Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut has claimed the fifth Most Valuable Player award by HLTV.org and betway of 2019 with an other-worldly performance at EPICENTER 2019.

The French megastar put on a jaw-dropping showing throughout the Russian event, outdoing his own standards with a 1.53 tournament rating, which ranks as the fourth-highest ever at a Big Event out of players who made the playoffs — behind Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač's 1.70 and Håvard "⁠rain⁠" Nygaard's 1.61 at ESL One New York 2017 and Patrik "⁠f0rest⁠" Lindberg's 1.61 at Copenhagen Games 2013.

ZywOo started EPICENTER with a couple of huge performances in the group stage against EHOME and Natus Vincere, putting up 1.50+ ratings in all four of Vitality's map victories, before adding another versus HEROIC two days later in the semi-finals.

Going into the final, the 19-year-old had the biggest competition in his teammate Alex "⁠ALEX⁠" McMeekin and opponent David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský, and he blew past them in the run to the accolade as by far the best player of the title decider, pushing Vitality over the finish line with a 1.58 series rating.

ZywOo posted incredible numbers all-around in Moscow, leading the tournament in ADR (97.3), KPR (0.96), DPR (0.53), and KAST (79.8%), and also winning the second-most 1vX scenarios (8).

Having led Vitality to consecutive titles at cs_summit 4 and ECS Season 7 Finals in the first half of the year, as well as runner-up finishes at ESL One Cologne and DreamHack Masters Malmö, ZywOo ends 2019 with his fifth medal at EPICENTER.