In the middle of IEM Katowice 2024, the famous English-speaking host James Banks interviewed former Natus Vincere sniper Aleksandr s1mple Kostyliev, who came to the arena as a spectator, as he currently lives in Poland.
In the interview itself he told a lot of interesting things, as well as touched on the topic of his return and gave an assessment of Counter-Strike 2. Especially for our readers we have collected all the most interesting things from this interview.
For convenience, sometimes we will insert questions from James exactly as they sounded, for better readability.
It's been five months since we've seen you compete, buddy. Last time at EPL Season 18, you participated How's your vacation time going?
It's beautiful. Beautiful. I was waiting for an event like Katowice because it was very hard to find, really great matches. And this event surprises me with the way everyone is playing and the new game. So much better to see, especially from here {about behind the scenes}. Finally, I'm going to watch the final as a guest.
After that s1mple expressed his opinion about CS2:
Yeah, I think the last update was with a new case. Changed the advantage of the picker. I think it's the best update they could have done. I even posted about it on Twitter. I like this update because I haven't played much in the last month. But all the players said it was even too hard to kill the piked player, even with the AWP. We'll see how it goes now. Yeah guys. Thanks to everyone who is still watching Counter-Strike. I know we're all waiting for updates all the time, but trust me, if it wasn't for you, if it wasn't for everyone watching in front of their screens, not about everyone, I mean, the people who are here as well. Believe me, it's a huge crowd. And the atmosphere always, always gets only better, no matter what version of CS we play. We should always support this game. And I hope you guys have a good time.
But you've also been busy off the server. You started an educational project "All Stars Promotions" with your brother. What can you tell us about it now?
These will be really good courses where everyone can learn, play both for leisure and professionally, and there will also be tournaments, raffles and all that. And I'm sure, like I said, it will change this industry, because people will play much better, and it will be much harder to play against them in any competition, in any casual games. Yes.
But, and afterwards James asked the question that has been troubling the whole scene, when will s1mple be back:
Hopefully after the majors, because that means I'm the sixth player for Navi at this major, but hopefully nothing happens to their player in the roster because they've been practicing really hard. After I took a break. Yeah, I just want them to progress and we'll see what happens after the majors.
You mentioned Navi, are you happy with how they are progressing? Because the transition to an international team has been quite difficult, hasn't it? I guess. But Aleksib seems to be managing well. w0nderful is showing results.
Yeah, a lot of improvements. And I've been really surprised how well w0nderful has adapted and I see him showing a good game. You know, he's showing his skills and yeah, as always, more time is needed, especially when w0nderful came in and I can see their progress. I was a little upset when they didn't make the playoffs but it's a start. I'm sure they have great prospects for the majors. I don't want to say that this tournament is not prestigious because this tournament is incredible, but still, everyone is aiming for the majors and there are always lineup changes after the majors. And yes, I wish them luck and will be watching every game like I did before.
For more than 5 months s1mple is on the bench of NAVI team and his fate is still unknown. But on February 14 we will find out how quickly s1mple will return to the team, as NAVI will start their performance at PGL CS2 Major Copenhagen 2024 Europe RMR A.
Comments