Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostylev, one of the most decorated players in Counter-Strike history, has signed with BC.Game Esports. The team is owned by the crypto casino of the same name, and the move came as a surprise to fans after the Ukrainian's long-term career with NAVI.
Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostylev, one of the most decorated players in Counter-Strike history, has signed with BC.Game Esports. The team is owned by the crypto casino of the same name, and the move came as a surprise to fans after the Ukrainian's long-term career with NAVI.
This was reported by the team's press service in X. S1mple replaced Swedish sniper Timur "nawwk" Jonasson, who was transferred to the reserve in June. Commenting on his return, Kostylev explained that he was ready to start from scratch:
"Dobby is free. I just want to play. BCGameEsports gave me a chance, and they are serious about building a high-level team. A wise man said: if you want to get back to the top, start at the bottom."
The Ukrainian remained a reserve in NAVI for a long time, and spent the last major tournaments on loan, in particular for FaZe at BLAST.tv Major: Austin 2025. After that, according to media reports, NAVI received several transfer offers, which were forwarded to Kostylev himself for consideration.
In April 2025, Ilya "Perfecto" Zalutsky joined BC.Game as a stand-in for the IEM Dallas tournament. Then, on one of the streams, s1mple sarcastically addressed him:
"Ilyukha, you abandoned me... I went to be a substitute in some dump. But nothing. I also played a little in the dump on loan."
Fans had previously expected s1mple and Perfecto to reunite on the same team, as Brazilian player fer hinted. But so far, the two athletes have only briefly crossed paths at a club that remains far from the top tier.
As a member of NAVI, s1mple was named the best player in the world three times, won 21 MVP medals, and was named the best in CS:GO history. His move to BC.Game, a club with a dubious reputation, was, according to the player himself, an attempt to get back into shape after a layoff.
We previously wrote about how representatives of Ukrainian esports player Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostylev asked Simple SkateBoarding to change the brand name. The lawyers didn't like the fact that on one skateboard model, the letter "i" in the name was replaced with "1".
