S1mple becomes first player to achieve HLTV Top 1 three times

HLTV revealed the final three names in its ranking of the best 20 CS:GO players of 2022. Claiming the top spot on the list, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev became the first CS:GO player in history to win HLTV Top 1 three times.

The Ukrainian superstar was also nominated as the best player of the game in 2021 and 2018. Before this year, he already was in an exclusive hall of two-time, best-of-world players with Christopher "GeT_RiGhT" Alesund, Marcelo "coldzera" David, and Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut.

Even though he claimed HLTV Top 1, s1mple didn't have a great year in terms of trophies. After dominating 2021, Natus Vincere only brought one Tier 1 title in 2022: BLAST Premier Spring Finals 2022.

Still, s1mple kept performing at the highest level and got two Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards throughout the year. The first one was in the IEM Cologne finals, where NAVI was defeated by FaZe Clan. The other award was in the BLAST Premier Spring title. Besides that, he still conquered five Exceptionally Valuable Player (EVP) awards in IEM Katowice, PGL Major Antwerp, IEM Rio Major, ESL Pro League Season 15, and Season 16.

It's important to record that the competitive year of Natus Vincere was directly affected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The star of the team, s1mple, is Ukrainian, just like Valerii "b1t" Vakhovskyi. On top of that, at the time that the conflict started, the other three teammates were Russian, which prompted trouble that culminate in Kirill "Boombl4" Mikhaylov, the in-game leader (IGL), leaving the squad.

Just like what happened in the ranking of 2021, s1mple defeated ZywOo to claim the first-place spot in the list. The Ukrainian and the French AWPers already established one of the most remarkable rivalries in CS:GO history in terms of stats and awards.

You see, s1mple has around in the major leagues since 2016, always making appearances in the HLTV Top 20 ranking. He climb the ladders until 2018 when he was finally elected as the best player in the world. But in 2019, a French beast called ZywOo arrived and claimed the top spot in the ranking.

Not only that, he would put his name alongside GeT_RiGhT and coldzera as back-to-back number-one players of CS:GO. In both years that ZywOo topped the board, s1mple was the second name. In 2021 and 2022, the situation was inverted. It's a rivalry that the fans around the world are eager to see in the next chapters.

With the reveals of the final three players of the HLTV Top 20 ranking, the list closed with these names:

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