1mple’s side.
Despite being benched not long after returning, GuardiaN will always be remembered as someone who changed the way the game is played to this day.