Every so often, a talent comes along in a field like sports or art who so completely blows away the competition

that the whole world stops to take notice. Watching the rise of Max "demon1" Mazanov in the 2023 Valorant season

started to feel a bit like we might be watching a true virtuoso take the game by storm. This impression only grew

stronger as demon1 capped off Evil Geniuses' historic championship run by finding the final kill of the event via

a headshot—one of three that he had in the round—and his 421st total frag in 459 rounds played. This is it; this is

huge! Divine now has to be careful; he's a little ahead of expectation, but come on, the way he's going to take him down.

Still trying to dig deeper. The paint... it didn't connect. He found nothing. It's a 3v3; still anyone's game here. Jing's

next to try and step into the ring. Demon1, on the other side. Ethan's FM Freak is down to two. This could be it; another

chance for Jing. It's all over! EG are your Valorant world champions!

I remember thinking to myself during this final series that it really felt like anyone who took a straight 1v1 aim duel against demon1 was making a

big mistake. And the crazy thing is that the data backs this feeling up, as revealed in a cool thread on Twitter by

analyst Pablo. According to the data presented in the 2023 season, demon1 was the most successful player in the world

at winning rifle versus rifle duels, getting the edge against the world's best players nearly 59% of the time. So,

with this in mind, let's take a closer look at demon1's aiming mechanics to try and understand what makes him such a

demon in the server. Sorry for that! Let's start with speed, because this is where demon1 blows pretty much every other

Aiming out of the water, they're trying to clear through, looks for the next target. Oh, it's gorgeous! Demon1, this guy is

something else. Even though he uses one of the slower sensitivities among pro players, everything else he does is

insanely fast. In simple terms, every shot happens in three distinct steps: Number one, target acquisition—basically

identifying a target that has appeared on your screen; number two, moving your crosshair to that target; and number

three, actually clicking to take the shot. At this point, I don't think I have ever seen a player do target acquisition

quite at the speed that Demon1 does. So, as we go through the examples in this video, see if you can recognize how often

Demon1 gets his first shot off before his opponents do. In this round against EDG, Demon1 has dashed in first to try

and hit the door switch, and EDG is about to flood through the market smoke to contest the push. As we can see, Demon1's

crosshair placement is actually quite poor here, as he seems to still be deciding whether he wants to watch the

market smoke or the CT.  However, the split second a sliver of Jet's body comes through the smoke in Market, Demon

one's crosshair snaps towards the headshot before Jet's body has even finished its death animation. He's already on to

target number two, who is just a horizontal flick away. If EDG had better weapons here, it is possible that Demon

one might have been traded, but the speed of his aim adjustment is still impressive. As Sova falls, Killjoy swings

out from stairs and is able to fire a single shot before Demon one's gun sweeps diagonally down to land just

below head height in compensation for the recoil. Even his final kill of the round is sort of a 1v1 speed

challenges as demon one stands in the open, waiting for the smoke to dissipate and then simply executes Omen the moment

he becomes visible. If we break this down frame by frame, we can actually see that Demon One is clicking to fire basically

exactly the moment his crosshair touches Omen's head. This click timing is another skill I think sets Demon One

apart from most other Valorant players. As demonstrated in this round against Paper Rex, faced with trying to break a

trap setup in B Heaven, Demon One walks up the steps with his aim set to try and punish the jump-peaking Sky. Paper Rex's

bait actually works pretty well, as Demon One is clearly surprised when Viper steps out from behind the bus.

However, his insane target acquisition kicks his reflexes into action and he flicks down towards Viper. He actually

over-flicks by an entire player model, but because his click timing is so precise, he still hits the headshot mid-

flick. As his crosshair passes over the model, he readjusts to stairs, expecting another jump peak and has to do a small

downwards flick to hit Sky when they swing the corner again. The shot happens instantly as his crosshair touches the

head, leaving no time for Sky to fall back into cover. At this point, Ray tries to challenge Demon One from the rope and

this surprise movement actually forces a couple of pretty large over-flick misses from Demon One. However, his weapon

advantage and the speed at which he recovers his aim is enough to find the third duel of the round. Test or Le

posture towards middle and the very beginning, taking over towards the top side of things. Oh, come on, this guy is

literally inhuman! As I was gathering clips for this video, I kept running into situations like these where Demon One's

speed simply outpaces the other players in the server, and it doesn't really seem to matter what weapon he's using. His

ability to identify and react to enemies from all sorts of angles is just astonishingly fast. It got me thinking

about Demon1's past experience in Unreal Tournament and how that may have given him a unique mechanical skill set

that nobody else has in the game. For those who don't know, Demon1's previous game of choice was Epic's old-school

arena shooter, Unreal Tournament, where players skate and fly around the map at dizzying speeds, taking fights from

all manner of odd angles with all sorts of different weapons. Crosshair placement does certainly play a role in any

shooter, but this game really emphasizes being able to identify and flick to targets at extreme speed. Also, because

the movement rate is so high, you have to develop absurdly quick click timing to actually hit anything before it moves

out of your crosshair. I would have to imagine that after playing a game like Unreal Tournament for so long, the speed

of movement in Valorant must feel incredibly slow. And there's perhaps no better round to demonstrate this speed

gap than this one against DRX at Valorant Champions. Unchecked by DRX's raise, Demon1 capitalizes on the

mistake by swinging out to fight the trailing Killjoy and Breach. We can see a slight wiggle in Demon1's aim as he

decides against going for Breach and takes the shot at Killjoy first. Before anyone can react, Demon1 has already

shifted his focus to Breach and tracks his head through the box to notch two kills in an instant. He repositions and

drops a smoke on the spike right as Ray comes back to try and reclaim it. After spraying down Ray in the smoke,

Demon One is already thinking about more shifting, quickly out of the smoke to take the fight to anyone coming to help.

Out of the now-deceased Ray again, Demon One gets the advantage of surprise as his swing carries his crosshair directly

onto the opposing Brimstone's head. Four enemies dead and not a single point of damage taken. He then checks the tower for

the final DRX player and gets a tiny glimpse of Viper's head before swinging

around the box's corner to close out the ace in a lightning-quick snap onto the head. Zest lingering above, he spotted and

he's got it. 6 to 1. Up the back of the ace, Demon One shuts it down. All this has

gotten me thinking about whether it's possible to recreate some of the aiming scenarios from higher-speed games like

Unreal Tournament inside of Valorant. Like any mechanical skill, if you don't pursue greater challenges, you're

eventually going to plateau, and exposing yourself to a wide range of aiming skills and styles and scenarios can only

broaden your ability to execute in the game. Respect my name; I'm the best in this game.

Why Demon1 has the FASTEST Aim in the World

Guides and strategy by Elevated, Valorant coach and analyst.
Content creator for Acend Club

Elevate your game!
