The donk before donk, Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac’s accession to the upper echelons of Counter Strike was nothing short of staggering. His storied career boasts all the notable honors a player wishes to win, all but one: the ever-elusive Major, which escaped his hands several times in the past decade. As he prepares to fight for the Major in 2025, let’s look at how his move to the Falcons would be near his dream to lift the Major.
The early day’s of FaZe Clan
NiKo’s first real shot at the Major came in 2018 in the colors of FaZe Clan. Acquiring G2’s CS:GO roster, FaZe shuffled it for a year and landed the first super-team in the game’s history. On paper, the roster had the potential to outperform anyone, but they failed to click like everyone expected them to. Three players from the roster, namely, Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovac, Olof ‘olofmeister’ Kajbjer, and Ladislav ‘guardiaN’ Kovács, were in the conversion for the title of the best player in the world.
The team took time to gel together and come into the 2018 E League Boston Major in the most supreme form. It seemed like the stars had aligned for a young NiKo to get the biggest accolade the game can offer, but little did the FaZe roster know what awaited them in the Finals. FaZe blew everyone that came in their way out of the water, leading up to the finals having all 5 players firing on all cylinders.
The finals saw FaZe take on a Cloud9 roster that no one expected to make it to the finals. In the most dramatic of fashions, NiKo’s start-studded FaZe choked on Inferno, giving Cloud9 the room to come back and lift the first and only Major for a North American side.
That defeat broke FaZe’s morale as the roster went through a plethora of changes in the following years. Still, nothing made the roster a true competitor for titles, leading to NiKo parting ways with the organization for the chance to play with his cousin Nemanja ‘huNter’ Kovač in G2 Esports despite moments of glory. Still, they, too, were few and far between. FaZe Clan’s problems were readily apparent; having too many stars posed IGL Karrigan with too many issues as there was little room for every player to find their comfort to provide the impact. Many argue that their prowess was driving them, not the systematic approach that Karrigan is famous for.
To put salt in the wound, two years after NiKo’s departure, FaZe Clan won the Counter-Strike treble, winning Cologne, Katowice, and the Major, all in the same season, which led to them completing the Intel Grandslam, once again under the leadership of one Finn ‘karrigan’ Anderson who was now provided with all the tools he wanted, formed a team with broky, ropz, and twistzz complemented by their old guard in Håvard ‘rain’ Nygaard.
Reaching his peak in G2
Having joined a dysfunctional G2, the roster was left with 6 players. His initial days in G2 were spent finalizing the roster. JACKZ and AMANEK were the two players that were presumed to make way, but to everyone’s surprise, the roster found their most consistent form by benching their star man in KennyS. Kenny, one of the game’s icons, had to give up the AWP to AMANEK. AMANEK wasn’t the flashiest of AWPers, but he learned to hold himself against top sides, while NiKo and huNter managed to put up the big numbers, which made G2 see a glimmer of hope.
The first iteration of G2 with NiKo peaked at the PGL Stockholm Major, where they blew everyone away in the opening stage despite looking shaky at times. Once again, the individual brilliance of the roster was driving it. Nexa, not being the most tactically adept IGL, shared the responsibility with NiKo, which led to the roster grinding out matches, though not in a convincing fashion on most occasions. G2 faced NAVI in the finals, where they faced a s1mple in the form of his life, and despite his best efforts, NiKo once again fell to NAVI. His deagle whiff painted his incredible Major performance in an unappealing light that tainted his legacy worse than the Boston Major.
G2 brought in Aleksib to steer the ship, which failed, leading the organization to secure the services of Rasums ‘HooXi’ Neilsen. Along with Aleski, G2 roped in a generational talent in m0NESY, who would become the team’s heartbeat moving forward. HooXi’s G2 faired poorly at the Major, failing to qualify once, and an early exit closed that door for NiKo between 2022 and 2023. Despite poor form at the Major, this iteration of G2 saw NiKo pick up two trophies that eluded him previously, IEM Katowice and IEM Cologne. While these are the best honors besides the Major that one can win, the player of NiKo stature would not be satisfied with anything less than the Major. G2s concluded their CS: GO run without the Major but with two of the following big honors that they could have won.
CS2 saw a drop in form with the G2 roster, and once again, they found changing the IGL and bringing in a new player to add firepower to the team as the solution. In came MalbsMd and snax to replace nexa and HooXi, respectively. At some point between 2023 and 2024, the Falcons’ interest in NiKo was revealed, and it was believed that they wanted him on board to form their version of a super-team.
Falcons wanted to bring NiKo and m0NESY from G2, but the move did not come through, walking into the 2025 season as NiKo chose to continue with G2. G2’s early showing with snax saw them reach the Finals of the esports World Cup before losing to Team Vitality, but their performance proved convincing enough to prepare for the Major with this team. By the time the roster reached the Shanghai Major, NiKo’s departure was all but announced, which led the critics to call it his last shot at the Major.
While it wasn’t a NiKo-driven performance in the presence of m0NESY and malbsMd, he was instrumental in G2 reaching the semi-finals in Shanghai. G2 faced a shaky FaZe Clan in Shanghai, who previously stunned tournament favourites in Vitality in the quarters after somehow qualifying from the previous stage. They miraculously lost to FaZe Clan in a match where they were clear favorites walking in, leaving the team heartbroken. With all the stars lined up for NiKo once again, G2 fell to a team that NiKo left to win the Major. With this loss, NiKo’s time with G2 ended after 4 years of winning it all but the big one.
NiKo’s Style
Being a hard carry in his early days with MOUZ, NiKo turned into a full-time lurker under Karrigan in FaZe Clan. He is a highly dynamic player who succeeds in more offensive roles on the T-side and carries that same threat on the defense. He may be one of the most mechanically gifted players of all time, but many overlook the cerebral aspect of NiKo’s playstyle.
CS is a thinking man’s game, and NiKo has often done some of his best work away from the duels. As time has passed, NiKo has turned into more of a second entry and secondary caller but not altogether leaving behind the lurker in him. Despite not being an entry fragger, he boasts one of the highest OPK ratings, rivaling that of Donk. While trophies may not have come his way in specific periods of his career, statistics point out that he is the most consistent rifler in the past decade.
| Year | HLTV Rating |
|---|---|
| 2015 | 1.16 |
| 2016 | 1.19 |
| 2017 | 1.21 |
| 2018 | 1.22 |
| 2019 | 1.19 |
| 2020 | 1.23 |
| 2021 | 1.14 |
| 2022 | 1.17 |
| 2023 | 1.13 |
| 2024 | 1.12 (approx.) |
NiKo is often found playing a position that is generally taken up by AWPers, such as the connector on Mirage, a site ramp on Dust 2, and Outer in Nuke. NiKo poses just as big of a threat to teams using a rifle as an AWPer does, which goes to show his proficient understanding of the game, let alone his generational mechanics.
Why the Falcons?
Falcons were supposed to form a superteam around NiKo, but having failed to secure all the pieces of the puzzle, NiKo is once again surrounded by players who in no shape or form are superstars. Having secured NiKo, the Falcons had no choice but to pick up Heroic’s trio to secure their slot at the significant events. It goes without saying that this roster is in poor shape and form compared to what NiKo had in G2, which begs the question of whether this was the right decision in NiKo’s pursuit of the Major.
While NiKo wasn’t given the team he was promised, he is left with an experienced Magisk who is not as sharp as he once was, a disaster who failed to deliver on the big stage, and an inexperienced IGL in Kyxsan. TeSeS can be one of the stars, given he is in his prime and one of the strongest aimers in the game right now. While this team doesn’t spark confidence in our hearts, NiKo chose this for himself. Looking in from the outside, this team is far from capable of lifting a Major, but we have had miracle runs in the past, and it would take a miracle for the Falcons to bring home a Major with the current line-up.
NiKo, as a player, has done it all, with a decade of experience under his belt. It is hard to assume the Falcons will proceed with the decision to acquire the Heroic trio without running it by NiKo first. We can only assume that NiKo and Zonic will further shape the team as time passes, and it is unlikely to happen leading up to the Austin Major.
The team is nascent and has yet to find its footing, making it too early to justify any changes. Throwing in big names at the problem isn’t the solution, as NiKo has experienced during his time in FaZe. It is safe to assume that he will be diplomatic in acquiring the right fit for his team moving forward, and the Falcons as an organization are always ready with a war chest that allows them to sign whoever they want. NiKo’s twilight years will soon reach a stage where it is now or never, despite critics believing his time has passed.
As admirers of his game, we trust that NiKo will do what he feels is right to win the major. In a career flooded with glory and misery, NiKo has gone on to collect accolades along with some very painful memories, but all it has done is make him a wiser version of that young, fiery rifler from MOUZ. With high hopes, NiKo continues to grind, hoping that his decade-long pursuit of the Major ends before he hangs up his mouse.
