As someone who watches esports, who analyzes, dissects, and thinks about the games, I want things to be fair. I want formats that give the an equal chance for all teams to advance, I want games to be balanced, I don’t want caveats in tournaments runs for any team. That is my cold calculating mind, the one that believes in equality, in justice, and righteousness. As a fan though I want the opposite. My cruel heart wants greatness and greatness can only be achieved in adversity. I want my favorite players and teams to suffer. Stack the odds against them, give them the hardest bracket, the hardest meta, the hardest challenges, because for me true greatness can only be achieved in the hardest of circumstances. Not only did my player win on a fair day, he won on the worst day, when everything went to shit, when there was no hope. There is an exhilaration that pulses through the blood when I watch a player forced to perform impossible feats just to stay afloat. And right now there is no player who evokes such a strong feeling in me as Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev.

My obsession with unfairness comes from my history with Starcraft 2. In that game, the player I consider to be the greatest of all time was Jung “Mvp” Jong Hyun. In 2012 he was suffering RSI injuries that made it painful for him to play and in matches he could not feel his keyboard or his mouse. On top of that every matter of disadvantage was thrown at him. He had to play his worst matchups, jet lag, fatigue, a rigorous schedule, some of the greatest players to ever touch the game, and the most imbalanced meta we call broodlord/infestor. He was only and unaided, one incredible mind against the rest of the world forced to adapt with his ailing body to find a way to make miracles. He made his miracles, he created feats that were impossible. When you watched him you couldn’t believe what could achieve at his worst. To this day I use his name as a tautological explanation for what it means to have a winner’s mentality, to refuse to give up no matter the odds.

That obsession led me to other games. In Street Fighter I watched a player named Lee “Infiltration” Seon-woo. Here was a player who hailed from Korea, a country that had no FGC scene at all. There was no online play to test his mettle so what he did was study. He watched his opponents, he went into the practice room and he shadow boxed them in his mind. He found out their tendencies, how to counter them, and how to optimize his own game and thus he rose up against all traditional wisdom of the FGC to become the best player in the world from 2013-2014 and again in 2016.

When I came to watch CS:GO, the first name that stuck out was Kenny “KennyS” Schrub. I watched his games under Titan when he battled in one of the hardest eras of CS:GO. In that time I saw him rise up to battle the world’s best in on an almost complete solo mission. He was so exceptional as a player that Olof “olofmeister” Gustafsson singled KennyS out as the only player he was afraid of. It was a sad day for me to watch as he left Titan to play in EnVyUs. On an intellectual level I understood that EnVyUs was a much better choice for him as it was a better team, but in my heart I knew that I’d likely never see the same KennyS again.

Soon after I watched Nikola “NiKo” Kovac from mouz. Here was a player like Infiltration. Someone who had come from a country with no Counter-Strike history to challenge for the top of the world. When I watched NiKo I started to believe things that I shouldn’t. I believed that despite how terrible his team was, despite the lack of a leader, despite the incredible teams he was playing, that he could somehow win. That he could do the impossible and defeat an entire team alone. It was completely unfair how much better he was compared to his teammates and even I wanted him to get some level of help. So when he moved to FaZe, I was glad, but it was never as joyful to watch his games as the old days on mouz where it was him against the world.

And now we come to the modern day in CS:GO. S1mple has turned out to be the hardest carry we’ve ever seen in CS:GO, though it was never supposed to be this way. After joining Na`Vi in 2016, he was supposed to have joined the CIS super squad. Instead Valve muted Sergey “starix” Ischuk from in-game leading as a coach and this started an entire cascade of dominoes which sent the team into a downward spiral. Every player that was on the team hit some level of bad form. First it was Denis “seized” Kostin after he became in-game leader. Then Ladislav “GuardiaN” Kovacs as he stopped practicing and had internal issues with s1mple. Egor “flamie” Vasilyev started hot in 2017, but cooled down. Ioann “Edward” sukhariev was a rock of solitude up until the team brought on Daniil “Zeus” Teslenko back on to fix their in-game leading problem and his form hit rock bottom. Na`Vi then tried to get Denis “electronic” Sharipov, one of the hottest prospects from the CIS region. When he joined Na`Vi he wasn’t the star they were looking for and he has wavered between underwhelming to above average on the squad.

Through all of these problems, s1mple has been awe-inspiring. He has refined his style, instincts, and teamplay to a higher level than it has ever been. In his early days he was a wild aggressive player who could sometimes throw rounds away because he comitted too deep to get an extra kill. These days he has found the exact border in which he can push it. In the Na`Vi system he is allowed to find as many opening picks as he wants and then he comes back into the pack where he is put at the back to close the round out. At Starladder i-League StarSeries Season 4, he had an insane amount of opening kills and had the most clutches of any player at the tournament.

The numbers are all insane, but they are underrating his impact. His kills are also coming from pistol rounds, ecos, forcebuys, impossible situations. His aggressive nature, creativity, skill and game sense is allowing him to outskill and out think his opponents. He knows where all of the players are coming from and positions himself in such a way that is smart, unexpected and takes advantage of his outrageous aim. I’ve never been in awe of a single player’s individual performance as I have been watching s1mple at Starladder Kiev. Even if Na`Vi had lost in the semifinals to FaZe, I’d have still picked him for my MVP of the tournament.

That is why when I watch a Na`Vi game I am always conflicted. The current Na`Vi right now is dysfunctional. The only two consistent factors they have is s1mple and inferno. Beyond that everything else is a question mark. They have completely uninspired T-sides and all of the players are inconsistent. Flamie can be a superstar sometimes. Zeus can lead a good T-side sometimes. Electronic has potential, though you rarely see it. Edward’s form has been terrible for months now, but he was able to contribute good impact in the playoffs of Starladder.

Na`Vi for all of their faults however have been improving ever since electronic entered the team. Slowly, tournament by tournament things are getting fixed and this gives me both hope and dread. Hope that s1mple will finally get to play in a functional team and consistently challenge for titles and dread that I won’t get to see these s1mple performances when everything is going to hell.

I know that s1mple deserves a world class team. He is the best player of 2018 so far and no one else comes close. At the same time though, I know that if this team improves I won’t get to see s1mple having to go HAM every time because shit will no longer be hitting the fan. I won’t have to see him pull out some ridiculous triple kill to open a site or win a 1v3 situation to save Na`Vi from disaster.

The context of what s1mple has to do in order for his team to win is amazing in and of itself. The things is though, you don’t need any of that. No matter if you are a hardcore fan or a casual, just go watch a s1mple game and you will experience what I have experienced. There is no spectacle like it right now in the entirety of esports.

Watching s1mple is like watching a thunderstorm. He is a raw force of nature, it is beautiful, terrifying and intense. You can feel the pressure hit your lungs, the sounds of thunder breaking open the sky, the flashes of light that break open and light up the sky with hues of colors you could not have imagined. The lightning crashes carving out impossible to predict paths, lighting destructive fires in their wake. The impossibilities becomes a paradoxical inevitably. You know that what you are watching is impossible, yet s1mple does it again and again and again. Soon you believe the impossible is inevitable with s1mple. That no matter how bad the situation, how awful the buy, or how outnumbered he is, he can find a way to win the round. You can feel your blood pulsing in your vein, the headshots reverberating in your skull, you can even feel the shock of his enemies through the monitor as he pulls off impossible move after impossible move. S1mple is a man who can make you believe that he will win despite everything and even after he loses, you still cannot believe it is over because in no fair and just universe should s1mple have lost. Yet he does and even though he lost you realize you have seen a miracle, you have seen the s1mple show, the best show in esports.