If you’ve followed competitive Counter-Strike for any length of time, you know Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev is widely regarded as the greatest player to ever touch the game. His unmatched mechanical skill, game sense, and clutch performances in CS:GO made him a household name for millions of FPS fans around the world. When Valve officially replaced CS:GO with CS2, the single most common question on every fan’s mind was does s1mple play CS2, or if he’d step away from the franchise entirely. There’s a lot of misinformation floating around social media and forums about his current relationship with the game, so we’re sticking only to verified facts from official statements, tournament appearances, and his own public streams in this guide.
Does s1mple play CS2 officially for competitive play?
The short answer is a resounding yes, though his transition to the new title wasn’t entirely smooth. When CS2 first launched in its initial beta state, s1mple was very vocal about his frustrations with unaddressed bugs, inconsistent tick rate, and broken smoke mechanics that made competitive play feel unbalanced. He even said in an early 2023 interview that he’d stick to CS:GO for official scrims as long as tournaments were still running on the older title. But once Valve retired CS:GO’s competitive circuit and all official major tournaments shifted to CS2, s1mple made the full switch along with his team Natus Vincere (Na’Vi). s1mple has confirmed in multiple post-tournament interviews that CS2 is his primary competitive game as of now, and he’s led Na’Vi to multiple top 3 finishes in CS2’s first round of international majors. He still gives feedback to Valve developers regularly about small tweaks that could improve competitive integrity, but he’s made it clear he’s fully invested in the CS2 competitive scene for the foreseeable future.
How s1mple’s CS2 playstyle differs from his CS:GO approach
CS2’s core mechanics are similar to CS:GO, but small changes to movement, utility, and weapon handling have forced even the best players in the world to adjust how they play. s1mple was famous for his hyper-aggressive playstyle in CS:GO, where he’d often push for early picks alone or take incredibly risky peeks that most players would never attempt, and land them more often than not. He’s had to dial that aggression back slightly in CS2 to account for the game’s peeker’s penalty, which punishes players for rushing around corners by slowing their aim reaction time for a split second. he has one of the highest first kill percentages among all pro AWPers in CS2 ranked and tournament play, but he’s now getting those picks from more controlled positions instead of reckless pushes. His biggest adjustments have been to his utility usage, since CS2’s interactive smokes and incendiary grenades open up far more strategic options than CS:GO ever did.
- He uses short smoke flicks to block enemy vision mid-peek far more often than he ever did in CS:GO, letting him take unexpected angles without giving enemies a clear shot at him
- He prioritizes holding longer angles on bombsite defenses instead of pushing for early picks to avoid CS2’s peeker’s penalty, and he only pushes when he has clear utility support from his teammates
- He swaps between the AWP and Scout more frequently for eco rounds to leverage CS2’s improved Scout accuracy, which lets him pick off enemies at long range for a fraction of the AWP’s cost
These small adjustments have let him stay at the top of the CS2 pro leaderboards, even as other long-time CS:GO pros have struggled to adapt to the new mechanics. I’ve watched a few of his VOD reviews where he breaks down his own mistakes, and he’s mentioned that learning new smoke lineups for every map took him far longer than he expected when he first switched to CS2.
s1mple’s CS2 casual and ranked play habits
When he’s not in tournament bootcamp or competing in official matches, s1mple spends most of his gaming time playing CS2 ranked matchmaking and casual scrims with friends. He streams these sessions on his public Twitch channel 3 to 4 days a week, usually for 4 to 6 hours at a time, and his streams regularly pull in over 50,000 concurrent viewers. He often queues with other pro players like m0NESY, ZywOo, and other Na’Vi teammates for ranked games, and he’s been known to play with random fans during special charity streams a few times a year. he has reached Global Elite rank in CS2 multiple times on his main public account, with a 62% win rate across all his ranked matches, which is almost unheard of for a player who queues with random teammates as often as he does. He also occasionally plays custom CS2 workshop maps, including jump maps and aim training maps, to warm up before scrims or tournaments. For example, I tuned into one of his streams a few months ago where he spent 2 hours practicing new smoke lineups for Inferno instead of playing ranked, because he said he kept messing them up during team scrims the week prior.
He rarely plays other FPS titles outside of CS2 these days, though he’s been known to join a few casual Valorant or Call of Duty lobbies with friends during off-seasons for fun. He’s made it clear those are just casual breaks, and he never treats them as serious competitive practice.
Common myths about s1mple and CS2 you should ignore
As one of the most famous esports players in the world, s1mple is the subject of a ton of untrue rumors that spread across social media and forums every few weeks. Most of these rumors are based on out-of-context clips or old statements he made before CS2’s official full release. The most common myth is that s1mple hates CS2 and refuses to play it unless he’s forced to for tournaments. That rumor came from early beta comments he made about broken mechanics, but he’s clarified multiple times that he enjoys the game now that most of those major bugs have been fixed. All of his public complaints about CS2 have been targeted at specific bugs, not the game as a whole, and he’s even praised Valve for how quickly they’ve addressed many of the community’s biggest concerns. Another common myth is that s1mple is performing far worse in CS2 than he did in CS:GO. That’s not backed up by stats at all: his current CS2 major K/D ratio is 1.32, which is almost identical to his 1.35 lifetime K/D ratio in CS:GO majors.
The third most widespread myth is that s1mple is planning to switch to Valorant and leave CS2 in the next year. There is no credible evidence that s1mple has any plans to leave competitive CS2 in the next two years, and he re-signed a 3-year contract with Na’Vi in late 2023 specifically to compete in CS2’s international circuit. He’s even said in multiple interviews that he has no interest in playing Valorant competitively, since he prefers CS2’s slower, more tactical gameplay. All of the rumors about him switching games come from fake leak accounts on Twitter that have no connection to his team or management.
At the end of the day, there’s no question around does s1mple play CS2: he’s fully invested in the game both competitively and casually, and he’s still putting up the same elite level of performances that made him famous in CS:GO. If you’re a long-time fan, you can catch his ranked streams a few times a week, or watch him lead Na’Vi in the next CS2 major coming up later this year. Even if you don’t care about pro play, watching his highlight reels or VOD reviews is a great way to pick up new tips and tricks to improve your own CS2 ranked gameplay. You might not be able to pull off the same insane flick shots he does, but you can definitely learn a lot from his approach to utility and positioning.