In e-sports of Counter-Strike, there are many really strong players. The Ukrainian s1mple has now found a new team, with such a player by his side.
Which players are we talking about? The Counter-Strike team of FaZe Esports announced on May 5, 2025, that the Ukrainian star player Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev will henceforth be part of the five-member roster.
At FaZe, s1mple will now play alongside Finn “karrigan” Andersen and will replace the Latvian Helvijs “broky” Saukants, who had been with FaZe since 2019. The roster is completed by Håvard “rain” Nygaard, David “frozen” Čerňanský, and Jonathan “EliGE” Jablonowski.
One of the best IGLs meets legendary AWP’er
This is why they are two of the best CS players of all time: s1mple is particularly known as an exceptionally strong AWP player and has been on the hunt for titles with the team from Natus Vincere (NaVi) for years. The Ukrainian won several prestigious tournaments, including the Intel Grand Slam in September 2021 and the PGL Major in Stockholm a few months later. He was awarded the Most Valuable Player in 2018, 2021, and 2022.
Karrigan, unlike s1mple, is not necessarily found in typical top-10 lists of the best CS players of all time. Those lists often feature names like NiKo, f0rest, kennyS, ZywOo, and dev1ce. Nevertheless, the Dane is among the best and most recognized players in e-sports.
Karrigan is primarily known as one of the best in-game leaders (IGL) of all time. He leads his teams through matches with strategic decisions and clear instructions – and does so quite successfully. In his career, karrigan has won one Major and amassed 25 more trophies, including for winning the “Intel Grand Slam Season 4”, whose victory brought FaZe a prize pool of 1,000,000 dollars.
Attack on Vitality’s winning streak
In the e-sports of Counter-Strike 2, Vitality is currently the team of the hour. The roster around rops and ZywOo has won numerous titles in recent months, including IEM Katowice 2025 and the ESL Grand Slam Season 5.
FaZe obviously wants to strike back with the change and bring fresh air into the roster with s1mple. Karrigan emphasized in a post on X that they simply had to do something because the line-up wasn’t working in its current form. However, they do not blame broky, who must now make way for s1mple. The team simply didn’t manage to bring out the best in him.
Just in April, there was another change in the e-sports of Counter-Strike 2, which caused quite a stir. The 19-year-old Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov left G2 Esports for reportedly 2.5 million euros. More about this can be read here: 19-year-old switches teams in Counter-Strike 2 for an incredible amount – CEO justifies letting such a talent go
