RpK Leaving CSGO

French Counter-Strike legend, Cédric Guipouy AKA RpK, has recently announced his retirement. Except for Oleksandr Kostyliev AKA s1mple, RpK was the fourth most decorated player in CS:GO history, with 11 major titles and more prize money than anyone else. Fans of RpK will be sorely missed as he begins his post-retirement career as a Twitch streamer.

A few words of context are required for those unfamiliar with the French scene. Fabien Fiey AKA kioShiMa was the first Frenchman to break through as a world-class player in 2012. Richard Papillon AKA shox, recruited him to join one of the most storied teams in the world called VeryGames, just before the Global Offensive movement began in 2013.

A year later, RpK moved to EnvyUs and continued to perform well at events such as DreamHack Winter 2014 and ESWC 2015. On the other hand, kioShiMa never advanced to a Major final outside of France, which was an ironic fate for a Frenchman who was arguably better than everyone in France except Richard “shox” Papillon.

Adil Benrlitom AKA ScreaM, became a star player on Imaginary Forces a few months later and in 2014, he reached the semifinals of both majors, but he was never able to achieve the same level of dominance as kioShiMa. In early 2015, he switched to EnVyUs, where he has remained one of the most consistent players in the world.

RpK is widely regarded as the greatest French player of all time even after Titan was acquired by EnVyUs, he joined them at the end of 2013 and quickly became an indispensable member of shox’s squad. He has four Major titles and nine other international titles to his credit. With the exception of ESL One Cologne 2016, he made it to the grand finals of every major he attended (when EnVyUs was upset by NiP). Even though he didn’t make it all the way to the final, his Major consistency is unrivaled, especially for a French player.