Once again, s1mple and ZywOo occupy the top 2 positions in CS:GO

Everyone suspected that Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut would be the two best CS:GO players of the season for the fourth consecutive year.

It seems that these two players are the Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo of CS:GO. Both of them are absolutely incredible and have the ability to win games almost on their own.

S1mple

S1mple had a rough season with Natus Vincere in 2022, winning just one relatively small tournament: BLAST Premier Spring Finals. Of course, this was an S-tier event and Na’Vi got $200.000 for claiming the trophy. But the number of participants was just eight, so s1mple’s victory was not that prestigious.

Two other great results obtained by s1mple and his team in 2022 were the second places they got at IEM Cologne and PGL Major Antwerp. In both cases, s1mple was in great shape and his performance was responsible to a large extent for Na’Vi’s deep run in the tournament.

It will be interesting to see what s1mple can do in 2023. Na’Vi’s roster was changed again at the end of 2022, so everyone is curious to see if the Ukrainian superstar can continue to play as well as he did last year and perhaps achieve a bit more.

ZywOo

Right now, ZywOo’s situation is very similar to that of s1mple from around four years ago. He’s absolutely formidable, his stats are constantly off-the-charts, and yet he doesn’t win that many tournaments.

His biggest success in 2022 was the victory he obtained with Team Vitality at ESL Pro League Season 16. His team has one of the best rosters in the world but it’s obvious that the five players are not on the same page.

Diversity can be a strength but it can also be a weakness, especially if the players don’t communicate very well with each other. From the outside, the feeling is that Vitality are struggling to develop a system that’s good enough to ensure a high level of consistency.

But to be fair, CS:GO is extremely competitive right now. There are at least 5-10 teams that could easily dominate the game’s esports scene, which is probably the main reason why Vitality didn’t win more tournaments. It’s also the reason why 2022 had so many different winners of S-tier events.

Despite the disappointments, ZywOo ended the year with a very promising performance at BLAST Premier: World Final, where his team got eliminated by G2 Esports. Once again, he was easily the best member of his squad.

Header: ESL