NiKo

Bosnian rifler, ten-time HLTV Top 20 player and IEM Cologne Major 2026 champion with Team Falcons.

via Wikipedia: NiKo · see source

Nikola Kovač, better known as NiKo, is a Bosnian professional Counter-Strike 2 player who plays for Team Falcons. NiKo is often cited by many professionals and analysts alike as one of the greatest Counter-Strike players of all time and the best rifler in the history of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. He has been named a Top 20 Player Of The Year by HLTV nine times (2016-2024), the second-most top 20 player appearances in Counter-Strike history behind device.

Quick Facts

Born: 16 February 1997
Birthplace: Bijeljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Team: Team Falcons
Role: Rifler
Games: Counter-Strike 2
Career role: Rifler, Secondary AWPer
Highlights: 1× Major champion (Cologne 2026); 10x HLTV Top 20 Player of the Year (2016-2025); 10x HLTV MVP

Facts from the source article.

Background

Nikola Kovač was born in Bijeljina, but lived in Brčko Bosnia and Herzegovina, to Serbian ethnic parents. His parents were owners of an internet café where Nikola would play the earlier Counter Strike games with his cousin Nemanja aka "huNter-". NiKo began his playing career on Counter-Strike 1.6. His first professional team was FullProof.

Other teams he played for include eu4ia, neWave, maksnet, and DEFUSE.maksnet. His first notable Counter-Strike: Global Offensive team was iNation. He shuffled through myDGB, e-Sports.rs, GamePub and aimface while taking breaks from iNation. His performance with iNation brought him wider recognition in Europe, and he was signed by mousesports in February 2015.

During his early period with the team, he was noted for strong individual performances. His team was sometimes dubbed "Nikosports" due to his individual performances, the most notable of them being his Desert Eagle ace on Cache during his time on mousesports at ESL One: New York 2016. NiKo played for mousesports from February 2015 to February 2017. During this time they won Acer Predator Masters Season 2 and placed 3rd-4th in ELEAGUE Season 1, 2nd in ESL Pro League Season 4 – Europe, and 5th-8th at ESL Pro League Season 4 – Finals.

In February 2017, NiKo was acquired by FaZe Clan as they formed a star-player team. Kovač's first big tournament win was at StarLadder i-League StarSeries Season 3, followed by a winless period of five months with a near miss at Esports Championship Series Season 3. Following a reshuffle of the FaZe roster, bringing in two of the highest-rated players of 2015, Olof "olofmeister" Kajbjer Gustafsson and the star AWP player, Ladislav "GuardiaN" Kovács, FaZe was rejuvenated and managed back-to-back flawless victories at ESL One: New York 2016 and ELEAGUE CS:GO Premier 2017.

At ESL One: New York 2016, NiKo dropped a 1.33 HLTV rating, a record that was later broken by multiple players before donk's legendary Katowice run in 2024. Following this, the team went two months without a win before taking the Esports Championship Series Season 4 trophy over Mousesports at the end of the year. He was ranked #2 in the year-end HLTV top 20 and had a rivalry with SK Gaming's coldzera throughout the year. Faze Clan fell just short at the finals in ELEAGUE Major: Boston 2018, choking a 15-11 lead in map 3 to the home region team Cloud9.