S1mple wins CS:GO Player of the Decade award

On November 12, right before the semifinals of IEM Rio Major, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev received a very special award from ESL. He was named Player of the Decade in CS:GO.

This means that since the launch of the game back in 2012, no other player has been better than him. A panel of 75 highly accomplished CS:GO players got the chance to vote for the winner and s1mple received the highest number of votes. The runner-up was Nicolai “dev1ce” Reedtz.

S1mple deserved to win

In some people’s eyes, dev1ce deserved the award more than s1mple just because of the sheer number of Majors he won with Astralis. Some might argue that s1mple won only because of the voters’ recency bias. But the fact is that the Ukrainian player has been phenomenal over the last six years, doing things that no one thought were possible.

In 2021, s1mple won his first Major with Natus Vincere and over the last few years, his team has been one of the strongest in the game.

Unfortunately for s1mple, the award was given to him at IEM Rio Major after Na’Vi got eliminated from the tournament. He would have probably liked to receive it after winning the Grand Final, but FURIA Esports ended Na’Vi’s run in the quarterfinals.

S1mple’s Prowess and Career Highlights

S1mple is known for his extraordinary game sense and his ability to play just as well with guns like AK-47, M4A4, and AWP. His stats in 2021 were off-the-charts. Not even Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, who has been the second-best player in the world for the past four years, managed to surpass him.

S1mple started to win important trophies in 2016. His first S-tier success came at ESL One: New York, where he defeated Virtus.pro in the Grand Final. But then, for two and a half years, Natus Vincere won nothing significant. It was only in April 2019, after multiple roster changes, that the team got back on track.

Since 2019, s1mple and his team have won nine S-tier tournaments, including PGL Major Stockholm. His personal earnings from tournament prizes have surpassed $1.7 million. And he’s just 25 years old.

It remains to be seen what s1mple can do in the coming years. He’s already extended his contract with Na’Vi for another 3 years, so we can expect him to continue playing for the organization without taking significant breaks. It’s unlikely that he will take the approach of dev1ce and Jacky “Stewie2K” Yip, who took huge breaks from the game.

Header: @luanportofoto