Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev switched to the lower tier scene of competitive Counter-Strike 2 earlier this year, but he’s now proving that he really belongs in the highest level.
Playing for BC.Game Esports, s1mple has risen as the best CS2 player over the last month based on individual rating. According to HLTV, he posted a stunning 1.46 rating (using the Rating 3.0 system) during the window, surpassing superstars like Team Spirit’s donk (1.45) and Team Vitality’s ZywOo (1.26).
The Ukrainian AWPer tallied a better rating on T-side compared to CT-side (1.51 vs 1.40), and chalked an impressive 1.71 K/D (383 kills against 224 deaths). He racked up his numbers in 18 maps, where he played a total of 407 rounds.
While NAVI had to part ways with the CS:GO legend, as explained by coach B1ad3, a lot of fans believe that s1mple still has the firepower to compete and excel in tier one of the professional CS2 scene. His current team, BC.Game, is seen by many people as a tier two or even a tier three squad.
In the GlobalOffensive subreddit, one fan said, “The amount of people constantly shifting the goalpost is disgusting. He is overqualified and will excel in tier 1 play. Even in his out-of-form, he was FaZe’s best player in the Austin Major, only playing bad in one match.” Another fan agreed to this and commented, “He literally was why they (FaZe Clan) even made playoffs in the first place.”
One fan dug deeper and stated some factual data to support the above statements while also believing s1mple will be back to the tier one scene sooner than later: “Tbh he played not that bad on Austin Major, and when you compared his rating for last months with last 3 months, you’ll see that he was playing way better (1.46 vs 1.29). Just need time to come back and I’m sure he’ll be back to a T1 squad soon.”
“At the (Austin) Major, before playoffs, he was the second-best AWPer behind ZywOo. Coming basically straight out of his sabbatical. That was months ago. He definitely still got it,” another fan chimed in.
We don’t know what the future holds, but s1mple has got nothing to prove to the world. He has competed at the highest level for a long time and achieved incomparable results with NAVI. The legend is always welcome to the higher tier if he wants to.
