The Story of s1mple, NaVi

Full Name: Oleksandr Olehovych Kostyliev

Nick: s1mple

Also known as: The Undertaker, Sasha

Games: Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

Current Team: Natus Vincere (NaVi)

Ex Team: Team Liquid

Date of Birth: the 2nd of October, 1997 (25 years old)

Place of Birth: Ukraine

Nationality: Ukrainian

Relationship Status/Partners: Single (ex girlfriend: Arina Berdnikova AKA nyasharisha and AhriNyan)

Here’s the story of Oleksandr “s1mple” Olehovych Kostyliev, a CS:GO prodigy that is today regarded as one of the most famous CS:GO gods.

Who Is s1mple?

Oleksandr “s1mple” Olehovych Kostyliev (Cyrillic: Олександр Олегович Костилєв) is one of the legends of CS:GO. He is considered the most outstanding player in the game’s history.

His favorite CS:GO role is AWPer (similar to Skadoodle), although he displays superb skills when playing with rifles as well. Oleksandr still impresses his fans around the globe with impressive chops, witty plays, and fantastic achievements.

S1mple is a Ukrainian CS:GO player that pulled some of the most insane kills and tricks during professional A- and S-Tier tournaments.

He was also one of those players that fans thought was “cursed” not to win a CS:GO major. However, in 2021, he was too good not to do it.

Although he is currently only 24 years old, s1mple already has numerous prestigious awards and accolades to his name and plays competitively at the highest level for the legendary NaVi team.

Read our article further to learn all details about this ingenious CS:GO player.

How Did s1mple Become Famous?

S1mple’s fame wasn’t exactly enviable back in the early days. He had developed a toxic reputation that he still couldn’t get quite rid of.

Although he was one of the few players that could challenge the famous Andrii “B1ad3” Horodenskyi, he became more famous with his emotional outbursts and ESL bans.

S1mple was always regarded as an irritable, jumpy, and quick-tempered person. When he was in his teens, it wasn’t unusual to see s1mple overreact whenever he would lose or win a match.

However, things would go ugly whenever s1mple was losing. He would curse, yell, and verbally abuse his teammates, blaming them for not being as good as he was.

This negative image would haunt him for years, and it didn’t help when he got his first one-year ESL ban because of cheating. It was not sure what the cheating was about, but s1mple defended himself, saying he used some cheats in Counter-Strike 1.6, which was later proved false.

Given that s1mple’s urge to play CS:GO competitively was so high, he decided to create another CS:GO account and thus try to avoid the ban. Given he was caught red-handed with his fake account, s1mple received yet another one-year ban, meaning he couldn’t play ESL tournaments until 2016.

However, all this time, s1mple was perfecting his CS:GO skills and drew the attention of Hiko and Team Liquid. That’s when he received an invitation to move to Los Angeles and play competitively for them. S1mple accepted the invitation and moved to LA in early 2016. His ban would expire soon after he moved to the States, so Team Liquid got the chance to participate in ESL One in Cologne.

This was the time when s1mple became more famous for his outstanding plays than his arrogance.

During the semi-finals against the team Fnatic, s1mple pulled the now-famous falling AWP play. He was so calm and good that he managed to pick up two frags without the AWP scope, one while falling, the other from a distance immediately after. In fact, this play impressed the CS:GO community so much that Valve created graffiti to honor this legendary moment.

Another play that made s1mple a CS:GO rockstar was the “AWP flash,” AKA “the most expensive flashbang in the world.”

This happened in 2016 during the New York ESL One match between s1mple’s former Team Liquid and current NaVi. 

S1mple wanted to confuse Liquid’s player Nitro by throwing the AWP across the bombsite’s box. It turns out Nitro got slightly confused by this play, and s1mple took his shot.

Of course, some argue that this play was more for fanfare and looks. However, it still remains one of the most legendary moves ever seen in the CS:GO pro tournament.

When s1mple joined NaVi in 2016, he was already a well-known CS:GO player that kept impressing audiences around the globe.

S1mple Debut Teams

S1mple’s first CS:GO team was LAN DODGERS, although he didn’t spend much time with them and joined Courage Gaming.

His first serious competitive team was Hellraisers. S1mple joined Hellraisers’ ANGE1, Dosia, Kucher, and Markeloff in September 2014. However, due to his frantic behavior and rude attitude, s1mple was removed from the team. His ESL ban and unacceptable comments about Germans were the main reasons.

S1mple didn’t have to wait long to get an invitation from Flipsid3 Tactics in 2015. But s1mple still didn’t learn the lesson. He was quickly fired due to his toxic behavior toward his teammates.

Since he was starting to earn the reputation of a toxic player, he wasn’t sure whether he’d succeed in the pro scene. Luckily, Hiko contacted him in 2016 and offered to join Team Liquid. Thanks to Hiko’s mentorship, s1mple toned down his erratic behavior and started earning respect among his peers.

Although he left Team Liquid to join NaVi in 2016, it’s no doubt that his sessions with Team Liquid made him a part of what he is now.

The three teams (Hellraiser, Flipsid3 Tactics, and Team Liquid) were a great starting point for s1mple on his path to join NaVi and behave like the pro that he is.

S1mple Streaming

Sasha Kostyliev has a Twitch channel named s1mple. He created the channel on the 15th of April, 2014. Since then, he has amassed around 3.3 million followers.

When s1mple doesn’t play competitively offline, he streams actively. For instance, on the 4th of March, 2021, s1mple had a peak viewer count of 84.000.

The funny thing is that his behavior on Twitch was as controversial as it was when he started competing in the CS:GO pro scene. At the time of writing, he already has four Twitch bans, mostly because of his aggressive behavior.

He usually gets into disputes with his viewers, although he had some beef with his former teammate Danylo “Zeus” Teslenko.

The last time he was banned was in October 2020. That time, he claimed that he was provoked by a viewer when he called s1mple a “pidor,” an offensive Russian slur.

Similar to having arguments with his teammates, s1mple also likes to bash Twitch. For instance, the first time he was banned in 2018, he was also using derogatory terms live on stream.

From week-long to even three-month-long bans, s1mple had them all. Surprisingly, his channel is still up and running, so if you’d like to check him out while he’s not banned forever, click here.

S1mple Girlfriend

Oleksandr has been in one significant relationship with Arina Berdnikova, AKA nyasharisha, and AhriNyan. The couple has been together for years, although with a few breaks.

Arina Berdnikova is also a CS:GO gamer, anime watcher, Instagram model, TikTok entertainer, and Twitch streamer. She can often be seen streaming alongside s1mple.

The funny thing is when AhriNyan seems to have a bad streak of matches, s1mple steps in and restores the balance.

They are still dating in 2022, although s1mple’s tight CS:GO pro schedule is quite a challenge to handle when you’re in a relationship.

Single Again?

They were still dating in the first half of 2022, but it looks like they broke up – again. A few months ago, s1mple put one of those “Ask me a question” stories on Instagram. Someone asked if he was single and his short answer was “Yes”. Since then, there were some guesses about a new girlfriend: a Twitch streamer “barbiegirl” might have been in a relationship with s1mple, but that didn’t last long. Sasha is single at the moment, but considering the fact that he and Arina broke up and got together again several times before, the fans are hoping to see them as a couple again.

S1mple Statistics

Although s1mple is only 24 years old, he competed in all of the biggest CS:GO tournaments. He was one of the famous eSports players that were thought to be cursed not to win a major during his career.

However, in 2021, s1mple won the PGL Major Stockholm 2021 with NaVi. The fact he was tearing up during celebrations says a lot about how much he wanted it.

Some other A- and S-Tier tournaments where he won first place include:

• StarLadder CIS RMR 2021
• DreamHack Masters Spring 2021
• WePlay! Clutch Island
• StarLadder Berlin Major 2019
• ESL One: Cologne 2018
• ESL One: New York 2016

S1mple was often a runner-up at some of the most significant events, like PGL Major Antwerp 2022, Intel Extreme Masters XVI – Fall: CIS, EPICENTER 2018, FACEIT Major: London 2018, ESL One: Cologne 2016, and others.

S1mple is considered to be one of if not the most awarded CS:GO player of all time. His accolades include being the best player of 2021 by HLTV, Esports PC Player of the Years 2018 and 2021, the Best Esports Athlete of 2021 by The Game Awards, the best eSports player of the Year 2016 by Red Bull, the player of the Year 2018 by Stockholm International Esports Awards, the Best Player of 2018 by betway, and the Best Player of FPL 2017 by FACEIT.

He is also the CS:GO player with the most MVP awards, 21 in total, including ESL One: New York 2016, DreamHack Open Winter 2017, StarLadder & i-League StarSeries Season 4, and meany more. Given that s1mple is still at his peak performance, we can expect more awards to join this list soon.

S1mple Personal Info

Sasha’s childhood was not glamorous. He was born in Ukraine, where having a computer was a luxury.

As he grew up with his mother and his older brother, he often needed to fight for more screen time on the single household computer.

His mother wanted him to be more engaged in class, while his brother wanted to play Counter-Strike as much as he did.

Sasha would often visit PC LAN clubs in his neighborhood and stayed there for hours, playing Counter-Strike. Surprisingly, he would then go to school and still score good grades.

His mother wasn’t supportive of his gaming career when he began drawing attention to his skills. She thought Sasha needed to go to university, so he eventually started studying the Chinese language and linguistics.

Luckily, his brother recognized his talent, so he gave his best to help him out. After Sasha got into competitive teams, he helped convince their mother to let him play for Team Liquid and drop out of classes.

This was a great opportunity for Sasha to learn English and indulge in Western culture.

However, his irritable and quick-tempered reactions, bully-like criticisms of his teammates, and a two-year ESL ban because of cheating endangered his career.

As s1mple was developing a somewhat bad reputation on the CS:GO pro scene, Hiko helped him as his mentor when he moved to the States to compete for Team Liquid.

Hiko helped s1mple to become a more refined and subtle team player, instead of a player that nobody wanted in their team because of his toxic overreactions when losing.

However, after less than a year in the States, s1mple couldn’t acclimate to the western culture. At the time, he was often seen chatting with members from NaVi at tournaments and dreamed about joining their team one day.

As he moved back to his home country, he refused to go on a vacation and stayed home playing CS:GO for hours. One day, between his long sessions, he learned that NaVi wanted him to join them.

Given that the team was composed of Eastern Europeans, he was happy to accept the invitation. Thus his quest for the first NaVi’s and his CS:GO major began.

Although NaVi members knew that s1mple wasn’t so simple to handle and that he had quite a temper to be reckoned with, s1mple wasn’t as toxic as they had expected.

In fact, he was regarded as a perfectionist, meaning he would deliver his best plays whenever needed, but he expected the same from the team.

In a way, his team members looked at him as a Michael Jordan or Steve Jobs of CS:GO – he would push everyone, including himself, to the breaking points while striving for perfection.

Of course, some players couldn’t handle the pressure, while some could, as more and more years passed by while the team did not win a single CS:GO Major.

There was a feeling that NaVi had great chances in 2020 to win a major. Unfortunately, the pandemic outbreak made things impossible for the team.

However, during PGL Major Stockholm 2021, all the difficulties and hard work paid off. NaVi won the tournament without losing a single match, which was unprecedented.

Given that the NaVi team of s1mple, electroNic, Perfect, B1t, and B1ad3 looks great even in 2022 despite the team being a mixture of Russians and Ukrainians, there are strong chances we’ll see s1mple winning another major.

S1mple Net Worth and Finances

Although Oleksandr Sasha Kostyliev is sometimes regarded as the greatest CS:GO player, his misfortune in tournaments resulted in him not being the highest-grossing one.

Of course, the estimated S1mple net worth is still high, going over one and a half million dollars. Actually, 1,633,386 dollars, to be precise.

Most of his earnings come from playing the tournaments with NaVi. However, sponsorships and Twitch streams also make up his income revenue.

S1mple Age

Oleksandr Sasha Kostyliev will be 25 years old as of the 2nd of October, 2022.

Where Does s1mple Live?

Oleksandr Sasha Kostyliev currently lives in Ukraine.

S1mple Weight and Height

Oleksandr Sasha Kostyliev is one of the taller CS:GO players, thanks to his imposing 1.87 meters. It is estimated that Sasha weighs approximately 86kg.

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