s1mple: "I believe in this team, and we can do more"

After the conclusion of DreamHack Masters Marseille, Aleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev took the MVP award despite his team falling to Astralis. We sat down with him to give him his medal and hear his thoughts.

Natus Vincere failed to take the trophy home as an incredibly dominant Astralis won the final. Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev, however, managed to take home the MVP award with a staggering 1.52 rating (which went up to 1.57 in the playoffs), 99.4 ADR, 1.63 impact, and an 82.2% KAST.

s1mple had an all-time great performance in Marseille

The Ukrainian hybrid player, who now boasts two MVP medals this year despite his team only being able to finish second at the events he was awarded in, told us about the atmosphere in the team, the plans for the future, and the technical delay caused by a reflection that briefly paused the final. 

Let's kick off with something positive. You made it to the final here and have been getting good results this year. What are the positives you can take away from this tournament?

I can just say that we practiced really well before the tournament. Maybe not enough, like Astralis. They were stronger today, congrats to them. Here we played a lot of maps, and we decided to pick Nuke against Gambit to practice it because we have more tournaments soon. We need more experience on all maps against great teams.

The tournament was great, another LAN experience for us. We lost the final, unfortunately, but we're going to fix our mistakes and keep moving forward. We're going to stay strong and I hope one day we'll show the world we're going to win a tournament. One day.

Even now when you were outside talking after the final, everyone on the team was together and there seems to be a very good team spirit despite the loss. Will that help you moving forward?

Yes, of course. We fixed all of our problems with each other like a month ago, so now we're just becoming stronger and stronger. I believe in this team, and we can do more. It wasn't our game against Astralis today. Of course, they were better, because only a better team wins at such a big tournament, but we'll keep improving.

What are your plans for the next events?

We're just going home now. If we get visas for Sydney we'll fly there. If not, we'll do another bootcamp with a little break before Dallas so we can practice more. Our map pool, and strategies, everything... like we did before, to become better.

It's always disappointing to lose a final, but you got the MVP. Second time this happens to you, and the only player it has happened to at a big event...

I mean, you know... How do I explain? It's okay to get the MVP award, but as I see it I would rather win with my team and give the MVP to an Astralis guy, than getting MVP and losing against them. It's tough to lose this game, but I still think it was a good result. We played three tournaments, two finals and a semifinal in Boston against FaZe for which we didn't prepare well.

Something curious happened during the final that made the match stop. You could see a reflection or something like that?

When gla1ve won the 1vs3 against us, I was watching on Edward's monitor after I died and I noticed I could barely see their money and the radar. I could see how they were moving, so I called a pause and told the admin I didn't want to look at the radar but that when I looked on Edward's monitor I could see their rotation and a bit of their economy with my peripheral vision. They fixed it quickly and everything was fine.

Hopefully, next time, you can get both the MVP medal and the trophy, but before we close out the interview are there any shoutouts you'd like to give?

Yes, just thanks to everyone for their support. Sorry to all of our fans that we disappointed once again in the final, but we will keep improving.

Astralis #5 Andreas 'Xyp9x' HøjslethPeter 'dupreeh' RasmussenLukas 'gla1ve' RossanderNicolai 'device' ReedtzEmil 'Magisk' Reif Natus Vincere #6 Ioann 'Edward' SukharievDanylo 'Zeus' TeslenkoEgor 'flamie' VasilyevOleksandr 's1mple' KostylievDenis 'electroNic' Sharipov Oleksandr 's1mple' Kostyliev Age: 20 Team: Natus Vincere Rating 1.0: 1.21 Maps played: 782 KPR: 0.85 DPR: 0.68

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