It’s been a wild ride watching the GOAT of CS:GO, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev, getting back to the grind in Counter-Strike 2 after his surprising move from the NAVI bench to the BC.Game roster. In his first tournament with BC.Game, Exort The Proving Grounds Season 3, the squad managed to make it all the way to the online event’s Grand Final.

One could say it was a “proving ground” for the legendary Ukrainian AWPer himself. 

BC.Game’s journey at Exort The Proving Grounds S3

The event wasn’t all sunshine and roses for s1mple, bottoming out on the BC.Game side of the leaderboard in his debut match against CYBERSHOKE, with a reverse-sweep comeback required to secure the win. Across all three maps, s1mple had a 1.10 rating and a K-D of 56-54, the lowest on the winning side.

In the second match, s1mple topped the scoreboard with a 1.53 rating against Spirit Academy in a 2-0 victory, then had a horrendous performance (0.67 rating) when BC.Game lost 0-2 to Partizan. To make it to the Playoffs, the squad beat ARCRED, with s1mple far above the rest, boasting a 1.53 rating. 

In the Round of 16, BC.Game eliminated ENCE with a 2-0, and s1mple on top with a 1.29 rating. Against Spirit Academy in the Quarterfinals, s1mple put up a massive performance with a chart-topping 1.71 rating in a clean 2-0 win. BC.Game secured a spot in the Grand Final by beating OG with a 2-0 scoreline, and s1mple earned a 1.29 rating, placing 2nd on the leaderboard.

s1mple’s Grand Final performance

In the best-of-three Grand Final, BC.Game was looking for revenge against BetBoom after recently suffering a reverse-sweep loss at ESL Challenger League Season 50 EU Cup 1. Interestingly, BetBoom’s IGL is Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhaylov, who played with s1mple back on the NAVI roster in CS:GO.

On BC.Game’s map pick of Mirage, BetBoom took control in the first half on the T side with an 8-4 lead, and finished off proceedings with five CT rounds in a row for a dominating 13-4 victory. Considering the loss, s1mple’s 1.12 rating with a K-D of 14-15, and an Average Damage per Round (ADR) of 94.5, was impressive.

The teams were too close to separate in regulation (12-12) on Nuke, BetBoom’s map pick, with overtime required to find a winner. Both teams won all three of their CT rounds in the first overtime, as the map was pushed to double overtime thanks to heroics from s1mple. BetBoom eventually came out on top with a 19-16 win.

Despite s1mple’s solid effort to push the match to a third and deciding map, BetBoom were too strong on the day, beating BC.Game 2-0 and thereby winning the tournament. Clearly, s1mple did showcase some high-impact plays in his first Grand Final with BC.Game, but that’s not all.

Across both maps, s1mple earned a 1.17 rating, with a K-D of 40-38, the highest on his team. He also boasted the best opening kill/death stats of any player in the server at 13/2. That’s especially impressive since his team lost 2-0.

Is the GOAT really back? It’s tough to tell, with individual performances being somewhat inconsistent in his first tournament with BC.Game. 

We’ve seen flashes of brilliance, marred by a couple of embarrassing lows at Exort The Proving Grounds Season 3. However, making it to a Grand Final in your first event with a new team is an accomplishment no matter how you cut it.