Natus Vincere star player Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev posted an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit earlier today, and he revealed that he almost joined FaZe Clan.
A fan asked s1mple about unconfirmed rumors of him joining FaZe Clan. “They invited me long time ago but I [decided] to join Natus Vincere,” s1mple said in the AMA post.
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This means that s1mple was on the fence about joining FaZe. The timeline of the offer, however, wasn’t clarified by s1mple in the Reddit post. It could’ve been before Finn “karrigan” Andersen took the reins as in-game leader, during FaZe’s early 2017 team featuring Fabien “kioShiMa” Fiey and Aleksi “allu” Jalli, or during FaZe’s current super team with Nikola “NiKo” Kovac and Olof “olofmeister” Kjajber.
The course of CS:GO history would be much different if s1mple actually signed with the European juggernaut team—Na’Vi may not be the thriving team that it is today, Ladislav “GuardiaN” might still have been the AWPer on Na’Vi, and FaZe could’ve won its first Major by now. But that’s a theoretical timeline for another alternate universe.
In the current timeline, s1mple is on track to be the best player in the world for 2018, potentially overtaking MIBR’s Marcelo “coldzera” David’s title. Coldzera held the HLTV award the past two years, but his stats have dropped slightly alongside MIBR’s overall team performances in 2018. Na’Vi easily surpassed MIBR in the world rankings in recent months, with championship victories at StarSeries Season Five, the CS:GO Asia Championship, and ESL One Cologne.
Ironically, s1mple almost left Na’Vi for MIBR earlier this year, and he addressed that issue as well. “I don’t want to leave [Na’Vi] as a loser,” he said. “I want to finish what I started.” It seems that s1mple’s ambition and commitment to Na’Vi kept him from using MIBR as the “easier” way out to championship wins. When another user asked if s1mple ever lost faith in Na’Vi, he responded with “I always have faith in any team that I play for.”
Na’Vi’s first event after the August player break will be at DreamHack Masters Stockholm from Aug. 29 to Sept. 2.
