We caught up with the HLTV.org and betway MVP Aleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev after his team won StarSeries i-League Season 5.

Natus Vincere started the tournament slowly, losing two straight maps to TYLOO in the BO3 Swiss group stage, but recovered after that and managed to go into the playoffs with a 3-2 score. The Ukrainian-Russian side was then drawn into the tougher side of the bracket and had to defeat SK and mousesports to reach the grand final.

s1mple has been practicing with the SG553, aiming for even more versitility

Underdogs NRG awaited there, whom s1mple and co. dispatched in two quick maps. Overall, s1mple was by far the best player at the tournament, finishing with an event rating of 1.40.

After the grand final, we spoke to s1mple about the two games they played today, what he expects from himself and what are Natus Vincere's goals for the future.

I'll start with the mousesports semi because it also happened today, so all of it is fresh. On Mirage there were those two rounds that they clutched against you, oskar and suNny, round after round. Tell me how the team felt after that and how did you recover to go into the rest of the map?

We felt really bad because, before the oskar clutch I told my team that they should play really passively since mouz had destroyed our economy and we needed to get more weapons, more money. And then we lost this round and everyone was like, "what's going on?". That lasted until the 2v5 with Edward and electronic, with the Deagle. This one round changed everything.

It seemed that you were going A on Mirage a lot against mousesports, did you have a specific gameplan going into it?

We just called a lot of individual rounds, we knew how we were going to play against them, we knew that they were going to play aggressive mid, really really aggressive mid, especially chrisJ on catwalk, dodging flashes and picking mid, we lost one of these rounds, though. We started to hit our shots and I think we destroyed their economy and it was easier to play after that. But before the 2v5 round it was a really nervous game.

You win Mirage and you go on to Nuke. You lose the pistol, which was to a beautiful ropz 4K, but after that, you just kill two people with the Scout, instantly, wallbang headshots - how much does that mean to the team, to pump you up and get you a good start on Nuke?

I practised this wallbang a lot so I decided to try to do it with the Scout. I saw the replay later, my crosshair was on the place and he moved into it. When I got the kill I was so surprised that it actually worked, especially with the Scout. I didn't expect I could wallbang main with a Scout, I usually did it with an AWP on practice.

Before the game, I didn't really want to play Nuke because it's one of their strongest maps, but kane told us that everything was going to be ok, he vetoed Train, I guess, and we started playing Nuke. We started really well, but later we lost some crucial rounds, like a 2-on-4 with suNny from secret and ropz coming up on heaven, and they started to do a comeback and it was a really, really tough game. I mean it was harder to play against them than NRG, because we know mousesports, they have been putting in great performances at every tournament. And NRG, they are really good, they are a young team, they don't have a lot of LAN experience but they have already proved that they are not "onliners" like a lot of people say.

s1mple cheering on the crowd in Kiev

I saw that you had the Krieg in the NRG game in one round, was that a misbuy?

Zeus should've bought an AWP but he just misbought, and I told him that I had practiced with that weapon, so he just gave it to me. Unfortunately, he thought that they did not have an AWP and CeRq instantly killed me.

So you've also been trying to add that weapon to your arsenal?

Yeah, I practice with it on deathmatch, it's a really strong weapon if you know how to use it, especially when you use the scope.

The final was kind of one-sided for you guys, I guess you were having a bit more fun than what you would usually have in a grand final. Can you tell me a bit about how you were feeling during that match?

We knew that they would be nervous because it's their first final, we just told ourselves that we should set the rules in this final because we are the favorites in this game. So when the score was 15-6 on Mirage I just asked my teammates "What do you feel right now, how do you feel before winning the tournament?". Yeah, we had some fun, it wasn't like against mousesports, but there were great emotions.

At the beginning of the tournament you mentioned that you weren't happy sometimes with how you played, some people were a bit surprised by that because you are playing great overall. So what do you need to do, for example, in a BO3 to be happy with your performance?

I don't know, I just want my team to win the game, the whole series. It doesn't matter how I'm going to play. I know that my team is playing great, all of them showed individual form and teamwork at this tournament. I'm just happy when we are winning the BO3 series. I mean, there were a few matches in which I didn't show up, but my team always supported me and said: "don't worry, we are going to do this".

Lastly, how many of these MVPs do you plan to have until the end of the year?

(laughs) I don't know, as many as possible. I'll try my best.

But we need to win more tournaments that feature Astralis, FaZe, fnatic, we want to win tournaments that have all of the best teams. That's our little goal. As we saw, there were no Astralis and FaZe here, maybe with them it would have been different, but still, we are eager to face them.

Is there anything you want to add?