TOP 20 PLAYERS OF 2019: ZYWOO (1)
Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut takes the No.1 spot in our ranking of the top 20 players of 2019, powered by Xtrfy and LOOT.BET, after a remarkable year that is consigned to the history books.
Top 20 players of 2019: Introduction
For most world-class players, the path to stardom has many twists, turns and bumps. Normally, they begin their grind at a local level and progressively move up the ladder, and even when they eventually become part of the elite, it takes them a few years before they can consistently perform against the best and brightest in the game.
But for ZywOo, it was different. Long before he joined his first professional team, he already seemed to be destined for greatness. The only questions were when he would decide to take the next step in his career and which team would be lucky enough to have such a promising talent in their ranks.
As recently as three years ago, ZywOo's name was making the rounds as a prospect with the potential to wake the sleeping giant of French Counter-Strike from its slumber. It was in 2017 that he started to compete on a regular basis, first with E-Corp and then with WySix, but his first match on record on HLTV.org actually dates back to late 2016, when he played for a mix team called nevermind in the open qualifiers for ECS Season 2’s Development League.
"I started playing CS:Source with my brother and my cousins when I was seven years old. We were mainly playing FFA, surf and this kind of funny stuff. I played my first LAN with them when I was just nine.
"Afterwards, I turned to CS:GO and started playing a lot on FACEIT with my brother. I also played a bit for [French team] dizLown. In 2016, I joined an international mix called Nevermind with players like nexa, EMENK and even ropz for a match or two. We played a lot on FACEIT and also tournament qualifiers."
By mid-2017, ZywOo was already a star in the making, his early exploits lauded by none other than French Counter-Strike legend Richard "shox" Papillon. And those who were unaware of his existence got to know him when he became the first entry in our "One for the future" series of articles, which have shed light on the game's most promising young talents. Only 16 years old at the time, ZywOo also made headlines that summer as he was invited to play in FPL, initially on trial, which gave him the chance to hone his skills and continue to build up his reputation and name.
Even with Envy - whose coach, Damien "maLeK" Marcel, had been impressed while watching him play at Gamers Assembly - already hot on his trail, ZywOo continued to postpone playing on a professional level to finish high school. In the meantime, he continued to wreak havoc in the French sub-top, eventually helping aAa, who had recruited his WySix team, to pick up a domestic title from ESL National Championship Summer 2018, where he averaged a stunning 1.70 rating in the series against MAXISAUCISSE and LDLC.
"It was a mutual effort and agreement between my mother and me. Well, to be honest, my mother did not leave me any choice and I totally respect it. She was afraid that I would fail to become a professional or that I would underperform in the future and struggle to stay at the top.
"She wanted me to have the minimum education to be able to do something besides playing and to continue my studies afterwards.
"[shox’s praise?] I was happy and flattered, but I’m not really the kind of person to pay attention to what other people say. I was fully focused on the game and my goals."
In October 2018, he bid adieu to aAa and finally turned professional as Vitality entered CS:GO with a team featuring the core of the Envy roster that had won the DreamHack Open Cluj-Napoca Major in 2015. He wasted little time in demonstrating his ability as he powered the team to win the DreamHack Open event in Atlanta with a tournament-high 1.49 rating, turning heads with his back-to-back 2.00+ rated maps in the semi-final series against Complexity.
"Vitality was an easy choice. I wanted to continue my journey to the top, and Vitality was the best opportunity for me, especially because it was a French project with some of the best players in the world… How could you refuse to play with the 'Tank'? [laughs].
"I was contacted by several international teams, like Misfits and HellRaisers, but the biggest opportunity was Vitality. I instantly accepted their offer.
"I wasn’t really surprised by how I played in Atlanta because I was just playing the same way I had been playing online. Individually, I was as confident as I had been during our practices against the same type of teams, and it worked out really well at DreamHack Atlanta. However, I was not really confident in my team play as I had just started playing at this level. I was still making some mistakes.
"I didn’t have any specific individual goals for 2019. It was more of a discovery year for me. All the events, all the traveling… It was new to me. My only goal was to gain experience, so that I could make almost no mistakes in-game, and to be able to continue to improve."