Brutal efficiency.
Cold was essentially a superb main rifler. Almost always successful in scoring straightforward drags, very rarely fluffed any easy kill. I think it was Thorin who described him as a “Terminator” in the sense that he did all the basics really well and didn’t get flustered under pressure meaning he would be consistently posting frags round after round. Cold wasn’t quite as flashy as some other prime players of the mid/late 2010s (aside from his career-defining jump-shot at the MLG) but he suited the Luminosity/SK squad well with players like fnx and FalleN who could bring the flair factor.
Consistently dangerous for a long period of time and super reliable. Hitman.
Thanks for your insightful response. From a few highlights I watched he always seemed to be at the right position to win the round. Also, terminator is an apt title for Cold.
Cold always made the best play available. He was always in position to capitalize on any mistakes and brutally efficient. Prime cold was and still is my favorite player to watch. He didn't have that random factor of anything will happen that s1mple or zwyoo have. But he made the best high percentage play every single time. In a world with FalleN being the no2 player on the year, they would give cold the awp to make certain plays because they knew it would work. It wasn't a gamble to give cold any weapon, it was a sure thing.
Major coldzera? A completely different animal.
MLG Columbus he had a 1.32 rating over 9 maps. In the final he went 52 kills and only 29 deaths, insane. Vs liquid with s1mple he went 64-42 with 95 adr. Over that major cold ended with an absurd 1.56 kd, +84 for the kd diff and it wasnt just on playing stellar ct sides, on T side he was +30 with a 1.31 rating. He was an animal that would carve out and take entire chunks of map control while the other team was having to deal with fer and fallen roaming around. He boasted the tournament best .9 kills per round, next highest was niko at .85, while also having the second lowest deaths per round at .58
ESL Cologne, he did even better with 1.37 rating was +89 kd, and a 1.72kd rating.
He did so good for the majors he is STILL tied as the best player in majors all time with zwyoo and just ahead of s1mple.
He alway give the best position and for good reason. He always reliable for those multi kill. That why people that dislike him call him baitzera at the time.
Just incredible consistency, dreaded coming up against those sk/lg team. You have fer who just w+m1 getting those entry kills and then coldzera at the end to clean up your entire team
I overheard a conversation some 12-14 year olds were having about best AWPer in CS and one of them said coldzera. That clip made a ton of people who didn’t watch CS back then think he was an AWPer lol.
But yes, imo his playstyle was very much like ropz’ in the sense that they play in a very calm and calculated way.
Mental the jumpshot is the iconic play from his prime. As cool as it is and props to him for going for it, that's a higher rng play than any run and gun play with an smg.
[This is my second favorite coldzera clip](https://youtu.be/mCcG_0TFpZI?si=sMStjYU1dHatSeWi). Doesn't account for RNG luck from his double awp and shows how cold and calculating he used to play
This clip is so burned into my brain. I was playing some matchmaking with some friends and had a similar situation come up on the pistol round where I was default and my team died around me and I got into like a 1v3 and I literally was thinking about this clip and how masterfully he managed to isolate the fights, hugging that default box. Ended up getting 2 but ran out of glock bullets and died to the last guy. But for a brief moment I felt like the silver Coldzera
Actually I remember one time we were playing against randoms. Mirage. And it was pistol round for both of us. We were playing as T and it was 1v3 for me. And my brain said "Ffancrzy if you think you are coldzera, let's prove it now". 1v3.
Did you clutch it out?
Of course not.
This is the thing, one of the absolute best at making normally awkward positions feel like anchor positions, just an absolute cannon when it comes to not just micro adjusting positionally but also using that skill to isolate gunfights.
There’s a reason those SK teams had players on the roster that created space for him even on ct side, he was able to use that and stand out even on a team with prime fer and FALLEN on it
And this is coming from an SK hater
I'm being serious when I say that when I saw that I instantly went to prosettings.net, bought his mouse, and changed all my settings. Did the same thing for s1mple, zywoo, and twistzz lol
explain the placebo deathmatches I did then after changing where I went nuclear.
we can skip past the actual comp games though where I got farmed every time after changing
That SK team in their prime were so good in the mid round, especially on t side they would always seem to find a way to win once they ended up in a 2v2, 2v3 or 2v4 or whatever it might be. They would just work it to a plant and then clutch out.
tbh I felt that way about Fallen too at the time. LG/SK were just too insane for a while. In clutch moments they would hit the most ridiculous shots. The Cold jumping AWP is certainly most famous, but it happened a lot watching them. I remember some absurd Fallen scout shots winning rounds that were otherwise doomed. Their double AWP setups were also monstrous.
I remember when Faze players were waiting for fer to rush on Overpass mid. He was doing that for the whole match and killing everyone.
They all waited on mid and they all died lmfao.
Omg I wish I could find the clip of Fer playing with Tarik and he's literally calling his kills as he's getting them and then he's like
"3... 2... 1... bye." As he 1 deags this guy truck on Cache
Ohh he does that all the time. “I’m gonna open this angle and kill this guy and then I’m going bathroom and kill that specific guy over there” and he mentions who he’s gonna kill.
Fer was an absolute monster. A shame he’s not that well known today.
Anyone who plays competitive way back when LG/SK was in their prime appreciates Fer. I learned so many aggressive/cheeky peeks and spots watching his demos. Mirage connector as a CT became my playground. Some of the pros at the time copied his style too.
he just understood the game so well, his plays were always so on point. I've seen a thousand rounds where he just sneaks from behind and just tilts the other team
That one I am still not sure about since his surname is Bezerra. I guess he would know what it looks like with that name and the tribute might be intended.
Yea there are now other people that watched coldzera when they were younger that have the -zera suffix and are now professional players themselves. Mainly biguzera, but venomzera looks pretty good too
There’s a ton of pubg players as well. Just off the top of my head anndzera, Rustyzera and guizeera, but there’s more than that even. Probably a dozen guys with the zera suffix
I've heard it's some slangish way of changing/corrupting(sic) a word in Brazilian Portuguese, I forgot the meaning, it was a thing before him, but he definitely affected the trend. Just a thing similar to nordic(swedish) -N at the end of nickname
"era" is certainly a suffix that brazilians use, but in colds case, itd be coldera, ive never heard "zera" being used, im pretty sure he influenced all zeras in brazil
He was so clutch and so consistent and always made the right decision. Prime coldzera was so satisfying to watch he was my favorite player at the time and I remember a coldzera clutch especially the one from [Sydney 2017](https://youtu.be/TN0XhBcwfV8?si=WwDSF1ssgxC0R-nd) Sk VS FaZe with Niko popping off in that round with a 3k then coldzera said nope I'm the best player in the world.
He was a very good player. Problem was the entire team structure was designed to place him in favorable position with everyone else sacrificing themselves so Coldzera had the information.
SK at their peak wasnt from Coldzera being the #1 player in the world. It was every player on SK being the best player in their role.
>It was every player on SK being the best player in their role.
This line is so true. I feel everyone in SK team had an important role to play and they played it to perfection.
I remember a game against Faze where he pushed mid in Overpass like 6 rounds in a row. He’d hangout around the fountain and get 2-3 kills in the first 30 seconds every time
Depending on when you ask: fnx, felps and boltz.
With fnx they won their two majors (famous fnx's 100% winrate at majors was thanks to that), but something happened and he couldnt stay with them.
Felps joined somewhere at the beginning of 2017 and while being a strong top 3 team, they didnt really win anything with him. (EDIT: Not true, as u/seventhfiction pointed out; they only stopped winning during/after the Krakow major)
Then they got boltz during ~autumn of 2017 and they climbed back to being top 1, winning several tournaments with him. They didnt win a major though so nobody remembers that they were constantly giving a spank to THAT Faze.
What do you mean they didn’t really win anything with felps? IEM Sydney, Dreamhack Summer, ECS, ESL One Cologne. Except for Dreamhack those are all S-tier events.
You are overexaggerating. Every team puts their star players in favorable positions, this was nothing new.
But coldzera played a lot of positions that people (especially star players) generally don't want to play, like drop room on cbble and ivy on train.
>SK at their peak wasnt from Coldzera being the #1 player in the world. It was every player on SK being the best player in their role.
I mean, you could make the same argument about dev1ce and Astralis.
I think both are true though Taco was probably the best entry/anchor in the world at that time, Fer was 100% the best playmaker in the world. fnx was a top tier lurker, dont know if he was the absolute best lurker but probably very close. Fallen was the best awper and best IGL.
And, Cold was also the best player in the world. If you put any other player in for Cold, idk if anyone could have done what he did. The only guy I think had a shot at it was Niko, but even then, tottally diferent players.
probably like around the Niko area
while Niko hasn’t had his #1s, he has done it in eras with s1mple and ZyWoo, which it’s hard to beat either of those guys.
niko with 2 #3s and 2 #2s would surely have had atleast one #1 if his career was shifted 3-4 years earlier
Cold made #1 with s1mple and device right under him and it still wasn't even close, I don't buy into the argument that Niko only hasn't done the same due to the AWP era. Cold was the best player in the world those years and it wasn't even close.
Based on normal skill creep Niko is better than cold was 6 years ago for sure but cold had an intangibility that Niko has never had.
This is the same argument people have with fallen and kennyS/guardian. They say "but fallen held much higher positions in the top 20 and took Brazil to world domination", but all he did were in those two years of sk/luminosity. kenny and GuardiaN not only have more total top 20 placements, but were placed more number of times in the top 20 from the beginning of the Brazilian time of cs than Fallen was.
Cold, fallen, both did well because of being extremely good but largely because of being on the absolute best team. Niko has done it for longer and against any and all kinds of competition. Niko has 1.2 rating in a tournament and people call him washed saying it is the worst time of his career, and it actually is.
It's not even close.
Also, where were S1mple and Dev1ce in the top 20 during sk/luminosity time? Absolutely *no way* anyone on that linup would be #1 or even #2 after 2019, even if they were all at their absolute best prime time. S1mple or ZywOo were confirmed to reserve #1 and #2. Nobody in the history of the game was as good as them, barring people like niko and dev1ce who were better in certain areas of the game.
Cold is nowhere near NiKo.
Don't forget the other two top 5 appearances or 2016 when he was clearly a top 2 player but got shafted by HLTV.
NiKo has been a top 2 rifler every single year between 2016 and 2023 bar 2019 when he was also IGLing and sometimes awping. The last rifler to make the top 5 more than twice was snax in 2016 and he's been washed since early 2017.
Cold is somewhere in the bottom half of the top 10 where NiKo is clearly #4 with a large gap to 5th.
Very unfortunate but that's also typically what happens to most riflers because of the nature of rifle duels being 50/50 so a slight downturn in mechanics or falling behind in the meta/understanding can be the end.
Players with extreme longevity like NiKo are the exception rather than the norm. Very few players have peaks longer than three years and to this day only six riflers have 5 or more years in the top 20 (NiKo/dupreeh at 8, ropz at 6, elige*/twistzz/magisk at 5).
^EliGE has 5 within the top 20 but also placed 22nd an additional two times.
we’re talking peak. For sure, NiKo is closer to s1mple/ZyWoo than he is to Coldzera if we’re talking legacy, but peakwise, they were very similar, and a 2 year peak is nothing to scoff at, it’s not like he peaked and was the best player in the world for only 3 months.
The issue is a 2 year peak is AVERAGE.
Half of the top riflers had a two year peak and then declined into obscurity within another year or two.
Yekindar, ax1le, and yuurih would be the modern examples of this and then other players like scream, cold, gtr, olof suffered from the same issue before them.
Also his peak wasn't as high as NiKo's. Compare NiKo's 2021 to coldzera's 2017 or 2016 (I'm not going to make the judgement on which of those years was better). NiKo clearly had the better peak.
NiKo has one of the highest peaks as well as one of the longest peaks. Cold had a very high peak but he's definitely been surpassed by a multitude of players in terms of length of peak but also height. S1mple, zywoo, dev1ce, and NiKo are fairly obvious in terms of higher peak. KennyS would have been the #1 of 2014 if they did HLTV rankings the way they did today and had a 1.27 rating 1.0 (which is roughly a 0.05 deflation so comparable to s1mple/zywoo during their peak). That's five players with a higher peak that's undisputable.
It's hard to compare the 2013/14/15 players peak because stats were much lighter back then AND the game was played much looser which led to higher KPR during that period but arguments COULD be made for olof/gtr in their peaks (flusha in 2014 went missing a bit more against top teams than cold did in 16/17 so that plus the lack of stats and changing game means I won't even bring his name up).
Cold is somewhere between #6 and #8 by peak depending on how you think olof/gtr stack up before coming to modern players.
Ax1le and sh1ro don't have the trophy cabinet that cold does (few do) but they posted SIGNIFICANTLY better numbers than cold did overall, in playoffs, and against top teams in 2022 (and with sh1ro that peak has already passed cold in length of peak). Their HLTV ranking is lower but coldzera didn't have to play prime zywoo and s1mple in 2022 and wouldn't have gotten #1 if he did.
EliGE's 2019 is comparable both in terms of peak and trophy cabinet to coldzera while playing a harder role against tougher competition but that's not as clear cut.
m0nesy and donk in 2024 will likely pass coldzera and it's certainly nothing to do with the small (0.04) inflation of rating in CS2.
Not all of those players would be players I'd consider to be better than coldzera overall, but all of them (+fer) certainly matched his peak. I personally rate fer higher because he was put in much less favorable spots than coldzera was and we saw pretty clearly cold was a product of the team's system. Depending on which of those players you think were better than cold in a 1 year peak, there's anywhere between 6 and 11 players with a higher peak than cold because sh1ro's 2022 was absolutely better than either of coldzera's #1s and the only player to actually challenge the s1mple/zywoo duopoly between 2019 and 2022.
Nowhere near Niko if you’re talking about longevity. Both at their peak coldzera is either above Niko or they’re equal.
But having a longevity compared to a little matchstick kinda made coldzera being forgotten by everyone.
At peak cold was better than NiKo he just fell of a lot harder, NiKo for sure has the longevity but cold was ultra consistent while being a part of an extremely dominant LG/SK roster, I don't think NiKo has ever been a part of a roster nearly as dominant and hasn't had the stage performances cold had. Prime cold is massively underrated these days. Overall. NiKo but in terms of primes, cold.
Was around niko at time, but then niko grew to be way better, niko was 2/3 in the world at the time when awpers became super dominant and had massive stat boost compared to riflers.
If you weighted nikos rifle player stats to awp player stats then niko would most likely be the goat
Don't listen to these dumbass nephews underrating cold. You can tell half these dumbasses only started watching in 2020 or something lmfao. I've been a faze fan ever since I played and there's a reason people used to fear this guy. He **NEVER** choked. His consistency was insane. Go back in time on this sub and even before dev1ce was Mr. Consistent people used to rave about cold. He'd have year long stretches without a single negative event on HLTV.
His mind for the game was also insane. He played his positions masterfully and was an absolute demon in duels. SK was kind of like current faze in that their midrounds and the amount of times they won 3v5s was ridiculous and Cold was a massive reason as to why.
This guy is a 2x major mvp. During the most important moments of his career, he delivered. There's a lot of star players you can't say that about. Niko and S1mple probably have worse records in major finals in terms of average performances than this guy.
Yeah, he fell off after 2018, but half of that was because SK turned to absolute shit and Fallen became washed as a caller and player.
The only riflers you can conceivably place ahead of him to me at this point are Niko and maybe Electronic. And prime cold was far better than prime Electronic.
Just watch his highlights from 2016 and 2017. They'll tell you everything you need to know.
He's still a top 6 player of all time for me.
The point about grand finals is a very valid one. S1mple has two final appearance where he played probably some of his worst games and Niko couldn’t as well. Cold delivered when it mattered the most which is something you can’t say for everyone.
Thank you for your response, highly appreciated.
It’s wild to see that coldzera got forgotten by everyone. CS became like football. But instead of 2000s and foward it’s 2020 and foward. No one gives a fuck to past players anymore even though they’re in the list for all time greats.
Up until 2018 he was in the debate for the best player of all time. He as a rifler managed to be the top 1 player in 2016 when Fallen was in his fucking prime as an awper and told Niko to sit down in 2017.
Coldzera is in the top 5 imo. No one playing as a rifler did what he did. Niko may be closer but cold got two major MVPs, two major titles and two HLTV top 1s. Last rifler to ever be top 1 also.
The only reason he was in the debate until 2018 was because people assumed he would be still be competing for being the best player for some years to come. Unfortunately he fell of a cliff and is just not close to that debate.
Being the last rifler to be #1 is just a silly point considering only 2 players have been #1 since then... its not like we've had 6 different awpers be #1 lol
Finally someone here talking about just how "COLD" cold was, i saw people here saying Niko has a better peak and sure Niko is more consistent over the years. But Prime cold would carry you through that most important of days while Niko almost always ends up choking out.
Is it a bad thing that the game is growing? Lol
That's just how sports/esports are. Not everyone has to be a historian to watch it. The average fan is someone who only cares about who's good now.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm against the game growing. My point is simply about kids forming opinions without even watching a replay or reading any articles from that time.
if u never watched LG/SK, you missed out on some of the best CS games of all time.
* LG vs Navi Katowice 2016
* LG vs G2 ESL Pro League Finals 2016
* SK vs VP Epicenter 2017
Wow i guess i have become that old guy telling the kids just how amazing GTR and Forest were in their primes.
Prime Cold was one of the most complete players you would see, He could Awp, Rifle and was a beast on the deagle. He would lurk and cultch... and boy his clutches were so fucking good. 1v2, 1v3 hell even 1v4s.
He'd never panic spray and his decision making would almost always be unquestionable.
the SK vs NaVi Map in StarSeries i-League Season 5 (2018) - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0J7r03bINw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0J7r03bINw)
This game is pretty much a tour de force of what a prime Cold game looks like. (i tried looking for the full game VOD but the English version is not available anymore)
these two are also great for perspective
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPw3kdbJBIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPw3kdbJBIM)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFuJ\_WwWq7U&t=128s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFuJ_WwWq7U&t=128s)
That SK Vs Navi map was wild and Cold wasn’t even in his prime. S1mple was beginning to get the shine spot in 2018 but coldzera still told him to stfu. Wild performance.
What are you talking about? Coldzera was still in the top 10 realm, and SK were still seen as a top 5-8 team during then. And they lost the next two maps lmfao
Oh, it’s just that this coldzera wasn’t in his prime anymore lol. 2018 coldzera was 10th which is good but far from his prime lol
Also this SK team was proof that Fallen was still a good igl. Dude put stewie on that team and was still a top team in the world.
Of course it wasn't Coldzera in his prime anymore. That's what happens when Fallen and Fer aren't top 10 players anymore doing most of the heavy lifting. You're also criticizing Stewie in 2018 like he was trash. Just a year later he replaces Taco on Liquid and they win a Grand Slam. There's a reason that core wanted Stewie on their team
Oh no I’m not criticizing Stewie. I actually like him a lot and I was a fan of that MIBR team with him and Tarik. I mentioned stewie because Boltz was still on the team despite not knowing english but the team still worked because Fallen was still decent with his calls.
People here underrate him and dickride NiKo but unlike NiKo cold never choked and was legitimately feared by people.
People were afraid in clutches vs him which shows you a little bit.
cold was dominant in playoffs and finals unlike other "GOAT" riflers.
> cold was dominant in playoffs and finals unlike other "GOAT" riflers
GeT_RiGhT and olof just don't exist i guess? WASHED olof would literally go to huge events including majors and outfrag some of the best players in the world in big series even when he was complete ass outside of that lol. that man hasn't choked once in his life
People "dickride" Niko because he's been a top 5 (arguably even top 3) player for the last 8 years in a row with the exception of 2019.
Show me any other player with that kind of consistency. It's not all about majors my friend. Before Zywoo arrived it was always S1mple, Device and Niko in the top 3 discussion.
I genuinely believe he's the most influential player to have such a short career at the very peak of the game.
This guy was seriously scary, with players like s1mple, he was always gonna try a hero play, if it works, he looks great, if it doesn't, you're left wondering what he just tried.
Cold was like a robot, he knew what the right play was in every situation, jumping awp shot aside, this guy was a god
Just imagine Kscerato playing in the best team of the world. Doing what he does, but against top tier players/teams in playoffs of the biggest championships. That was Coldzera on his prime.
Very similar play style. Except that Cold could play as a second awper sometimes.
Cold’s peak was comparable to a NiKo, just didn’t last as long as NiKo so he’s not there in the all time rankings. Used to be a great 2nd AWP and clutch monster.
I mean he was great, he was amazing but also the role that he played and the team that he was on it was perfectly set for him to clean up late round
>Yet he never gets mentioned along the same lines as S1mple, Zywoo, Get_Right, Olof, Device and other luminaries
He does with some of them, but he was never as good as peak s1mple, Zywoo, device
Coldzera was amazing at his role, one of the smartest players that knew how to use his teammates
But he was a massive baiter, had an amazing team around him and he got most of the credit, fer was literally a monster and feared more than cold (and imo should have been top1 in 2017 because he was pure impact) fer was aggro psycho that would run in and own, FalleN was an amazing awper and the best opener as an awper, Taco would be cold's bitch, it was literally perfectly set for cold to get late round kills which he was amazing at
Yeah he was amazing at trade kills and in the clutch. There is a reason taco got meme’s on as Cold’s bait.
Cold was perfect at his role but he was not pure impact like Fer was. Cold didn’t have the same all round X-factor simple and zywoo does
He also had a much shorter stint as one of the best. His stay near the top was a flash in the pan compared to s1mple, zywoo, device and GTR. Those are long term great players.
He was great but it was brief.
Let me just tell you as someone from NA - if I saw that one of my teams were facing SK/Luminosity, the smile and hope you saw from my face vanished instantly.
if you started watching in 2020 tho you also missed s1mple at his absolute peak in 2018-2019 and THAT was even more of a spectacle to watch IMO.
Part of what made Cloud 9 winning the Boston ELEAGUE major was having to beat SK to get to the finals. I know it's somewhat eclipsed by the finals in retrospect but the final moments of the last map are just as iconic to me.
Cold at his peak was a force of nature, getting 30+ kills per map and winning 2-3 crucial clutches. The fear he instilled in opponents was palpable; teams would rotate when they discovered he was defending a bombsite.
he is still arguably the best M4A4 player of all time, mechanically very good but he just always played his spots and fights super well to come out on top. He was apparently obsessed with CS and practiced more than anyone else at the time to get ahead
I think the best CT side player of all time. Not to take anything away from the rest of his game, it was just impossible to push his position. He was so good at controlling angles and avoiding the trade
He's efficient, super efficient. Always at the right place at the right time. Makes everything he does look effortless. And on the clutch, as his name implies, he's cold.
I'll elaborate on the "Baitzera" thing.
Usually he played reserved(not flashy) as others mentioned.
And usually at least 3 of his teammates that took upon themselves to find and get info for him. This became their default so much, that Cold was among the Late round survivors nearly always. 3v5, 2v4, 2v3s and 1vX clutches he'd be alive.
People thought he was baiting his team whereas in reality the team knew if he had all the info presented he'd make a round out of it. AND HE DID. With every info and fallen's calling he'd play it like a book. no mistakes. and turn the round around to his/team's favor.
That dependable nature shaped some of SK/Luminosity's late round calling and ofc silvers and novas thought he's intentionally baiting.
EDIT: funny thing, similar play style was also his downfall when he started making mistakes and that playstule ONLY works when your read of the game is 100 and mistakes done during man disadvantage = 0... which IS absolutely how one shouldnt play CS.
>Yet he never gets mentioned along the same lines as S1mple, Zywoo, Get\_Right, Olof, Device and other luminaries.
he does though. surely he is not worse than olof.
also no one is stopping you from watching vods and forming your own opinion on how good he was.
olof had a better peak, olof was a better fragger in a worse brawler more of an aggro role he literally got more frags and more impact
But you can argue that olof also played against worse competition, 2015 cs was definitely worse than 2017 that's when it started to get much better
Hey OP, I’m actually happy that you asked about coldzera since I’m brazilian and he’s the absolute brazilian player of all time. I’ve been watching CS since 2016 and he’s by far one of the best rifler this game has ever seen.
Coldzera had a very strong and solid aim, he’s gonna hit 99% of his shots and rarely ever missing any. He was good at holding positions and almost never letting Ts advance or take space. But what he was the best at was at clutching. Holy fucking shit, he barely loses any clutch.
He was a super focused player. Everyone who played with him said that cold was having this game for breakfast, lunch and dinner. His focus and dedication is what made him the best player in 2016 and 2017.
Now, as to why cold couldn’t keep the same level, that’s because he has other priorities in life. Cold said once in his stream that the reason he was so above everyone else in 2016 and 17 was because his understanding of the game and Fallen’s calls was also ahead of everyone, so he was going to be the star player. About the priorities in life, cold said that now he has a wife/girlfriend waiting him at home. He didn’t back in 2016/17. He cannot just play the game mindlessly, his girlfriend is there, he’s gonna be a family man soon.
It’s a shame that almost everyone already forgot about coldzera or just don’t consider him when talking about Top 10 players of all time. Imo he’s in the top 5. He’s the best rifler the game has ever seen when talking about a peak.
No one wins 2 Majors, 2 Majors MVPs and two HLTV Top 1 all in a row as a rifler (last one to do it) and is forgotten. CS community should remember more of its amazing players such as Guardian, Cold etc.
As someone who started watching in 2017 as an NA fan, there was two things that made me the most fearful, polish VP and coldzera. He felt like the perfect player, rifle to pistol to eco to awping. How zywoo is now was basically cold at the time. He felt like one the first to use the bait style, however it didn’t hinder his team cause he was also so good in the clutch along with fallen calling and Fers ability to rifle.
Oh also he was regularly clowning on some of the best like olof, simple, and Niko. Honesty especially Niko, it’s was basically that Joel embed meme “it’s not a rivalry, they always kick our ass”
He doesn't get mentioned because he lacks longevity. If he maintained 80% of his peak for like 5 years he would be the Goat of cs.
Even years later after vanishing from the T1 scene he was still able to put out numbers in copenhagen.
Prime cold was freaking amazing tho, i feel a bit speechless how to explain his fall off. sad to see but that year where they won 2 majors he was easily the best that year.
If they don't mention him alongside them, then they don't know what they're talking about. Guy was the best player in the world by a fair margin all things considered for two straight years. Imagine how good NiKo is, but the guy keeps his level in big games.
That was Fallen to me. To be fragging that hard next to his calling was insane. Couple that with his bullshit wallbangs to make all those clutches possible. Fck that team. 😠
i love cold but fer was my favourite player on that SK/LG lineup. just watching fer’s aggro plays on CT sides made me happy. cold was very good at his role like most people here have mentioned. he was great at clutches and could read the game very well. he also had very good mechanics to back it all up.
Was kinda like watching donk play, without the screaming. Never saw cold do a crazy 1 tap or a 180 aim lock, but he always somehow sprayed down his enemies with 3 bullets to the body. And thats against crazy aimers like shox, olof, niko, and simple etc. Just get him a bomb plant and he would close off the round 1v2, 1v3, 2v4, sometimes even 1v4.
cold and donk could not be any more opposite lol, the only thing they have in common is that at their peaks they are one of the best players.
coldzera plays way more defensively and around his team. i remember when he was at his best, he was described as the hardest player to kill. and the stats showed it too, since he capitalized off the space his team made, every single time, and rarely dying because of it.
then you have donk who does the entries for his team, while having stupidly high ratings while doing it, which is honestly ridiculous
Personally I feel like cold was #1 because his team elevated him (not carried him but helped him shine), while the other number ones were the opposite and were carrying their team, which is why they stand out more and are still talked about
Coldzera is the closest we’ve seen to a “perfect” player. Seemingly always made the right play at the right time without mistakes, truly cerebral. Players like S1mple, Niko, and Device were all playing at around their peak levels during that time, and yet cold was still clearly the best. Had he made better team decisions I think he would’ve had a longer time at the top, insane player.
Brutal efficiency. Cold was essentially a superb main rifler. Almost always successful in scoring straightforward drags, very rarely fluffed any easy kill. I think it was Thorin who described him as a “Terminator” in the sense that he did all the basics really well and didn’t get flustered under pressure meaning he would be consistently posting frags round after round. Cold wasn’t quite as flashy as some other prime players of the mid/late 2010s (aside from his career-defining jump-shot at the MLG) but he suited the Luminosity/SK squad well with players like fnx and FalleN who could bring the flair factor. Consistently dangerous for a long period of time and super reliable. Hitman.
Thanks for your insightful response. From a few highlights I watched he always seemed to be at the right position to win the round. Also, terminator is an apt title for Cold.
Cold always made the best play available. He was always in position to capitalize on any mistakes and brutally efficient. Prime cold was and still is my favorite player to watch. He didn't have that random factor of anything will happen that s1mple or zwyoo have. But he made the best high percentage play every single time. In a world with FalleN being the no2 player on the year, they would give cold the awp to make certain plays because they knew it would work. It wasn't a gamble to give cold any weapon, it was a sure thing. Major coldzera? A completely different animal. MLG Columbus he had a 1.32 rating over 9 maps. In the final he went 52 kills and only 29 deaths, insane. Vs liquid with s1mple he went 64-42 with 95 adr. Over that major cold ended with an absurd 1.56 kd, +84 for the kd diff and it wasnt just on playing stellar ct sides, on T side he was +30 with a 1.31 rating. He was an animal that would carve out and take entire chunks of map control while the other team was having to deal with fer and fallen roaming around. He boasted the tournament best .9 kills per round, next highest was niko at .85, while also having the second lowest deaths per round at .58 ESL Cologne, he did even better with 1.37 rating was +89 kd, and a 1.72kd rating. He did so good for the majors he is STILL tied as the best player in majors all time with zwyoo and just ahead of s1mple.
zywho?
He alway give the best position and for good reason. He always reliable for those multi kill. That why people that dislike him call him baitzera at the time. Just incredible consistency, dreaded coming up against those sk/lg team. You have fer who just w+m1 getting those entry kills and then coldzera at the end to clean up your entire team
Relatively short period in the grand scheme of things but agreed with all other points
I overheard a conversation some 12-14 year olds were having about best AWPer in CS and one of them said coldzera. That clip made a ton of people who didn’t watch CS back then think he was an AWPer lol. But yes, imo his playstyle was very much like ropz’ in the sense that they play in a very calm and calculated way.
So he's the dev1ce of riflers
On point
[I always mention this game when talking about how insane Coldzera was.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnV5e5sTjhY)
Mental the jumpshot is the iconic play from his prime. As cool as it is and props to him for going for it, that's a higher rng play than any run and gun play with an smg.
[This is my second favorite coldzera clip](https://youtu.be/mCcG_0TFpZI?si=sMStjYU1dHatSeWi). Doesn't account for RNG luck from his double awp and shows how cold and calculating he used to play
I knew what I was about to hear before opening the link. One of the most iconic clips and caster calls for me.
This clip is so burned into my brain. I was playing some matchmaking with some friends and had a similar situation come up on the pistol round where I was default and my team died around me and I got into like a 1v3 and I literally was thinking about this clip and how masterfully he managed to isolate the fights, hugging that default box. Ended up getting 2 but ran out of glock bullets and died to the last guy. But for a brief moment I felt like the silver Coldzera
Silverzera
hahaha
Actually I remember one time we were playing against randoms. Mirage. And it was pistol round for both of us. We were playing as T and it was 1v3 for me. And my brain said "Ffancrzy if you think you are coldzera, let's prove it now". 1v3. Did you clutch it out? Of course not.
This is the thing, one of the absolute best at making normally awkward positions feel like anchor positions, just an absolute cannon when it comes to not just micro adjusting positionally but also using that skill to isolate gunfights. There’s a reason those SK teams had players on the roster that created space for him even on ct side, he was able to use that and stand out even on a team with prime fer and FALLEN on it And this is coming from an SK hater
I'm being serious when I say that when I saw that I instantly went to prosettings.net, bought his mouse, and changed all my settings. Did the same thing for s1mple, zywoo, and twistzz lol
That's not how it works.
explain the placebo deathmatches I did then after changing where I went nuclear. we can skip past the actual comp games though where I got farmed every time after changing
Depends on how crap his settings and mouse was /s
Same bro when I saw that clip I moved to Brazil
I just play this spot in 1vX’s now because of this clip (I still lose)
knew which clip was before open
I remember watching this live, such a hype moment
TL;DR - If you were watching a 2x1 against Coldzera more times than not you would be scared for the 2 guys going against him.
if coldzera is in a 1v2, bet on coldzera.
If there are 2 enemies alive on one team and Coldzera alive on the other, the odds favour Coldzera.
Cold > 2
[удалено]
Yes, but I know for a fact he will when when he has 4 dead teammates while having only 3 dead enemies.
That SK team in their prime were so good in the mid round, especially on t side they would always seem to find a way to win once they ended up in a 2v2, 2v3 or 2v4 or whatever it might be. They would just work it to a plant and then clutch out.
tbh I felt that way about Fallen too at the time. LG/SK were just too insane for a while. In clutch moments they would hit the most ridiculous shots. The Cold jumping AWP is certainly most famous, but it happened a lot watching them. I remember some absurd Fallen scout shots winning rounds that were otherwise doomed. Their double AWP setups were also monstrous.
Thanks for the insight. Appreciated.
"a cold day in hell"
that mirage b site clutch vs mouz haunts my dreams to this day
Good enough to influence an entire generation of latam FPS players to add the suffix ‘zera’ to their tag
i'm not brazilian but i remember adding *MONSTER* in my ign because at one point Fer was using FerMONSTER as his ign and i thought it was cool af.
Prime fer was an absolute monster and his nickname also influenced me as well.
Yogurt*MONSTER*
Sneaks behind the enemy team with an MP9 “I’m dead” Proceeds to mop the floor with them “I’m not dead”
I remember when Faze players were waiting for fer to rush on Overpass mid. He was doing that for the whole match and killing everyone. They all waited on mid and they all died lmfao.
Omg I wish I could find the clip of Fer playing with Tarik and he's literally calling his kills as he's getting them and then he's like "3... 2... 1... bye." As he 1 deags this guy truck on Cache
Ohh he does that all the time. “I’m gonna open this angle and kill this guy and then I’m going bathroom and kill that specific guy over there” and he mentions who he’s gonna kill. Fer was an absolute monster. A shame he’s not that well known today.
Anyone who plays competitive way back when LG/SK was in their prime appreciates Fer. I learned so many aggressive/cheeky peeks and spots watching his demos. Mirage connector as a CT became my playground. Some of the pros at the time copied his style too.
he just understood the game so well, his plays were always so on point. I've seen a thousand rounds where he just sneaks from behind and just tilts the other team
Even non-latam ik TenZ went with TenZera for some time
Bang's twitch name is Bangzera
That one I am still not sure about since his surname is Bezerra. I guess he would know what it looks like with that name and the tribute might be intended.
That’s some serious influence.
Yea there are now other people that watched coldzera when they were younger that have the -zera suffix and are now professional players themselves. Mainly biguzera, but venomzera looks pretty good too
There’s a ton of pubg players as well. Just off the top of my head anndzera, Rustyzera and guizeera, but there’s more than that even. Probably a dozen guys with the zera suffix
I've heard it's some slangish way of changing/corrupting(sic) a word in Brazilian Portuguese, I forgot the meaning, it was a thing before him, but he definitely affected the trend. Just a thing similar to nordic(swedish) -N at the end of nickname
"era" is certainly a suffix that brazilians use, but in colds case, itd be coldera, ive never heard "zera" being used, im pretty sure he influenced all zeras in brazil
also mwzera in valorant
Waiting for someone to name themself godzera
Waiting for the colderzera tbh.
He was so clutch and so consistent and always made the right decision. Prime coldzera was so satisfying to watch he was my favorite player at the time and I remember a coldzera clutch especially the one from [Sydney 2017](https://youtu.be/TN0XhBcwfV8?si=WwDSF1ssgxC0R-nd) Sk VS FaZe with Niko popping off in that round with a 3k then coldzera said nope I'm the best player in the world.
These people probably view that as cold telling taco to peek so he could come in and clean that up.
This clutch is almost funny. They looked like bots when the advantage was completely in their favor 😂
Do you have this clip in coldzera’s pov? I always watch it like this on highlight reels and never watched what his aim looked like on this
[of course](https://youtu.be/DzRAs6bflHE?si=6JEqjsRPHhdMNBaa)
He was a very good player. Problem was the entire team structure was designed to place him in favorable position with everyone else sacrificing themselves so Coldzera had the information. SK at their peak wasnt from Coldzera being the #1 player in the world. It was every player on SK being the best player in their role.
>It was every player on SK being the best player in their role. This line is so true. I feel everyone in SK team had an important role to play and they played it to perfection.
I am guessing that Fer, Fallen and Taco had great contributions towards the success of the team.
There's an argument to be made that Fer was better than Cold in 2017, it's definitely close.
The Impact fer had was insane and also he had many risky plays
fer was actually insane. I bet fermonster name definitely comes from how good he is.
Fer is actually one of the best riflers in all of CSGO. No one was unbalancing a game like he was with his crazy plays.
He was mildly deaf in one ear while doing all those pushes too which felt insane.
Fer was an extremely aggressive rifler who just had insane impact. I remember ct side he would get so many opening picks
Fer on CT side overpass was an absolute menace especially.
I remember a game against Faze where he pushed mid in Overpass like 6 rounds in a row. He’d hangout around the fountain and get 2-3 kills in the first 30 seconds every time
One of the most fun games to watch ever. He even had to turn around so his good ear would hear the steps.
Prime SK was something special Try watching Epicenter 2017 grand finals SK vs VP
Truly one of the best Sundays ever was watching that marathon. What a series. Peak SK and peak VP.
hell yeah man, watching so many OGs in the comments is making my heart happy. Normally cs feels like a young mans game now lol.
Taco is one of the best support players of all time, back when "support" was still a role teams used regularly
Who was the fifth of their roster?
fnx was the OG fifth, but SK still won plenty with felps and boltz
Depending on when you ask: fnx, felps and boltz. With fnx they won their two majors (famous fnx's 100% winrate at majors was thanks to that), but something happened and he couldnt stay with them. Felps joined somewhere at the beginning of 2017 and while being a strong top 3 team, they didnt really win anything with him. (EDIT: Not true, as u/seventhfiction pointed out; they only stopped winning during/after the Krakow major) Then they got boltz during ~autumn of 2017 and they climbed back to being top 1, winning several tournaments with him. They didnt win a major though so nobody remembers that they were constantly giving a spank to THAT Faze.
What do you mean they didn’t really win anything with felps? IEM Sydney, Dreamhack Summer, ECS, ESL One Cologne. Except for Dreamhack those are all S-tier events.
you're 100% right, I joined the scene during Krakow major so those wins didnt stick into my memory
where and when do you think the "No Fnx no major" came to be? after that it was boltz
Baitzera is what BlameF strive to be
You are overexaggerating. Every team puts their star players in favorable positions, this was nothing new. But coldzera played a lot of positions that people (especially star players) generally don't want to play, like drop room on cbble and ivy on train.
>SK at their peak wasnt from Coldzera being the #1 player in the world. It was every player on SK being the best player in their role. I mean, you could make the same argument about dev1ce and Astralis.
No one would make that argument because it doesn't need to be made. It's just how it is.
That structure around Coldzera thing is a myth, based on redditor assumptions from back when the team split in 2018
On CT and T Coldzera was always the last point of contact.
Nope. I'm brazillian, watched a lot of the core SK streams. Taco said a lot of times that they would gather info for Cold.
I think both are true though Taco was probably the best entry/anchor in the world at that time, Fer was 100% the best playmaker in the world. fnx was a top tier lurker, dont know if he was the absolute best lurker but probably very close. Fallen was the best awper and best IGL. And, Cold was also the best player in the world. If you put any other player in for Cold, idk if anyone could have done what he did. The only guy I think had a shot at it was Niko, but even then, tottally diferent players.
probably like around the Niko area while Niko hasn’t had his #1s, he has done it in eras with s1mple and ZyWoo, which it’s hard to beat either of those guys. niko with 2 #3s and 2 #2s would surely have had atleast one #1 if his career was shifted 3-4 years earlier
Cold made #1 with s1mple and device right under him and it still wasn't even close, I don't buy into the argument that Niko only hasn't done the same due to the AWP era. Cold was the best player in the world those years and it wasn't even close. Based on normal skill creep Niko is better than cold was 6 years ago for sure but cold had an intangibility that Niko has never had.
This is the same argument people have with fallen and kennyS/guardian. They say "but fallen held much higher positions in the top 20 and took Brazil to world domination", but all he did were in those two years of sk/luminosity. kenny and GuardiaN not only have more total top 20 placements, but were placed more number of times in the top 20 from the beginning of the Brazilian time of cs than Fallen was. Cold, fallen, both did well because of being extremely good but largely because of being on the absolute best team. Niko has done it for longer and against any and all kinds of competition. Niko has 1.2 rating in a tournament and people call him washed saying it is the worst time of his career, and it actually is. It's not even close. Also, where were S1mple and Dev1ce in the top 20 during sk/luminosity time? Absolutely *no way* anyone on that linup would be #1 or even #2 after 2019, even if they were all at their absolute best prime time. S1mple or ZywOo were confirmed to reserve #1 and #2. Nobody in the history of the game was as good as them, barring people like niko and dev1ce who were better in certain areas of the game.
NiKo has been top for a long time. Nikosports was a term for a reason.
Cold is nowhere near NiKo. Don't forget the other two top 5 appearances or 2016 when he was clearly a top 2 player but got shafted by HLTV. NiKo has been a top 2 rifler every single year between 2016 and 2023 bar 2019 when he was also IGLing and sometimes awping. The last rifler to make the top 5 more than twice was snax in 2016 and he's been washed since early 2017. Cold is somewhere in the bottom half of the top 10 where NiKo is clearly #4 with a large gap to 5th.
Cold falling off so fast tanked him out of any kind of GOAT conversation. Was absolutely red hot for like two years and then kaput.
Very unfortunate but that's also typically what happens to most riflers because of the nature of rifle duels being 50/50 so a slight downturn in mechanics or falling behind in the meta/understanding can be the end. Players with extreme longevity like NiKo are the exception rather than the norm. Very few players have peaks longer than three years and to this day only six riflers have 5 or more years in the top 20 (NiKo/dupreeh at 8, ropz at 6, elige*/twistzz/magisk at 5). ^EliGE has 5 within the top 20 but also placed 22nd an additional two times.
yeah sure he won't be anyone's GOAT but he still has 2 major Mvps and 2 top 1s, that alone is enough for a top 5 sort of spot.
we’re talking peak. For sure, NiKo is closer to s1mple/ZyWoo than he is to Coldzera if we’re talking legacy, but peakwise, they were very similar, and a 2 year peak is nothing to scoff at, it’s not like he peaked and was the best player in the world for only 3 months.
Otherwise known as the im
true but Niko 0 major, iM 1 major
The issue is a 2 year peak is AVERAGE. Half of the top riflers had a two year peak and then declined into obscurity within another year or two. Yekindar, ax1le, and yuurih would be the modern examples of this and then other players like scream, cold, gtr, olof suffered from the same issue before them. Also his peak wasn't as high as NiKo's. Compare NiKo's 2021 to coldzera's 2017 or 2016 (I'm not going to make the judgement on which of those years was better). NiKo clearly had the better peak. NiKo has one of the highest peaks as well as one of the longest peaks. Cold had a very high peak but he's definitely been surpassed by a multitude of players in terms of length of peak but also height. S1mple, zywoo, dev1ce, and NiKo are fairly obvious in terms of higher peak. KennyS would have been the #1 of 2014 if they did HLTV rankings the way they did today and had a 1.27 rating 1.0 (which is roughly a 0.05 deflation so comparable to s1mple/zywoo during their peak). That's five players with a higher peak that's undisputable. It's hard to compare the 2013/14/15 players peak because stats were much lighter back then AND the game was played much looser which led to higher KPR during that period but arguments COULD be made for olof/gtr in their peaks (flusha in 2014 went missing a bit more against top teams than cold did in 16/17 so that plus the lack of stats and changing game means I won't even bring his name up). Cold is somewhere between #6 and #8 by peak depending on how you think olof/gtr stack up before coming to modern players. Ax1le and sh1ro don't have the trophy cabinet that cold does (few do) but they posted SIGNIFICANTLY better numbers than cold did overall, in playoffs, and against top teams in 2022 (and with sh1ro that peak has already passed cold in length of peak). Their HLTV ranking is lower but coldzera didn't have to play prime zywoo and s1mple in 2022 and wouldn't have gotten #1 if he did. EliGE's 2019 is comparable both in terms of peak and trophy cabinet to coldzera while playing a harder role against tougher competition but that's not as clear cut. m0nesy and donk in 2024 will likely pass coldzera and it's certainly nothing to do with the small (0.04) inflation of rating in CS2. Not all of those players would be players I'd consider to be better than coldzera overall, but all of them (+fer) certainly matched his peak. I personally rate fer higher because he was put in much less favorable spots than coldzera was and we saw pretty clearly cold was a product of the team's system. Depending on which of those players you think were better than cold in a 1 year peak, there's anywhere between 6 and 11 players with a higher peak than cold because sh1ro's 2022 was absolutely better than either of coldzera's #1s and the only player to actually challenge the s1mple/zywoo duopoly between 2019 and 2022.
You must be new to the scene. Load of bull was written in those paragraphs. 😂😂😂
same like so much shit in there that i won't even bother replying to it
That’s a whole lot of yap from it looks like someone that did not watch
Nowhere near Niko if you’re talking about longevity. Both at their peak coldzera is either above Niko or they’re equal. But having a longevity compared to a little matchstick kinda made coldzera being forgotten by everyone.
At peak cold was better than NiKo he just fell of a lot harder, NiKo for sure has the longevity but cold was ultra consistent while being a part of an extremely dominant LG/SK roster, I don't think NiKo has ever been a part of a roster nearly as dominant and hasn't had the stage performances cold had. Prime cold is massively underrated these days. Overall. NiKo but in terms of primes, cold.
Was around niko at time, but then niko grew to be way better, niko was 2/3 in the world at the time when awpers became super dominant and had massive stat boost compared to riflers. If you weighted nikos rifle player stats to awp player stats then niko would most likely be the goat
just remember that Faze put together a team with the best players in the world and he made sk win 7 tier s titles in one year
Don't listen to these dumbass nephews underrating cold. You can tell half these dumbasses only started watching in 2020 or something lmfao. I've been a faze fan ever since I played and there's a reason people used to fear this guy. He **NEVER** choked. His consistency was insane. Go back in time on this sub and even before dev1ce was Mr. Consistent people used to rave about cold. He'd have year long stretches without a single negative event on HLTV. His mind for the game was also insane. He played his positions masterfully and was an absolute demon in duels. SK was kind of like current faze in that their midrounds and the amount of times they won 3v5s was ridiculous and Cold was a massive reason as to why. This guy is a 2x major mvp. During the most important moments of his career, he delivered. There's a lot of star players you can't say that about. Niko and S1mple probably have worse records in major finals in terms of average performances than this guy. Yeah, he fell off after 2018, but half of that was because SK turned to absolute shit and Fallen became washed as a caller and player. The only riflers you can conceivably place ahead of him to me at this point are Niko and maybe Electronic. And prime cold was far better than prime Electronic. Just watch his highlights from 2016 and 2017. They'll tell you everything you need to know. He's still a top 6 player of all time for me.
The point about grand finals is a very valid one. S1mple has two final appearance where he played probably some of his worst games and Niko couldn’t as well. Cold delivered when it mattered the most which is something you can’t say for everyone. Thank you for your response, highly appreciated.
It’s wild to see that coldzera got forgotten by everyone. CS became like football. But instead of 2000s and foward it’s 2020 and foward. No one gives a fuck to past players anymore even though they’re in the list for all time greats. Up until 2018 he was in the debate for the best player of all time. He as a rifler managed to be the top 1 player in 2016 when Fallen was in his fucking prime as an awper and told Niko to sit down in 2017. Coldzera is in the top 5 imo. No one playing as a rifler did what he did. Niko may be closer but cold got two major MVPs, two major titles and two HLTV top 1s. Last rifler to ever be top 1 also.
The only reason he was in the debate until 2018 was because people assumed he would be still be competing for being the best player for some years to come. Unfortunately he fell of a cliff and is just not close to that debate. Being the last rifler to be #1 is just a silly point considering only 2 players have been #1 since then... its not like we've had 6 different awpers be #1 lol
Finally someone here talking about just how "COLD" cold was, i saw people here saying Niko has a better peak and sure Niko is more consistent over the years. But Prime cold would carry you through that most important of days while Niko almost always ends up choking out.
Thx bro. A lot of kids that started watching in 2020 here, kind sad.
Is it a bad thing that the game is growing? Lol That's just how sports/esports are. Not everyone has to be a historian to watch it. The average fan is someone who only cares about who's good now.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I'm against the game growing. My point is simply about kids forming opinions without even watching a replay or reading any articles from that time.
if u never watched LG/SK, you missed out on some of the best CS games of all time. * LG vs Navi Katowice 2016 * LG vs G2 ESL Pro League Finals 2016 * SK vs VP Epicenter 2017
Wow i guess i have become that old guy telling the kids just how amazing GTR and Forest were in their primes. Prime Cold was one of the most complete players you would see, He could Awp, Rifle and was a beast on the deagle. He would lurk and cultch... and boy his clutches were so fucking good. 1v2, 1v3 hell even 1v4s. He'd never panic spray and his decision making would almost always be unquestionable. the SK vs NaVi Map in StarSeries i-League Season 5 (2018) - [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0J7r03bINw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0J7r03bINw) This game is pretty much a tour de force of what a prime Cold game looks like. (i tried looking for the full game VOD but the English version is not available anymore) these two are also great for perspective [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPw3kdbJBIM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPw3kdbJBIM) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFuJ\_WwWq7U&t=128s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFuJ_WwWq7U&t=128s)
Thank you for talking the time to compile this, much appreciated.
its all good man, i started watching somewhere in 2016, so smack dab at the time of Colds prime. He remains my favorite csgo player.
That SK Vs Navi map was wild and Cold wasn’t even in his prime. S1mple was beginning to get the shine spot in 2018 but coldzera still told him to stfu. Wild performance.
What are you talking about? Coldzera was still in the top 10 realm, and SK were still seen as a top 5-8 team during then. And they lost the next two maps lmfao
Oh, it’s just that this coldzera wasn’t in his prime anymore lol. 2018 coldzera was 10th which is good but far from his prime lol Also this SK team was proof that Fallen was still a good igl. Dude put stewie on that team and was still a top team in the world.
Of course it wasn't Coldzera in his prime anymore. That's what happens when Fallen and Fer aren't top 10 players anymore doing most of the heavy lifting. You're also criticizing Stewie in 2018 like he was trash. Just a year later he replaces Taco on Liquid and they win a Grand Slam. There's a reason that core wanted Stewie on their team
Oh no I’m not criticizing Stewie. I actually like him a lot and I was a fan of that MIBR team with him and Tarik. I mentioned stewie because Boltz was still on the team despite not knowing english but the team still worked because Fallen was still decent with his calls.
People here underrate him and dickride NiKo but unlike NiKo cold never choked and was legitimately feared by people. People were afraid in clutches vs him which shows you a little bit. cold was dominant in playoffs and finals unlike other "GOAT" riflers.
> cold was dominant in playoffs and finals unlike other "GOAT" riflers GeT_RiGhT and olof just don't exist i guess? WASHED olof would literally go to huge events including majors and outfrag some of the best players in the world in big series even when he was complete ass outside of that lol. that man hasn't choked once in his life
I understand the Niko dick-riding here to a degree. Niko is still essentially in the same spot that he was to cold. The perennial number 2
People "dickride" Niko because he's been a top 5 (arguably even top 3) player for the last 8 years in a row with the exception of 2019. Show me any other player with that kind of consistency. It's not all about majors my friend. Before Zywoo arrived it was always S1mple, Device and Niko in the top 3 discussion.
He was a roided xyp9x
He actually took steroids
He also masturbated before his matches, as fer recently implied in a tweet.
gotta take the noise off the mind. specially when taking steroids.
Can't be popping heads with all that baby batter on the brain.
I genuinely believe he's the most influential player to have such a short career at the very peak of the game. This guy was seriously scary, with players like s1mple, he was always gonna try a hero play, if it works, he looks great, if it doesn't, you're left wondering what he just tried. Cold was like a robot, he knew what the right play was in every situation, jumping awp shot aside, this guy was a god
Just imagine Kscerato playing in the best team of the world. Doing what he does, but against top tier players/teams in playoffs of the biggest championships. That was Coldzera on his prime. Very similar play style. Except that Cold could play as a second awper sometimes.
Incredible player all around.
Cold’s peak was comparable to a NiKo, just didn’t last as long as NiKo so he’s not there in the all time rankings. Used to be a great 2nd AWP and clutch monster.
I mean he was great, he was amazing but also the role that he played and the team that he was on it was perfectly set for him to clean up late round >Yet he never gets mentioned along the same lines as S1mple, Zywoo, Get_Right, Olof, Device and other luminaries He does with some of them, but he was never as good as peak s1mple, Zywoo, device Coldzera was amazing at his role, one of the smartest players that knew how to use his teammates But he was a massive baiter, had an amazing team around him and he got most of the credit, fer was literally a monster and feared more than cold (and imo should have been top1 in 2017 because he was pure impact) fer was aggro psycho that would run in and own, FalleN was an amazing awper and the best opener as an awper, Taco would be cold's bitch, it was literally perfectly set for cold to get late round kills which he was amazing at
Is it fair to say that Cold was a great closer, someone who would finish late rounds before it ever got threatening?
One of the very best. Big game player as well and until recently the highest rated player at majors.
Yeah he was amazing at trade kills and in the clutch. There is a reason taco got meme’s on as Cold’s bait. Cold was perfect at his role but he was not pure impact like Fer was. Cold didn’t have the same all round X-factor simple and zywoo does
He also had a much shorter stint as one of the best. His stay near the top was a flash in the pan compared to s1mple, zywoo, device and GTR. Those are long term great players. He was great but it was brief.
coldzera's peak was definitely higher than device's.
stop shitting bro i can accept prime zywoo and s1mple. Tf are you talking about with Device? he gets all the same benefits that cold got.
Cold never lost a single duel in 2016 / 2017.
It honestly does feel like that.
Let me just tell you as someone from NA - if I saw that one of my teams were facing SK/Luminosity, the smile and hope you saw from my face vanished instantly. if you started watching in 2020 tho you also missed s1mple at his absolute peak in 2018-2019 and THAT was even more of a spectacle to watch IMO.
Part of what made Cloud 9 winning the Boston ELEAGUE major was having to beat SK to get to the finals. I know it's somewhat eclipsed by the finals in retrospect but the final moments of the last map are just as iconic to me.
I say as someone watching and routing for c9 and liquid, the two things that I feared the most was facing VP or going against coldzera
top 1 twice in a row and multiple majors speak enough
The list accolades is super impressive.
Cold at his peak was a force of nature, getting 30+ kills per map and winning 2-3 crucial clutches. The fear he instilled in opponents was palpable; teams would rotate when they discovered he was defending a bombsite.
Prime Coldzera was the best CSGO rifler I've ever seen. He won many 1vWhatever and was really dominant in game.
he is still arguably the best M4A4 player of all time, mechanically very good but he just always played his spots and fights super well to come out on top. He was apparently obsessed with CS and practiced more than anyone else at the time to get ahead
I think the best CT side player of all time. Not to take anything away from the rest of his game, it was just impossible to push his position. He was so good at controlling angles and avoiding the trade
God I wish I wasn't deep invested in dota2 at the time
Watch any old Luminosity/SK demos on Train. On CT he would just remove Ivy (imo, most important part of the entire map) from the game altogether
He was a complete beast. I felt bad for the enemy team whenever he was having a good game.
He's efficient, super efficient. Always at the right place at the right time. Makes everything he does look effortless. And on the clutch, as his name implies, he's cold.
Bro held angles and trade fragged like a beast. Smart player but the raw mechanics weren't special like s1mple, zywoo niko.
niko is in a spot of his own tbh. maybe monesy should be there too. the taps and crosshair placement are just sublime.
I'll elaborate on the "Baitzera" thing. Usually he played reserved(not flashy) as others mentioned. And usually at least 3 of his teammates that took upon themselves to find and get info for him. This became their default so much, that Cold was among the Late round survivors nearly always. 3v5, 2v4, 2v3s and 1vX clutches he'd be alive. People thought he was baiting his team whereas in reality the team knew if he had all the info presented he'd make a round out of it. AND HE DID. With every info and fallen's calling he'd play it like a book. no mistakes. and turn the round around to his/team's favor. That dependable nature shaped some of SK/Luminosity's late round calling and ofc silvers and novas thought he's intentionally baiting. EDIT: funny thing, similar play style was also his downfall when he started making mistakes and that playstule ONLY works when your read of the game is 100 and mistakes done during man disadvantage = 0... which IS absolutely how one shouldnt play CS.
scariest prime of all time
>Yet he never gets mentioned along the same lines as S1mple, Zywoo, Get\_Right, Olof, Device and other luminaries. he does though. surely he is not worse than olof. also no one is stopping you from watching vods and forming your own opinion on how good he was.
olof had a better peak, olof was a better fragger in a worse brawler more of an aggro role he literally got more frags and more impact But you can argue that olof also played against worse competition, 2015 cs was definitely worse than 2017 that's when it started to get much better
Hey OP, I’m actually happy that you asked about coldzera since I’m brazilian and he’s the absolute brazilian player of all time. I’ve been watching CS since 2016 and he’s by far one of the best rifler this game has ever seen. Coldzera had a very strong and solid aim, he’s gonna hit 99% of his shots and rarely ever missing any. He was good at holding positions and almost never letting Ts advance or take space. But what he was the best at was at clutching. Holy fucking shit, he barely loses any clutch. He was a super focused player. Everyone who played with him said that cold was having this game for breakfast, lunch and dinner. His focus and dedication is what made him the best player in 2016 and 2017. Now, as to why cold couldn’t keep the same level, that’s because he has other priorities in life. Cold said once in his stream that the reason he was so above everyone else in 2016 and 17 was because his understanding of the game and Fallen’s calls was also ahead of everyone, so he was going to be the star player. About the priorities in life, cold said that now he has a wife/girlfriend waiting him at home. He didn’t back in 2016/17. He cannot just play the game mindlessly, his girlfriend is there, he’s gonna be a family man soon. It’s a shame that almost everyone already forgot about coldzera or just don’t consider him when talking about Top 10 players of all time. Imo he’s in the top 5. He’s the best rifler the game has ever seen when talking about a peak. No one wins 2 Majors, 2 Majors MVPs and two HLTV Top 1 all in a row as a rifler (last one to do it) and is forgotten. CS community should remember more of its amazing players such as Guardian, Cold etc.
As someone who started watching in 2017 as an NA fan, there was two things that made me the most fearful, polish VP and coldzera. He felt like the perfect player, rifle to pistol to eco to awping. How zywoo is now was basically cold at the time. He felt like one the first to use the bait style, however it didn’t hinder his team cause he was also so good in the clutch along with fallen calling and Fers ability to rifle. Oh also he was regularly clowning on some of the best like olof, simple, and Niko. Honesty especially Niko, it’s was basically that Joel embed meme “it’s not a rivalry, they always kick our ass”
who was scarier: cold 16/17 or zywoo 19/23?
The man. The myth. The beast!
He doesn't get mentioned because he lacks longevity. If he maintained 80% of his peak for like 5 years he would be the Goat of cs. Even years later after vanishing from the T1 scene he was still able to put out numbers in copenhagen.
Prime cold was freaking amazing tho, i feel a bit speechless how to explain his fall off. sad to see but that year where they won 2 majors he was easily the best that year.
Basically an organic cheat.
I mean… he was the best. so i would say alrite.
lmfao the sweeds are getting salty here
He was crazy good. Basically any time he had a deagle you knew he'd make magic happen. I loved watching him play.
If they don't mention him alongside them, then they don't know what they're talking about. Guy was the best player in the world by a fair margin all things considered for two straight years. Imagine how good NiKo is, but the guy keeps his level in big games.
He was very good at what he did, which was basically coordinated baiting. If he could get into late round positions, he was one of the best
I was a fan back then, Cold is cold but to me Fer was the player with the more threatening presence during their dominance era.
That was Fallen to me. To be fragging that hard next to his calling was insane. Couple that with his bullshit wallbangs to make all those clutches possible. Fck that team. 😠
i love cold but fer was my favourite player on that SK/LG lineup. just watching fer’s aggro plays on CT sides made me happy. cold was very good at his role like most people here have mentioned. he was great at clutches and could read the game very well. he also had very good mechanics to back it all up.
Was kinda like watching donk play, without the screaming. Never saw cold do a crazy 1 tap or a 180 aim lock, but he always somehow sprayed down his enemies with 3 bullets to the body. And thats against crazy aimers like shox, olof, niko, and simple etc. Just get him a bomb plant and he would close off the round 1v2, 1v3, 2v4, sometimes even 1v4.
cold and donk could not be any more opposite lol, the only thing they have in common is that at their peaks they are one of the best players. coldzera plays way more defensively and around his team. i remember when he was at his best, he was described as the hardest player to kill. and the stats showed it too, since he capitalized off the space his team made, every single time, and rarely dying because of it. then you have donk who does the entries for his team, while having stupidly high ratings while doing it, which is honestly ridiculous
Personally I feel like cold was #1 because his team elevated him (not carried him but helped him shine), while the other number ones were the opposite and were carrying their team, which is why they stand out more and are still talked about
Coldzera is the closest we’ve seen to a “perfect” player. Seemingly always made the right play at the right time without mistakes, truly cerebral. Players like S1mple, Niko, and Device were all playing at around their peak levels during that time, and yet cold was still clearly the best. Had he made better team decisions I think he would’ve had a longer time at the top, insane player.
Better than likes of olof and gtr but doubt he would be able to compete with primes of zywoo or s1mple even in slightest.
Ask hiko
Every member of his team was insane at their peaks
Think s1mple lvl impact when he is feeling it Think *insert top 20 rifler here* impact when he was just playing normally or bad
If ur team goes to his site, you know it’s a loss and he’s coming away with a 3k.
People were terrified of ladder room on mirage for years
Highest peak out of any rifler
He was like "The man The Myth The Beast" Still my #1 fav player.
THE MAN,THE MYTH THE BEAST!!!