S1mple ranked as top 2018 player – a look back at his results

Everybody has been saying for a long time that S1mple is the best player in Counter Strike Global Offensive. Recently, HLTV awarded S1mple with their 2018 player of the year award. I thought it would be interesting to look back at his results over the past 12 months and what his future may hold. I also thought it’d make sense to compare S1mple to device, who arguably deserves the top spot too after his incredible performance throughout last year.

S1mple in 2018 – a look back at his results

Admittedly, S1mple wasn’t on the top 2018 team, but NaVi still did well throughout the year. Notably, NaVi won StarSeries Season 5, they took ESL One Cologne, and also took first place at the BLAST Copenhagen event. NaVi also placed second in the FACEIT Major and third in the ELEAGUE Major.

In comparison to HLTV’s second place player, device, S1mple may not have picked up quite as many team trophies or MVPs, but his overall performance was still higher than Device.

© Adela Sznajder | Dreamhack

S1mple’s effectiveness in each and every round was better than Device’s in a number of ways. S1mple’s kills per round in official matches was 0.87, whereas Device had 0.79.

S1mple also had a Rating 2.0 score of 1.32, compared to device’s 1.24. The Rating 2.0 system was developed to determine the effectiveness and performance of pro players, factoring in a number of things such as survival rating, kill rating, damage per round, and more.

Ultimately, in 2018 S1mple was plagued with the curse he has always dealt with in his professional career – his team just can’t quite keep up with him. If NaVi had as many star moments as the rest of Astralis do for Device, perhaps they’d stand a better chance of being at the very top. Thankfully, 2018 was still a good turning point for NaVi – they have become far more effective at communicating and have been more consistent with their plays. Can this mark the start of a successful future for NaVi?

Well, maybe. Let’s not forget that Zeus plans to end his playing career in 2019. Which means they’ve got just one year with the current roster to make some big plays and perhaps end the year with the top team title.