New s1mple record.

On June 20, 2022, at the BLAST Premier: Spring Finals tournament, the world saw a new s1mple (Simple) record. On this day Alexander Kostylev, who plays on the sniper position in the Navi team and is known in the cybersports community under the nickname s1mple, received a prize as the most valuable player (MVP) of the Blast tournament. The achievement was Simpl's 20th, and it is the all-time record for the most MVPs in Counter Strike history. The previous record holder, the legendary Nikolai Ridtz, who played under the nickname device for the equally legendary Astralis team, had only 19 such titles.

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Usually the MVP award is given to a player, who within a particular tournament at the same time:

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1. Won the tournament with his team or at least played in the finals.

2. Achieved the best statistical indicators during the tournament, e.g. the highest kill/death ratio, scored the most aces. By the way, you can read about Simpl's record of eis for 1 tournament below.

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3. He played efficiently and beautifully, for example, for a sniper it is cool to kill an enemy with a nowscope (without a scope), flickshot, i.e. with a turn to 90 or 180 degrees, or make 2 frags with 1 shot. 

Simpl's achievement of the number of MVPs in 1 season

2022 is not rich at all in new Simpl's records in CS:GO. Apparently, the well-known events in Ukraine are affecting all of us. NAVI players have to deal with the issues of moving to Europe where they can train without fearing for their health and lives, as well as the safety of their loved ones. I guess Simpl is not up to new super results now either, and the level of play shown at Blast is mostly experience and old accumulated baggage of chips and game strategies.

But last 2021 was a fruitful year for Simpl's records. In particular, he surpassed the achievement of device (Nikolaj Ridtz) in the number of Most Valuable Player titles in 1 calendar year. Devizes was awarded 7 MVP titles in the Astralis era of dominance in 2018, while Simple managed to outslug Devizes and get 8 Most Valuable Player titles in 2021.

Record for eights

In July 2021, Simple

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s bombastic new record in CS:GO – 4 eights in 1 tournament was set at the IEM Cologne 2021 tournament 4 eights in 1 tournament. For those who do not know, eis – is when 1 player single-handedly kills the entire enemy team, i.e. makes 5 frags for 1 round.

To characterize the achievement of Alexander Kostylev was chosen word «bombastic», and it is not without reason, because other epithets to it simply do not fit. Making 1-2 eis per tournament – is an extremely difficult task for professionals, as you can see by studying the statistics of players on hltv.org. For example, the same Simple played in 175 official tournaments, during which he made 63 aces. That's an average of 0.36 eis per 1 contest.

Now imagine that the 0.36 eis average improves by a factor of 11 to become 4 eis per tournament. Isn't Simple's record bombastic after that?

Simple – twice the best player in the world in 2018 and 2021

Some of you might say that's not Simple's record, there have been other players who have been recognized twice as the best in the world. And you would be right, those gamers were:

1. ZywOo (Mathieu Herbault) – best in 2019 and 2020.

2. coldzera (Marcelo David) – triumphant in 2016 and 2017.

3. GeT_RiGhT (Christopher Allesund) – top 1 player in 2013 and 2014.

If you paid attention, both ZywOo, coldzera, and GeT_RiGhT dominated the CS:GO arena for 2 years in a row, and what makes Simpl's record unique is that he became the best cacer in the world for the second time only after a 2 year hiatus.

CS:GO – is a very tough cyber sport discipline where you need quick reactions, instant correct decision making and extreme concentration. They worsen with age. Gamers over 24 years old due to physiological reasons can no longer withstand the pressure of young guys, compete on par with them and fall out of the CS CS elite. Top players around 30 or over 30 years in CS:GO – units.

Counter Strike stars are somewhat like supernovae: quickly flare up and just as quickly burn out. So Simpl's record of being able to repeat his achievement and become the best in the world again after 2 years is truly admirable.

Number 1 in terms of «kills/deaths ratio»

Kostylev, as one of the best professional kayakers, certainly has a positive statistic on the difference between kills and deaths. However, Simpl's new record in CS:GO convincingly shows how much he surpasses other top players on this indicator.

Simpl has the number of frags exceeds the number of deaths by 6451, this result he achieved in just 1200 maps. The nearest competitor of s1mple – sniper under the nickname kennyS (Kenny Shrub) – has a positive difference of 6323 kills, but on 1727 maps.

Simple's record is certainly impressive, as it took him 527 fewer maps than kennyS to rack up a Kill/Death Difference score greater than Kenny Shrub's.

If we take the top player coldzera, who played a comparable number of cards to Simpl (1213 cards), coldzera has a Kill/Death Difference of – 5609, which is 842 less than Simpl. So the harsh statistics unequivocally states: Simpl rules!

Achievement on megahighlight and graffiti

What we are going to talk about now, of course, is not a new Simpl record in CS:GO, because it happened 6 years ago at the ESL One Cologne event in 2016.

 

In the semifinals of this tournament, where Fnatic and Team Liquid (Kostylev was playing for Liquid at the time) faced off against each other, Simpl solved an incredible clutch against 2 opponents on the Cache map in an attempt to retake the B plenta (defuse a bomb planted by terrorists on point B). He killed one of the opponents in flight with a sniper without a zoom, and then without delay the second – and also without a telescopic sight.

This episode so impressed the cybersports world that map developer Cache decided to immortalize Simpl's amazing record and painted graffiti in the form of a flying man with wings, holding an AWP, on «nine» in the B plenta area. It's where Simple made his legendary jump. 

To this day, gamers playing as special forces and defending point B on Cache can see this graffiti and draw inspiration for the game from Simpl's example.

By the way, Simpl's record amazed not only the cybersports community, but also its author. Kostylev got a tattoo, which exactly copies graffiti, on his left shoulder.