He has already been long-regarded as the greatest of all time when it comes to the competitive world of CS:GO, however, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev has taken his legacy to new heights on the back of the 2022 HLTV awards. Check out Gamelevate as we run through how S1mple became the world’s best CS:GO player once again, becoming the first person in history to be HLTV’s #1 for the third time.
Top Of The Tree (Again)
The HLTV Top Twenty is the most hotly-anticipated individual award in the CS:GO community. Every year the platform counts down the highest-performing players across the competitive landscape, with the number one ranked player being unofficially crowned the best player in the world.
And it was NAVI’s Ukrainian superstar who once again found himself at the top of the table at the 2022 HLTV Awards.
It was the third time S1mple had been named the best CS:GO player in the world, joining his awards in 2018 and 2021, making history as the first instance a player scooped up three HLTV #1s.
S1mple first entered the HLTV charts in 2016, finishing 4th. He finished 8th in 2017 but, since winning his first #1 in 2018, has never dropped out of the top two.
With S-Tier tournament wins at the likes of the PGL Stockholm Major, IEM Katowice, IEM Cologne and season three of the Intel Grand Slam, his status as the GOAT of the game has rarely been in doubt.
S1mple closed 2022 with the highest kills per round (0.83), the percentage of rounds with 2+ kills (21.6%) and the highest impact rating (1.32) in the world. His rating of 1.26 was the third-best in the world, and he finished the year with MVP awards at IEM Cologne and the BLAST Spring Final.
2022 HLTV Awards Ranking
| 1 | Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev | ||
| 2 | Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut | ||
| 3 | Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov | ||
| 4 | Sergey “Ax1Le” Rykhtorov | ||
| 5 | Nikola “NiKo” Kovač | ||
| 6 | Helvijs “broky” Saukants | ||
| 7 | Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov | ||
| 8 | Robin “ropz” Kool | ||
| 9 | Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato | ||
| 10 | Martin “stavn” Lund | ||
| 11 | Russel “Twistzz” Van Dulken | ||
| 12 | Benjamin “blameF” Bremer | ||
| 13 | Håvard “rain” Nygaard | ||
| 14 | Nemanja “huNter-” Kovač | ||
| 15 | Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis | ||
| 16 | Valerii “b1t” Vakhovskyi | ||
| 17 | David “frozen” Čerňanský | ||
| 18 | Lotan “Spinx” Giladi | ||
| 19 | Yuri “yuurih” Santos | ||
| 20 | Dzhami “Jame” Ali |
