s1mple — Oleksandr Kostyliev

Oleksandr Kostyliev, known everywhere as s1mple, is the AWPer most people name first in any greatest-of-all-time argument about Counter-Strike. He built that reputation across nine years at Natus Vincere, a run that produced two HLTV Player of the Year titles, a Major, and a record haul of MVP awards. In 2025 he ended that chapter and signed with BC.Game Esports.

What separates s1mple from other elite AWPers is the range of shots he is willing to take. He does not just hold an angle and wait. He pushes into duels other players avoid, flicks across the map for kills that should not land, and swaps to the rifle without dropping a level of threat. At his peak he could win a series almost by himself, and the numbers back that up rather than the highlight reels alone.

The other half of his story is the noise around it. Suspensions as a teenager, a visa ban that kept him out of a North American Major, public feuds, and a long absence from the server all sit next to the trophies. s1mple is the most talented player the game has seen and one of its most complicated figures, and both things are true at once.

Oleksandr Kostyliev was born on October 2, 1997, in Kyiv, Ukraine. He found Counter-Strike young and showed unusual aim almost immediately, climbing through the local 1.6 and early Global Offensive scenes as a teenager who was clearly better than the players around him. Talent was never the question.

The early years were rough in every other way. He picked up multiple bans as a young player, including a VAC ban on an old account and a competitive ban tied to a toxicity and cheating-accusation incident on the ESEA and FACEIT circuits. Those episodes followed him into his first pro contracts and shaped a reputation for being difficult long before he was famous for winning.

His first real tier-one break came through HellRaisers and FlipSid3 Tactics between 2014 and 2015, where his individual numbers stood out even on rosters that could not consistently win. That form earned him a move to North America with Team Liquid in 2016, the stint that put him on the biggest stages and set up the transfer that would define his career.

s1mple's career splits cleanly into four phases: the climb through the early scene, the NAVI dynasty and its 2021 peak, a long stretch on the inactive bench, and the 2025 return with BC.Game. Each one reads differently.

s1mple joined Natus Vincere in August 2016, and the fit was immediate even when the trophies were not. He carried a stacked but underachieving roster to the ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018 final, where NAVI lost to Cloud9 in overtime. That defeat became the reference point for years of near-misses: a player good enough to reach finals, on teams not quite good enough to close them.

2018 was his first HLTV Player of the Year season, built on individual numbers no one else was posting. The team results caught up slowly. The turning point was the arrival of Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhailov as in-game leader and Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutskiy as the support anchor, which finally let s1mple and electronic play their game inside a structure.

2021 is the season that settles most of the argument. NAVI won the PGL Stockholm 2021 Major without dropping a single map across the playoffs, and s1mple took the Major MVP to go with it. He then closed the year winning the BLAST Premier World Final, secured Intel Grand Slam Season 3, and was named HLTV's number one player for the second time.

The MVP tally that year is the record that still stands out. s1mple earned eight HLTV MVP medals in the 2021 calendar year, the most any player has ever won in a single year. His career total sits at 21 MVP medals, second all-time behind only Nicolai "device" Reedtz. For a stretch of about twelve months, he was as dominant as any player the game has produced.

2022 stayed strong, with a BLAST Premier Spring Finals title and another deep Major run, but the pure statistical peak had passed. The wider disruption of the roster after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which forced NAVI and other Eastern European teams to relocate and reshuffle, changed the competitive picture for everyone in the region.

In October 2023 s1mple stepped back from NAVI's active roster and moved to the bench, framing it at the time as a break rather than a retirement. The break stretched on. He made one brief competitive appearance on loan to Team Falcons in early 2024, then returned to inactivity, and for most of 2024 the greatest player in the game simply was not competing.

The wait ended in mid-2025. On July 28, 2025, Natus Vincere announced that s1mple had been released after nine years with the organisation, and the same day BC.Game Esports confirmed they had signed him. The choice of a lower-profile org over a return to an established tier-one team surprised a lot of people, and it framed the comeback as a fresh project rather than a victory lap.

What the return means competitively is still an open question. He is 28, the game has moved to CS2, and a new generation led by players like donk has raised the ceiling since he last played full-time. Whether s1mple can reach his old level in this environment is the story worth watching, and it is exactly why the "what happened to s1mple" searches keep climbing.

s1mple is a primary AWPer who plays the role more aggressively than almost anyone at his level. Where most star snipers pick a safe angle and trade patiently, he hunts for openings, repositions constantly, and takes early-round duels that put the AWP at risk for the reward of a fast pick. When it works it breaks a round open before the enemy has set up. When it fails he has lost the most expensive weapon on the server, and that gamble is the honest cost of his style.

The rifle is what makes him complete. Plenty of elite AWPers become passengers when the sniper gets taken away. s1mple does not. His rifle numbers held up against dedicated riflers throughout his NAVI years, which meant opponents could never solve him just by forcing the AWP out of his hands. That two-way threat is a big part of why he sits at the top of so many best CS2 AWPers lists rather than being judged on sniping alone.

His sensitivity choice reinforces the style. At 3.09 in-game on 400 DPI he runs an eDPI of 1236, well above the pro average, which favours fast flicks and reactive scoping over slow, locked-down holds. It is a setup built for a player who wants to react and swing, not sit and wait.

s1mple's tracked prize money sits at roughly 1.73 million dollars from 155 tournaments, which places him around 91st on the all-time esports earnings list and 5th among Ukrainian players. Almost all of it came at Natus Vincere, and almost all of it in the CS:GO era rather than CS2. Tournament winnings are only part of a top pro's income, though. Salary, streaming, and sponsorships typically dwarf prize money for a player at his level of fame, so his actual net worth is far higher than the prize figure alone, even if the exact number is not public.

That single-season 2021 haul of nearly 800,000 dollars is the standout. It made up close to half his career prize money in one year and is the kind of run that lands a player near the top of any ranking of the highest-earning CS2 players. For the full picture of where he sits against the rest of the scene, our roundup of the top earners puts his total in context: highest earning CS2 and CSGO players.

s1mple's full name is Oleksandr Olehovych Kostyliev, and he was born in Kyiv on October 2, 1997.

He won eight HLTV MVP medals in 2021 alone, the most any player has recorded in a single calendar year.

His 21 career MVP medals are second only to Nicolai "device" Reedtz on the all-time list.

He missed the ELEAGUE Major Boston 2018 qualifying picture cleanly, but earlier in his career a US visa denial kept him from competing at a North American event, one of several off-server obstacles in his early years.

He is the only player to be runner-up for HLTV Player of the Year in back-to-back years (2019 and 2020) before winning it again in 2021.

He plays a 4:3 stretched resolution at 1280x960, a setup shared by a large share of professional CS players despite widescreen being standard for casual play.

His 2025 move to BC.Game ended a nine-year run at Natus Vincere, the longest single-team tenure of any modern CS superstar.

He runs one of the higher sensitivities in the pro scene at 1236 eDPI, unusual for an AWPer, where lower sensitivities are the norm.

s1mple matters because he pushed the ceiling of individual performance higher than anyone before him. For several years the debate was not whether he was the best player, but by how much. His 2018 and 2021 seasons are still used as the benchmark other stars get measured against, and the eight-MVP year remains untouched.

He also carried the argument that one player can drag a team further than the roster around them should allow. For long stretches at NAVI he was the reason the team reached finals it had no business reaching. That made him the clearest test case in Counter-Strike for how much a single superstar is actually worth, and the answer, most years, was a lot.

His story is not a clean one, and that is part of why it lands. The bans, the visa trouble, the feuds, and the long absence sit right next to the trophies and the records. s1mple is proof that the most gifted player in a game can also be its most scrutinised, and that both the talent and the turbulence get remembered.

s1mple's current CS2 settings are pulled from his BC.Game setup and cross-checked across public config trackers. The headline is his sensitivity: an eDPI of 1236 is high for any pro and unusually high for an AWPer, which tells you a lot about how reactive and flick-heavy his aim is. The rest of the config is standard tournament fare, 4:3 stretched with low-latency options turned on. If you want to see how his numbers compare to the rest of the tier-one field, our CS2 pro player settings breakdown lines them up side by side.

An eDPI of 1236 sits well above the roughly 800 average across pro CS2. That is a deliberate fit for s1mple's aggressive AWP style, where the priority is reacting fast and flicking onto targets rather than making slow, micro-adjusted holds. It is a high bar to copy directly. If you are not already comfortable on fast sens, treat this as a reference point rather than a setting to paste in cold.

s1mple runs 1280x960 stretched on 4:3, the resolution most pros still prefer because it makes enemy models appear slightly wider and the lower pixel count helps frame rates. Shadows sit on High, which is a competitive choice rather than a visual one, since shadows reveal enemy movement around corners. He plays on a 600Hz ZOWIE XL2586X+, so keeping frames uncapped and V-Sync off matters more here than it would on a standard monitor.

s1mple's crosshair is small, green, static, and tight, with a negative gap that pulls the four lines close to the center. It is a minimalist pick built for pixel-precise aim rather than visibility. To paste it in, open CS2 settings, go to Crosshair, click Share or Import, and drop in the code above. If you would rather tweak it or build your own from scratch, our guide to CS2 crosshairs walks through every command.

The 600Hz ZOWIE is the eye-catcher here. It is a tournament-grade refresh rate that only makes sense paired with a PC pushing frame rates high enough to feed it, which is why the config leans on low shader and effect detail. The Superlight 2 is the same lightweight shape used across much of the pro field.

Is s1mple the best CS player of all time?

He is the most common pick in that debate. Two HLTV Player of the Year titles, a record eight MVPs in one year, and 21 career MVP medals make his individual peak the highest anyone has reached. Players like device and ZywOo have their own cases, but s1mple's prime is the usual benchmark.

What team does s1mple play for now?

BC.Game Esports. He signed with them on July 28, 2025, the same day Natus Vincere announced his release after nine years.

Why did s1mple leave NAVI?

He moved to NAVI's inactive roster in October 2023 for what was described as a break, had a brief loan to Team Falcons in 2024, and was then formally released in July 2025 so he could join a new project at BC.Game.

How old is s1mple and where is he from?

He was born on October 2, 1997, in Kyiv, Ukraine, which makes him 28.

What are s1mple's CS2 settings?

400 DPI with 3.09 in-game sensitivity (1236 eDPI), 1280x960 stretched on 4:3, a Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2, and a 600Hz ZOWIE XL2586X+. His crosshair code is CSGO-UseJt-3oTvn-47wPX-hEyER-WZfiK.

How much has s1mple earned?

Around $1.73 million in tracked tournament prize money across 155 events, most of it at NAVI. That figure excludes salary, streaming, and sponsorship income, so his overall net worth is considerably higher.