huNter-

huNter- — Nemanja Kovač

A documentary biography of the Bosnian rifler who climbed from the Balkan second tier to a decade inside G2 Esports, built from HLTV profile data, HLTV Top 20 records and published interviews.

1. A Sabbatical and a Cousin's Persuasion

Nemanja Kovač's relationship with Counter-Strike began in the late years of 1.6, in the domestic scene of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and almost ended before it started. He was sixteen when Global Offensive replaced the game he had grown up on, and his first judgment of the new version was dismissal. "After the new version came out in 2012, he didn't take much liking to it at first," HLTV's Top 20 profile of 2020 recorded, and the player himself later filled in the mechanism of his return: the cousin already making waves in the international game. "NiKo made me go back to CS:GO and told me how I could be good and that I would succeed," Kovač told HLTV. "He knew that I was really good in 1.6 and he was pushing me to at least try CS:GO. He called me to play some local event in Bosnia with him and I was pretty good there, and everything started from there with me and CS:GO. He was the key factor in why I started with CS:GO."

The return to serious play came in 2015, when Kovač was around twenty, alongside old teammates from his 1.6 days in GamePub and — decisively — with Nikola "NiKo" Kovač himself in the qualifiers of The World Championships, representing Bosnia and Herzegovina. The national-team call-up was the first external validation. "It all started with local LAN tournaments in Serbia, online tier-five leagues, open qualifiers for big events, same as most new players do now," he said. "What pushed me a little was the invitation from NiKo to the national team of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I played a couple of good games and where I showed that I was ready for tier two-three CS at that point, and that pushed me to work even harder to prove myself and justify his trust." Within a year, Nestor "LETN1" Tanić had invited him into one of the best squads in the Balkan region. The sabbatical was over.

2. The 310-Map Education

The professional record opens with GamePub, from August 2015 to March 2016, and continues with iNation, the most recognizable name on the regional circuit, where Kovač played alongside LETN1 and Luka "emi" Vuković — and, in one iteration of the roster, the coach-turned-personality Aleksandar "kassad" Trifunović. His first full year in Global Offensive produced a 1.14 rating across regional and international tournaments, respectable numbers for a player compressing years of missed development into months. In March 2017 the iNation roster signed with Binary Dragons, and the organization's backing converted promise into volume: more than thirty tournaments and over two hundred maps in eight months, and, by Kovač's own count, 310 maps played officially on HLTV in 2017 alone. "After we joined them, we just decided to play as many officials as possible on HLTV, to see where we stand, if we can go further, etc.," he said. "In 2017 we played 310 maps officially on HLTV, without counting the beginnings of open qualifiers, which we played a lot."

The education included his first international LANs — the Copenhagen Games 2017 BYOC qualifier and, the achievement he still names as the period's favorite, a qualification for DreamHack Open Atlanta. "It was a great feeling, really, and after that we were always around the top 30-40, we were getting some invites at least for closed qualifiers, some LAN events," he said. "This was a great second step for all of us in Binary Dragons." Before the year ended the roster transferred to Valiance, and the results immediately sharpened: a dominant Vip Adria League Season 1 Finals title, a runner-up finish to Windigo at the Esports Balkan League Season 1 Finals, and a 1.24 rating to close 2017. The community had begun to notice the shared surname; the statistics were beginning to justify noticing the player. "When I signed for Valiance, I realized that I could do something great in my career from then on," he said. "Everything went better, the team played better, my individual statistics were better, the conditions from the organizations were going up."

3. Valiance and the Rebuild That Reached for Berlin

By May 2018 the all-Balkan Valiance roster had broken into the top thirty of the world ranking: a DreamHack Masters Marseille qualification, a top-six finish at that year's Copenhagen Games, playoffs at the Qi Invitational. Then came the stagnation that every regional project eventually meets, and the organization answered it by reaching outside the Balkans. Imperial's star trio — Nemanja "nexa" Isaković, Rokas "EspiranTo" Milasauskas and Otto "ottoNd" Sihvo — arrived, with LETN1 retained as a player and emi moving to the coach's seat. Kovač's account of the decision was unsentimental about his own team: "nexa and I always wanted to play together, because whenever we played together, that team always looked good. nexa did not want to play in the full Balkan roster at that moment, and I also saw that we reached the maximum with that Balkan team and that it was time for the next step."

The rebuilt Valiance qualified for the IEM Katowice Europe Minor within a month of its existence and placed fourth, beating MOUZ twice in the groups and missing the top three only through a nail-biting series against Vitality. A top-four finish at DreamHack Open Rio and a grand final at DreamHack Open Tours followed, and the project peaked at No. 14 in the world before the organization rebranded as CR4ZY. The 2019 Major cycle then delivered the career's first summit. CR4ZY placed second in the European Minor, advanced through the New Challengers Stage of the StarLadder Major Berlin with a 3-1 record, and won two more series in the New Legends Stage — including, bittersweetly, one over NiKo's FaZe — before losses to Natus Vincere and Astralis ended the run in the Legends Stage. "It was simply a hit and that team was constantly advancing, and we achieved our dreams by going to the Minor, then after to the StarLadder Major, and the result we achieved at the Major," Kovač said. "I think we could have done a lot better results if that team had stayed together, but I also think it was the right time for my next step."

4. The French-Balkan Experiment

The next step arrived within a month of Berlin: G2 Esports, moving away from its French identity, signed Kovač and nexa in October 2019. The transition was rougher than the transfer fee suggested. The remaining French core spoke limited English, the schedule offered almost no practice between events, and the new signings — tier-two veterans by résumé — were suddenly tier-one regulars. "We really travelled a lot and we played at all the events we could. We weren't at home almost at all, which was normal for the beginning of the teams," Kovač said. "As nexa and me as players didn't play that many tier-one LAN events before we joined G2. It was a hard but successful journey."

The results justified the experiment quickly. At cs_summit 5 in Los Angeles, G2 reached the grand final — remembered, mostly, for losing a decider to a MOUZ fielding a stand-in and the coach — and Kovač was named the event's Most Valuable Player, the first individual award of his career. Days later, after the flight home, the team won the Champions Cup Finals undefeated, his first international trophy. The Bosnian who had been playing tier-five online leagues three years earlier ended 2019 as an MVP-holding, trophy-holding G2 player, four years before his thirtieth birthday.

5. The Online Star and the Cousin's Arrival

The 2020 season began with a run to the IEM Katowice grand final — G2 beating Liquid and fnatic in the Spodek Arena bracket before Natus Vincere stopped them — and an EVP for Kovač, whose memory of the event mixed triumph and absence: "When we won against mousesports in Katowice and secured the playoffs in the Spodek Arena was a great moment. Unfortunately, we later found out that we would not be playing in front of an audience." The pandemic months that followed were, statistically, the best stretch of his career to that point: four consecutive EVPs at IEM Katowice, ESL Pro League Season 11 Europe — where he topped the event's charts despite a group-stage exit decided by a three-way tie with OG and FaZe — ESL One: Road to Rio Europe, and DreamHack Masters Spring Europe, the latter two ending in grand-final defeats to Astralis and BIG respectively.

"When we won against mousesports in Katowice and secured the playoffs in the Spodek Arena was a great moment. Unfortunately, we later found out that we would not be playing in front of an audience."

The autumn brought the transfer that defined the rest of his career. NiKo's move from FaZe to G2, completed in late October 2020, united the cousins under one organization. "My favorite moment of 2020 was for sure when our manager, NiaK, informed me that NiKo had signed a contract with G2 and that we would finally play together," Kovač said. The framing he gave the moment reached past trophies: "My goal wasn't to win the Major, to win 10 events, MVPs or whatever, my goal was to be good enough to play with him and do it with him together. He helped me a lot in my career from the beginning, and I just want to help him now and to show what he is capable of." The year's end was messier — JACKZ and amanek trialed for the final spot, results wobbled, and Kovač admitted to personal problems that "shook me a little and killed my will for some things" — but the season closed with his first Top 20 appearance, No. 13, built on 81.2 ADR (seventh-most), a 1.18 impact rating (12th) and multi-kills in 18.8 percent of rounds (eighth). HLTV's assessment noted the cost: a 1.06 big-event playoffs rating, the lowest among the twenty players listed. His bold prediction that winter was a seventeen-year-old Israeli on Endpoint named flameZ — "Every time I joined deathmatch, he was there."

6. Stockholm, Rio and the Abu Dhabi Release

The NiKo era's first full year, 2021, produced the deepest Major run of Kovač's career and the era's defining heartbreak. The road there ran through upheaval: a 0.87-rated BLAST Global Final influenced by personal problems he later described candidly — "my wife and I were going through a tough period... I was proud of myself because I didn't give up at that point" — then the kennyS removal, NiKo and amanek sharing AWP duties, and a mid-year return to consistency that carried G2 to the IEM Cologne grand final, the team's first LAN event in nearly eighteen months. His read on the return of arenas became one of his most quoted passages: "LAN makes a huge difference... literally a different game."

At the PGL Major Stockholm, G2 swept through the Legends Stage without dropping a map, beat Ninjas in Pyjamas in the playoffs, and survived a deciding-overtime semi-final against HEROIC — the match Kovač still names as his favorite memory: "The first time in front of the crowd, first Major after more than 2 years... first Major with NiKo. So, everything was really great. But if I need to choose one, it was when we won against Heroic in semis, that winning moment was something that I will always remember." The final against Natus Vincere slipped through G2's hands on Nuke, from 14-7 and 15-10 ahead, and NAVI closed the Major. Kovač's EVP from Stockholm was his fourth of the year; a fifth followed at IEM Winter, played amid nexa's visa absence with NiKo, amanek and Kovač sharing the calling. He placed No. 12 in the 2021 ranking, with five EVPs — the most of anyone listed at that point — and the year's lowest top-ten rating, 1.05, as the caveat.

The 2022 season was a study in turbulence survived. Aleksib and m0NESY replaced nexa and amanek; the new-look G2 reached the IEM Katowice final, where Kovač was the highest-rated player on the server despite a 0-3 defeat to FaZe, his 1.27 anchored by a 32-kill regulation map against Natus Vincere in the semi-finals. The spring added a VP award earned at 1.17 across a failing EPL campaign — "I had extra motivation because I wanted to show what I'm capable of to the new coach and IGL. I started working alone for like two weeks, maybe even more before bootcamp actually started" — and the year's lowest point, an Antwerp Major Legends exit at 1.00 after a 2-2 pool loss to FURIA. The summer rebuild removed JACKZ and Aleksib, and Kovač's farewell to the Frenchman was personal: "Jacki outside of the game was always my older brother and he will be that forever." The Rio RMR followed, and with it the season's wound: a 16-0 rout of ECSTATIC undone by losses to Cloud9, 1win — despite his 1.50 rating in the defeat — and GamerLegion, ending G2's Major hopes. "We need to deal much better with pressure," he said afterward, adding that the coach and manager's resignations that followed hit the team harder than the qualification failure itself. The year closed, improbably, with a title: at the BLAST Premier World Final in Abu Dhabi, G2 destroyed Outsiders 16-1 on Mirage, Kovač took revenge on FaZe at 1.35, and the final against Liquid ended 2-0 with his 1.41 on Inferno. It was G2's first Big Event trophy in five years, and his summary was relief framed as exhaustion: "Lifting that trophy in Abu Dhabi is obviously the best moment of the year... I'm finally happy that we will keep this lineup and not start from zero, because I'm tired of it." The No. 14 ranking entry cited his floor — 89 percent of maps above 0.85 — and his Elite-event playoffs rating of 1.26.

7. The Katowice MVP Year

If 2022 ended with a title, 2023 supplied the individual peak. G2 entered IEM Katowice as the world's second-ranked team behind HEROIC, beat FaZe 2-0 behind a 1.25-rated group stage from Kovač, then took over the Spodek Arena playoffs: 1.36 against Liquid, 1.23 against HEROIC in the final, and the Most Valuable Player medal as G2 won the event and, in the process, claimed the No. 1 position in the world ranking. "Winning Katowice after Abu Dhabi, and especially being in the finals against Heroic, who were first on the HLTV rankings before that event and we were second, just a couple of points behind them, felt amazing," he said. "We knew if we won that event, and especially against them in the finals, that we would be No.1 in the world without any doubt. That event was by far the best event from my point of view because of all these circumstances."

The Major that followed produced the career's most painful discrepancy. G2 swept the Challengers Stage in Paris at 3-0, Kovač averaging 1.29, then collapsed in the Legends Stage — 0.79 across the stage, defeats to Vitality and Bad News Eagles, a 1.44-rated elimination-match save against FURIA, and a 2-1 exit to fnatic. "We didn't properly manage the pressure, both as individuals and as a team, and we made a lot of mistakes in crucial rounds in all the matches that we lost," he said. The hangover was measurable: a 0.95-rated IEM Dallas, which he connected to the Paris failure explicitly — "The hunger was not even close to what it should be... the mood and the atmosphere on the team were, honestly, really, really bad." The recovery arrived at IEM Cologne, where G2 won the title with Kovač at 1.21 and an EVP — a 1.71-rated series against FaZe in the groups, a 1.39 semi-final against Astralis, and the MVP medal lost to NiKo on the back of two sub-par final maps. "Comparing to Katowice, where we had entered the tournament as favorites, Cologne was different," he said. "We came there after failing a couple of events in a row, and not a lot of people believed that we could go all the way... It's a dream for every active and up-and-coming talent." A Gamers8 semi-final loss to Vitality — "We had three match points and we didn't manage to close it out" — and a CS2 transition he described as an even more team-oriented game closed the year. He placed No. 13 on his twenty-eighth birthday, only the fifth player ever to make the Top 20 past that age. "Four years in G2, four years in tier one and I've been there all the time," he said. "To be chosen in the Top 20, next to very good players, is an honor for me."

"We came there after failing a couple of events in a row, and not a lot of people believed that we could go all the way... It's a dream for every active and up-and-coming talent."

8. The IGL Pivot

NiKo's departure for Falcons in January 2025 ended the cousin era and forced the question that had shadowed Kovač for years: the IGL role. HLTV had reported as early as September 2024 that G2 had asked him to be the team's in-game leader "five times at least"; each time he had declined. This time, with the roster rebuilt around malbsMd, HeavyGod and later MATYS, SunPayus and the Finnish coach sAw, he accepted. The debut came at IEM Cologne 2025 with a 2-0 win over FURIA, sealed by a 1v5 in which Kovač — unaware he was alone until the kill feed told him — sold a flashbang in the final freezetime to buy a defuse kit and won the round with it. "To be honest, it was really stressful because it's more responsibilities," he said afterward. "You need to be more vocal on the prep, on the server, of course, you need to gain trust from the teammates." His reasoning for finally accepting the burden was as plain as his earlier refusals: "I'm almost 30, so a lot of events, a lot of experience, a lot of good IGLs, coaches that I've worked with... I just think I can share my experience with others and I can help them become better players as well, and I think I can help the team more than I was doing lately in G2." The partnership with sAw he described in one sentence: "I'm trying to be his brain on the server with my aim, let's say."

The first half of 2025 had already tested him in other ways. He missed IEM Rio through injury in April — sAw stood in, G2 reached the playoffs, and his verdict was generous: "I'm really happy I skipped Rio because I saw what my teammates are capable of" — and missed parts of PGL Astana with TaZ deputizing after a "medical emergency" forced his substitution at IEM Chengdu in November. Between absences, G2 finished runner-up at PGL Bucharest 2025, where he dropped the career-best map that carried the team past Imperial, and exited the BLAST.tv Austin Major in Stage 2, a fall he measured against the previous winter: "It's a crazy feeling that six months ago we were favorites to win Shanghai, now we're not even close." The July rebuild — Snax benched, MATYS and SunPayus signed, sAw promoted to head coach — produced the new G2's first peak within two months: the BLAST Open London title, won over Vitality in a final that made them the first team to beat the French side in a best-of-five decider all year. "People overreacted, that's 100%, but it was not random," Kovač said of the hype that followed. "We beat Vitality, we were the first team to beat Vitality this year in best-of-five finals."

The StarLadder Budapest Major in December then delivered the era's sharpest lesson. G2 opened Stage 3 at 2-0, then lost to FURIA, The MongolZ and finally to Falcons — NiKo's new team, m0NESY carrying the decider — to miss the playoffs. The defeat was compounded by circumstance: AWPer SunPayus underwent ear surgery at four in the morning before the final match and played it unable to hear his team. "We didn't show up against FURIA and MongolZ at all, and that's the only thing that is bothering me," Kovač said. "Losing like we lost today, like a man, fighting, I'm fine with it." On the cousin across the server: "he is my brother, the only big title that he doesn't have is a Major, and the main reason why I started playing CS:GO and why I came back is him, so of course I will support him." On the role he had taken: "the IGL role is a pain in the ass. I can say to everyone, and all the IGLs will understand what I'm saying."

"he is my brother, the only big title that he doesn't have is a Major, and the main reason why I started playing CS:GO and why I came back is him, so of course I will support him."

9. 2026 and the Anatomy of a Veteran

The 2026 season carried G2 to the edge of the breakthrough without pushing them through it. A semi-final run at IEM Kraków ended by MOUZ; a malbsMd-for-NertZ swap with Liquid in March; a Stake Ranked Episode 1 title with NertZ; another injury absence at IEM Rio, sAw standing in again. At the IEM Cologne Major, G2 reached the quarter-finals — their deepest Major run in the new era — beating FUT in a Stage 3 revenge series and NAVI in the elimination match to set up the Spirit clash, a series Kovač framed as the payoff of the rebuild: "Our mindset and mental strength was much stronger than it was ever before." Spirit won the "instant classic" that followed, and the quarter-final exit stood as the sixth consecutive Major without a playoff appearance for a player who had reached the final in Stockholm. The summer added a SunPayus-for-r1nkle change — Kovač's assessment of the young Ukrainian AWPer doubled as a mission statement for his own role: "he's listening to everyone and he's a proactive AWPer... Sometimes it's even too much, so I should sometimes stop him a bit more" — a quarter-final exit at the Esports World Cup, and a BLAST Open Porto campaign in which G2 beat NAVI 2-0 and Aurora 2-1 before Falcons removed them at 5-6th. Asked whether the pieces finally fit, his answer was a roster manifesto: "I think we have the right pieces... Our strat book is amazing and we have everything that we need to be a top team. Since we brought NertZ, I think we played almost all events playoffs... The next step is obviously to try to play more finals, to fight for trophies." The FISSURE Playground 3 final that followed — five series won, a 0-3 grand-final sweep by Legacy — left the argument made and the trophy unclaimed.

The attribute record describes what thirty years and eleven seasons of tier-one Counter-Strike build. Utility 90 is the defining score — among the highest in the game's records and the signature of the modern Kovač, the veteran whose grenade protocols, timing discipline and mid-round structure carry a team even as the raw numbers age. Entrying 78 and Clutching 45 mark the remaining aggressive duties; Firepower 37 and Opening 21 record, with statistical honesty, the cost of the IGL transition — the first-duel volume of his twenties has migrated to NertZ and MATYS. Sniping 0 remains categorical across a decade. The FACEIT base underneath — 2,147 matches at a 69 percent win rate and a 1.41 KDR — reflects a player who spends his matchmaking hours in FPL company rather than volume grinding. The three-month rating of 0.98 at the time of writing is the lowest sustained figure of his career, and his own standard for it was set in January: "I don't expect to have 1.30 ratings all of a sudden, but I want just a bit more consistency."

10. Record, Standing and Horizon

The aggregate record at the time of writing: prize money of $1,143,173; eight tournament victories — the Champions Cup Finals 2019 with the G2 project's first iteration, then seven under the G2 banner: the BLAST Premier World Final 2022, IEM Katowice 2023, IEM Cologne 2023, IEM Dallas 2024, the BLAST Premier Fall Final 2024, the BLAST Premier World Final 2024 and the BLAST Open London 2025 Finals. Two MVP medals: cs_summit 5 in 2019 and IEM Katowice 2023. Thirteen EVP mentions spanning IEM Katowice 2020 to Gamers8 2023. Four consecutive Top 20 finishes — No. 13, No. 12, No. 14, No. 13 from 2020 through 2023 — a run that made him, on the day of the last entry, the fifth player in history to be ranked past his twenty-eighth birthday, in the company of NEO, f0rest, rain and cadiaN. Eleven Big Event playoff finishes sit in the LAN ledger between the Spodek Arena and Copenhagen.

Nine Valve Majors frame the career: the Legends Stage with CR4ZY at Berlin 2019; the Stockholm final with G2 in 2021, the closest any team came to NAVI that year; Legends exits at Antwerp 2022 and Paris 2023; consecutive 3-4th places at the first two CS2 Majors in Copenhagen and Shanghai 2024; Stage 3 exits at Austin and Budapest 2025; and the Cologne 2026 quarter-final. One Major final, zero Major titles — the outstanding line in a résumé that otherwise spans three generations of Counter-Strike, from 1.6-influenced Balkan LANs to CS2's thirty-two-team Majors. The comparative framing is longevity: a Top 20 player in four consecutive years, an MVP at thirty-ish at Katowice, a team captain at twenty-nine, and at thirty the oldest active IGL of a top-ten side.

What remains is the item he has wanted longest, and it is not only his. The Major that G2 keeps approaching — a quarter-final in Cologne, a 2-2 decider in Budapest, a failed RMR in Rio before that — is the same trophy his cousin's career lacks, and the same one his own origin story was built around. "My goal was to be good enough to play with him," he said when the cousins first united, and the second half of the sentence — "He is a big, big part of why I am where I am now" — remains the through-line of a career that started with a sabbatical, a local event in Bosnia, and a phone call from a relative who believed the game was worth coming back for. At thirty, calling his own team, with seven G2 trophies and a Major final behind him, the Bosnian rifler who once refused to play the new version of Counter-Strike is still trying to win it. The coming seasons will decide whether the record closes with the trophy the resume lacks or stands as the career of the best player never to lift it.

Sources

• https://www.hltv.org/news/30931/top-20-players-of-2020-hunter-13 — Top 20 of 2020 (No. 13); 1.6 origins, NiKo's role, GamePub/iNation/Binary Dragons/Valiance career history, 2020 season, NiKo transfer quotations.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/33091/top-20-players-of-2021-hunter-12 — Top 20 of 2021 (No. 12); personal issues quotation, kennyS/JACKZ era, Stockholm Major run and final, IEM Winter role chaos.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/35326/top-20-players-of-2022-hunter-14 — Top 20 of 2022 (No. 14); Katowice final, EPL S15, Antwerp, Rio RMR failure, jks/HooXi rebuild, BLAST World Final title quotations.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/37887/top-20-players-of-2023-hunter-13 — Top 20 of 2023 (No. 13); Katowice MVP, Paris Major collapse, IEM Cologne title, CS2 adjustment, age-28 ranking context.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/42308/hunter-interview-why-this-was-the-right-time-to-become-an-igl-new-g2-era-and-teammates — IGL debut interview, July 2025; 1v5 kit story, sAw partnership, role changes, voices hierarchy.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/45418/hunter-we-have-everything-that-we-need-to-be-a-top-team — BLAST Open Porto 2026 interview; r1nkle assessment, top-team manifesto, NertZ-era playoffs record.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/43406/hunter-we-didnt-show-up-against-furia-and-mongolz-at-all-and-thats-the-only-thing-that-is-bothering-me — StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 interview; SunPayus surgery, NiKo relationship, London title framing, IGL burden quotations.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/44960/spirit-overcome-g2-in-instant-classic-to-secure-semi-final-spot-in-cologne — IEM Cologne Major 2026 quarter-final report; instant classic framing.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/44935/hunter-our-mindset-and-mental-strength-was-much-stronger-than-it-was-ever-before — Cologne Major 2026 interview; mindset quotation.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/45509/legacy-sweep-g2-to-lift-fissure-playground-3-trophy — FISSURE Playground 3 grand final report; 0-3 Legacy sweep.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/44312/hunter-to-miss-iem-rio-due-to-injury — IEM Rio 2026 injury absence.
• https://www.hltv.org/news/44480/hunter-im-really-happy-i-skipped-rio-because-i-saw-what-my-teammates-are-capable-of — Rio absence aftermath interview.
• HLTV player profile record (player ID 3972) — attributes, prize money, team tenure, Major and LAN placements, MVP/EVP/trophy inventories, Top 20 history, FACEIT statistics.

Data source: HLTV player profile record. Generated: 2026-10-11.