S1mple awarded IEM Cologne 2021 Most Valuable Player status
Ihor MatusThe Ukrainian esports player and, by compatibility, one of the most famous CS: GO players of our time, representing the flags of Natus Vincere, received the status of the most valuable player in the past Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2021. Representatives of HLTV could not fail to notice his merits during the tournament and without much hesitation came to the conclusion that s1mple is the main and unconditional candidate for the title of MVP of the championship.
Alexander played 14 maps in the championship and only in one of them he performed with a rating, the indicator of which was below one. The fight against Renegades was the best for s1mple in terms of personal rating. There he was able to make 31 frag on the Nuke map, while dying only 10 times. The individual rating of the Ukrainian player from NAVI was 1.51. The esportsman showed incredible results in the following indicators:
- Kills per round - 0.96 (# 1 place)
- KAST (Kills/Assisted Kill/Survival/Trade) - 78.5% (# 1 place)
- Impact rating - 1.70 (# 1 place)
- Average damage per round - 93.1 (# 2 place)
- Deaths per round - 0.54 (# 3 place)
For Kostylev, this MVP is already the 15th in a row. NiP's Nikolai 'device' Ridtz is the only esports player to have more MVP awards than s1mple. He has already won 18 MVP awards.
Alexander 's1mple' Kostylev became the best not only in terms of personal rating at the tournament and the impact made to the team, but also managed to set a record for aces made at one tournament. As part of Intel Extreme Masters 2021, he managed to cope with the opposing team four times without the help of his allies. The organizer of the championship, ESL company, informed the audience about this achievement.
The Ukrainian came to such a world record after making an ace in the first map against G2 Esports in the grand final.
The preconditions for Alexander's great success at this tournament appeared long ago. Petar 'Tgwri1s' Milovanovic previously noted the fact that it will not be possible for anyone to overtake the Ukrainian cybersportsman in the table of the best in the framework of IEM Cologne 2021. This remark was made after 11 maps played by the NAVI team. At that time, Natus Vincere had a rating of 1.56. At the end of the tournament, this indicator came down to 1.51, as mentioned above.
After the championship ended, s1mple said the team's goal is to win the next ESL Pro League and become the third team to earn the Intel Grand Slam. Astralis and Team Liquid came to this earlier.
Alexander said that becoming the winner of the LAN tournament for the second time in a row after a year is incredible, although the pleasure of winning is not the same as it would be on stage in front of the audience.
S1mple said the following:
[Winning the second LAN tournament in a row after a year]is great. Although the emotions are not those that you feel on stage in front of the audience, but still[...]We still have a lot of work to do. We'll take a break and come back. Our goal is to win tournament after tournament. We won at CIS RMR, now we are champions here. Now our goal is to win the ESL Pro League and become the third team to receive the Grand Slam.
Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2021, in which Natus Vincere performed, was held from 6 to 18 July. The total prize fund was $ 1,000,000, and 24 participants were involved in its distribution. NAVI won the final match against G2 Esports. The latter failed to take a rematch for the lost final of IEM Katowice 2020, where the team, by the way, was also unable to take a single card from Natus Vincere.