This may sound like an out-of-season April Fool’s joke, but one of the best players in the history of Counter-Strike, Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, has joined BC.Game, a team that’s currently ranked 67th globally.
In football, if Lionel Messi gets signed by Inter Miami near the end of his career for a huge amount of money per season, it’s not a big surprise because many players do these types of deals.
However, for s1mple to join a little-known esports organization, presumably for a relatively small amount, at the age of 27, when he still has at least five good years ahead of him, is quite shocking.
What to Expect
Everyone expected s1mple to join an organization like FaZe Clan or just start playing for Natus Vincere again. Instead, he chose to end his 9-year collaboration with NAVI to essentially play tier 3 CS.
If BC.Game manages to build even a remotely decent roster around s1mple, they should completely destroy all opponents in the qualifiers for A-tier and S-tier tournaments.
The man known as The Undertaker simply has no business competing in these kinds of events. However, s1mple, being a slightly eccentric player, he’s willing to do some really unorthodox things to restart his professional career.
At the recent Austin Major, FaZe Clan finished 5th – 8th largely thanks to his contribution. They could have finished as high as 2nd, but unfortunately for them, they lost in the quarterfinals against The MongolZ, a team they had defeated in stage 3. The MongolZ then went on to finish the tournament in 2nd place.
If s1mple is serious about his CS2 career, until the end of 2025, he should be in great shape again. He used to be the best of the best, having only one equal in the person of Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut, but after more than one year of absence from the game, there’s a long way to go to get back on top.
