s1mple just played the worst game of his pro CSGO career

Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev is the best Counter-Strike: Global Offensive player in the world, but that doesn’t mean he can dominate every game. Sometimes he’s mediocre, and every once in a long while, he’s catastrophically bad.

One of those bad outings came in the Epic CIS League. Facing off against the little-known Akuma in the first round of the playoffs, s1mple posted what is statistically his worst performance since joining Natus Vincere in 2016. 

The series between Na’Vi and Akuma started on Mirage and wound up being a stomp in favor of Akuma. Akuma took the pistol round, converted, and never slowed down from there, ending the first half with a 13-2 lead. Akuma then won the second pistol round and locked up the map 16-2 shortly thereafter.

Things went a bit better for Na’Vi after the series went to Dust 2, but not well enough for the favorites to actually win. Na’Vi took the pistol round but failed to convert and gave up the momentum to Akuma. Though there was a bit of back-and-forth between the two sides, Akuma’s winning streaks were longer and its economy was stronger, allowing the team to complete a convincing 2-0 series victory with a 16-10 win on Dust 2.

s1mple posts worst performance of his career in Epic CIS League

The series was a tale of two s1mples. The s1mple that showed up on Dust 2 was the one fans are used to as he posted an incredibly strong 27-19 K/D with 106.2 ADR. On the flipside was a seemingly different person entirely, as the s1mple on Mirage went 5-16 with a paltry 25.6 ADR.

s1mple’s lack of production here was critical to his team’s loss in the Epic CIS League, but Na’Vi’s loss wasn’t just because of a lack of production from its star player on one map. 

Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov was similarly bad on Mirage and died in every single round of the first map, finishing with just seven kills to 18 deaths. s1mple’s Mirage was bad, but he statistically salvaged things for himself with the strong performance on Dust 2. That wasn’t the case for fellow star player Denis “electronic” Sharipov, who ended the series at 23-36 with 56.0 ADR.

It was a devastating defeat for Na’Vi, but the team has a chance to recover. Na’Vi is set to face forZe in the lower bracket of the playoffs, while Akuma will look to prove it wasn’t a one-hit wonder in the upper bracket with a series against Virtus.pro.