HLTV

HLTV's old logo

HLTV was founded in 2002 by Martin "Martin" Rosenbæk[5] and Per "Nomad" Lambæk.[6][7] It was initially created to host recordings of Counter-Strike 1.6 matches, although it grew to include Counter-Strike and Half-Life news.[7] HLTV started storing GOTV demos for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive when they were introduced in 2012. It has since evolved to include news, statistics, and analysis for the professional esports scene of Global Offensive.

Since late 2015, HLTV ranks the teams based on their own rating system.[8][9] HLTV have awarded Most Valuable Player (MVP) medals to the highest performing player at each tournament. They also award Exceptionally Valuable Player (EVP) medals to players putting in an above average performance. In 2016, HLTV launched dust2.dk, a website dedicated to the Counter-Strike scene in Denmark. They followed this up in 2017 by launching dust2.us, a local website for the Americas. Data, such as professional match results, are fed through from the subsidiary websites to HLTV.[10][11] Since 2010 with the first version of Counter-Strike, HLTV has ranked all of the professional Counter-Strike players based on their performance that year. In May 2019, HLTV was officially integrated into Global Offensive, where you can now find professional tournaments, provided by data from HLTV.[12]

HLTV has received many visual updates throughout the years, with the most recent one taking place in 2017.[13]

In 2020, HLTV announced that it and sister site dust2.dk had been acquired by Better Collective, a sports betting group based in Denmark.[1][14][15]

The HLTV rating is the most widely used rating system in Global Offensive, and is often used outside of HLTV.[16][17]

HLTV awards an MVP medal at notable events, which is given to the player they consider had the most impact in the tournament. Starting in 2016, players who win an MVP award are provided a physical medal which are either gold, silver or bronze depending on the significance of the event which it was awarded.[21]

Each year, the HLTV staff rank professional Counter-Strike players based on their performance, and write an article explaining their choice. These rankings are based on how successful the player's team is, the individual performance based on the HLTV Rating 1.0 and Rating 2.0, and MVP/EVP awards given by HLTV. They have ranked both Counter-Strike and Global Offensive players. 2012 was excluded due to it being a transition year between Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike: Source to Global Offensive.[22]

• Official website