samelobby.gg · pro form
Does grinding FACEIT make a better pro?
We lined up every FACEIT match of 1,000 pros, since December 2016, with HLTV's Top 20 players of each year and the MVPs and EVPs of every big event. This is what the numbers say.
The best pros play less FACEIT
9 of 9 years
Every year since 2017, the median player in HLTV's Top 20 played fewer FACEIT pugs than the median of every other pro.
HLTV's Top 20 of 2025 vs every other pro
262 vs 405
FACEIT pugs in 2025: 262 for the median Top 20 player, 405 for the median other pro, 35% fewer.
The biggest FACEIT grinder in a Top 20
994 pugs
donk played 994 FACEIT pugs in 2025, the year HLTV ranked them #2.
HLTV's #1 and FACEIT
266 a year
The median #1 played 266 FACEIT pugs in the year HLTV ranked them first; donk the most, 816. Year by year: ZywOo 286 (2025), donk 816 (2024), ZywOo 206 (2023), s1mple 174 (2022), s1mple 385 (2021), ZywOo 84 (2020), ZywOo 266 (2019), s1mple 592 (2018), coldzera 42 (2017).
Inside the Top 20: does grinding FACEIT go with a higher rank?
ρ = -0.13
Higher-ranked players played more pugs that year, but only slightly. (Could be chance.)
Same player, Top 20 years vs the rest
46 of 70
Of the players HLTV ranked in some years and not in others, 46 played fewer FACEIT pugs in their Top 20 years and 24 more: a median 200 a year against 332 (likely a real difference).
No FACEIT warm-up for the stars
0.75×
In the month before an event they starred at, MVPs and EVPs played 25% fewer FACEIT pugs than in a usual month; the year's other Top 20 players, 26% fewer: no real difference.
MVP without a warm-up
0 pugs
ropz played 0 FACEIT pugs in the month before ESL Pro League Season 10: Finals, against about 33 in a usual month, and was its MVP.
Year by year
HLTV's Top 20 on FACEIT
FACEIT pugs (queues, FPL, hubs) in the year HLTV ranked them: the median Top 20 player against the median of every other pro who played FACEIT that year.
2025
The Top 20 of 2025 on FACEIT
Each player's FACEIT matches in 2025.
The month before
Warming up on FACEIT, or not at all
FACEIT pugs in the 30 days before an event's last 10, for the players HLTV named its MVP or an EVP.
The busiest
MVPs who barely played
Were you ever in the same lobby as a pro?
Scan your whole FACEIT history, CS2 and CS:GO, and find every pro you've played with or against.
FACEIT: samelobby.gg's pro lobby database, every FACEIT match of the pros, from FACEIT's match history, up to 6 Oct 2026, on the accounts we know of (Liquipedia's, and those their Steam accounts lead to): a pro who plays on another account shows few pugs. Pugs are FACEIT's queues, FPL and hubs; official matches are leagues, cups, qualifiers and the matches FACEIT's servers ran for organisers (BLAST, CCT). HLTV's Top 20, MVPs and EVPs as Liquipedia lists them (CC-BY-SA 3.0); it has no EVPs for 2023. A correlation isn't a cause: the best players are also the busiest with their teams. Not affiliated with HLTV.