ZywOo

Mathieu Herbaut (born November 9, 2000), better known as ZywOo, is a French professional Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player for Team Vitality. He is considered one of the best players in Global Offensive history, having been ranked the No. 1 player in the world by HLTV in 2019 and 2020.[1][2] He is also sometimes nicknamed "The Chosen One" due to being born on the day of the original Counter Strike game's commercial release.[3]

ZywOo
ZywOo at the Intel Extreme Masters 2019 in Chicago
Current team
TeamTeam Vitality
RoleAwper
GamesCounter-Strike: Global Offensive
Personal information
NameMathieu Herbaut
Born (2000-11-09) 9 November 2000
NationalityFrench
Team history
2017WySix
2017–2018Against All authority
2018–presentTeam Vitality

Early life

He started playing at age 7 with his brother, but was only allowed to play for less than an hour per day by his mother. After becoming a teenager, he still never "played in the middle of the night" or "did 4-5 hour sessions", his family always keeping an eye on what he was doing.[4] His mother also encouraged him to get into video games, and from time to time even played with him. But before allowing him to participate in esports, she demanded that he first finish his secondary education and acquire his baccalauréat, which he did.[5]

Career

2018

After completing his bachelor's degree, Mathieu was able to take up esports professionally and sign a contract with Team Vitality. The results came quickly, as they won DreamHack Open Atlanta 2018 in November. The next month, he and his team qualified for the minor qualifier for the next Major, Katowice Major 2019. In the Minors, Vitality landed in second place, securing a spot for the Major in Katowice.

2019

The results of ZywOo and his team were not that brilliant in the Majors: as they ended up finishing in 9-11th in Katowice Major 2019 and then a 5-8th place in StarLadder Berlin Major 2019. They still went on to win in two top-tier tournaments of the season, ECS Season 7 Finals and EPICENTER 2019, and finished second twice at ESL One Cologne 2019 and DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019.

Mathieu's individual stats were impressive for that year: he finished MVP 5 times and had a 1.30 overall rating in LAN events. In January 2020, Mathieu Herbaut was voted as the World's Best Player of the Year 2019 by HLTV.org, thus becoming the first French and the youngest player to receive this award since its inception in 2010.[1][6]

2020

Due to the transition of tournaments to online (due to COVID-19), many tournaments did not take place and were postponed or cancelled. HLTV.org had published the final rankings of the best players in CS:GO for 2020; in which for the second year in a row, the Team Vitality player won the award.[2][6] Behind him was Natus Vincere's Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev, and Nicolai 'device' Reedtz from Astralis closed out the top three.

Awards and recognition
  • Was voted as best player of 2019 by HLTV.[1]
  • Was voted as best player of 2020 by HLTV.[2]
  • Was voted as 2nd best player of 2021 by HLTV.[7]
  • Was voted the MVP of 12 different tournaments.[6]

References
  1. "Top 20 players of 2019: ZywOo (1)". HLTV.org. Retrieved 2021-06-24.
  2. "Top 20 players of 2020: ZywOo (1)". HLTV.org. Retrieved 2021-06-24.
  3. "Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe 2021: Youngest". Forbes. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  4. Herbaut, Mathieu (2 February 2020). "Jeux vidéo : Mathieu Herbaut, alias ZywOo, élu n°1 mondial sur Counter strike, ne «peut pas avoir mieux»" [Video games: Mathieu Herbaut, alias ZywOo, elected world n ° 1 on Counter strike, "can not get better"]. Le Parisien (Interview) (in French). Interviewed by Christophe Goudaillier. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  5. "Esport. Qui est Mathieu Herbaut alias Zywoo, réélu meilleur joueur du monde sur Counter-Strike" [Esport. Who is Mathieu Herbaut alias Zywoo, re-elected best player in the world on Counter-Strike]. Ouest-France (in French). 20 January 2021. Retrieved 24 June 2021.
  6. "Mathieu 'ZywOo' Herbaut". HLTV.org. Retrieved 2021-06-24.
  7. "Top 20 players of 2021: ZywOo (2)". HLTV.org. Retrieved 2022-03-20.
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