Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev’s highly-anticipated return to top-level Counter-Strike has been nothing short of a rollercoaster. The CS:GO legend, now testing his skills in CS2 with BC.Game, made it all the way to the Grand Final of Exort The Proving Grounds Season 3. But despite flashes of brilliance, his debut tournament ended in a double-overtime defeat to BetBoom Team.
A mixed start with BC.Game
S1mple’s run with BC.Game had its ups and downs right from the opening match. He started slow against CYBERSHOKE, finishing at the bottom of the leaderboard, though the team managed a reverse-sweep to stay alive. From there, his form spiked and dipped: a huge 1.53 rating carried them past Spirit Academy, before a nightmare performance against Partizan saw BC.Game pushed to the edge.
When it mattered most, though, s1mple showed up. Wins over ARCRED, ENCE, and another clean sweep against Spirit Academy put him firmly back on top of the scoreboards. His quarterfinal against Spirit Academy was vintage s1mple, posting a massive 1.71 rating. That form continued into the semis, where BC.Game swept OG 2–0 to punch their ticket to the Grand Final.
Image via HLTV.org
Familiar faces in the Grand Final
The final itself carried extra weight. On the other side of the server was BetBoom, led by Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhaylov, s1mple’s former NAVI teammate. Their recent history wasn’t pretty either, BC.Game had already been knocked down by BetBoom in the ESL Challenger League qualifiers earlier this month.
BetBoom came out swinging on Mirage, BC.Game’s pick, locking it down 13–4. S1mple still managed a respectable 94.5 ADR and a 1.12 rating, but it wasn’t enough to stop the bleed.
The real drama came on Nuke. Both teams refused to budge in regulation, trading rounds until the game pushed to double overtime. S1mple produced some classic highlight moments to keep BC.Game in the fight, but BetBoom finally closed it out 19–16, taking the series 2–0.
Image via HLTV.org
Numbers behind the story
Despite the loss, s1mple still put up the highest rating on his team across the final (1.17 with a +2 K-D). He also led the entire server in opening duels with a ridiculous 13–2 record, showing that even after a long break, his impact is still undeniable.
Across the whole event, s1mple finished with a 1.22 rating over 17 maps, more than any other player in the top seven of the tournament rankings. That workload, paired with HLTV’s new 3.0 ranking system, makes his numbers harder to judge, but it’s clear he was a driving force behind BC.Game’s Grand Final run.
The best individual on the day, though, was BetBoom’s Kirill “Magnojez” Rodnov, who dropped 53 kills and 32 deaths in the final with a monstrous 1.55 rating.
What’s next?
BC.Game won’t have long to dwell on the loss. The squad is still grinding through qualifiers for ESL Challenger League Season 50, where they’ll clash with OG on 26 August at 19:00 CEST. And with s1mple already making his mark in his very first event, fans will be eager to see whether the GOAT can settle in and return to his dominant best.