We’re just over halfway through the year, yet it’s already nigh-on impossible for anyone to dethrone NaVi’s s1mple as the best CS:GO player of 2018.
In the past 8 months alone, Natus Vincere’s s1mple has racked up 4 event wins, two 2nd places, 11 top 4 placements, and an ungodly 5 MVP medals.
Suffice to say, this man knows a thing or two about playing Counter-Strike. Let’s check the facts.
CS:GO S1mple Rating
S1mple is the highest-rated player at LANs and Big Events in 2018, with an HLTV rating of 1.34.
To put that into perspective, FaZe NiKo is second with 1.26 and NaVi electronic is 8th at 1.22. That puts a bigger gap between s1mple and NiKo than NiKo and the rest of the entire top 8!
NiKo and s1mple have had more insane highlights this year than some of the greatest CS:GO players of all-time have had in 3-4 year careers. My god! The level of talent is unreal.
— Thorin (@Thooorin) January 3, 2018
Other players such as Astralis dev1ce, Magisk, Team Liquid’s NAF, and fnatic KRIMZ have also had standout performances this year, yet none of them even come close to s1mple.
The Rise of NaVi
S1mple has also given NaVi the boost they need. Despite rumors of s1mple moving to mIBR earlier this year (a mantle that was soon taken up by Stewie2K), he remained with the Russian/Ukrainian core.
Now, NaVi has racked up three event wins in a row, most recently becoming the winners of ESL One Cologne 2018. Of course, s1mple has had some help from teammates like electronic and flamie.
If NaVi manages to win the ongoing ELEAGUE Premier 2018, s1mple will have helped NaVi from an unstable top-10 team to the current best CS:GO team in the world.
Most MVP Medals In CS:GO 2018
S1mple has 7 HLTV MVP medals in total, putting him just behind mIBR coldzera at 8.
He also has by far the most CS:GO MVP medals in 2018 at 5, tying coldzera’s 2017 record. No one else this year has picked up more than one.
He's perhaps the single greatest CS:GO player in the world.
Na'Vi's @s1mpleO put on an absolute show to win MVP of #StarSeriesS5, and we've got the highlights to prove it. pic.twitter.com/6SiXwqIz4k
— NVIDIA GeForce (@NVIDIAGeForce) June 27, 2018
He even picked up the MVP medals at StarSeries i-League Season 4 and DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018- both events where Natus Vincere got second.
With NaVi in the top 4 at the ELEAGUE Premier 2018 and more events to come, s1mple only needs one more MVP medal to set an all-time record that will be hard to beat.
S1mply the best CS:GO player of 2018, and maybe even of all time.