Top 20 players of 2022: s1mple (1)

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev makes history as the first three-time HLTV Player of the Year, presented by 1xBet, after earning five EVPs, two MVPs, and powering NAVI to a trophy and two Elite Event grand finals in 2022.

s1mple has done it again! The Ukrainian superstar has broken another record by becoming the first player to be named the best in the world three times, twice on the trot, as he leaves behind two-time back-to-back winners Christopher "⁠GeT_RiGhT⁠" Alesund, Marcelo "⁠coldzera⁠" David, and Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut. His impressive first placings in Top 20 Players of the Year rankings are also part of an incredible five years among the top two best players in the world, trailing behind only ZywOo in 2019 and during the online era in 2020.

The 25-year-old, who has been in the top 20 Players of the Year ranking for seven years running now, kept an at times struggling Natus Vincere going deep in tournaments throughout 2022 with world-beating individual performances, which included five EVPs and two MVPs to stand above the rest of the field and complete the historical feat.

Top 20 players of 2022: Introduction

For a more in-depth look at his early career, check out s1mple's top 20 articles from 2016 , 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

s1mple

2022 Tournament stats

TournamentEvent	Team (place)	Rating 2.0 (in team)	ADR	KPR	DPR	Impact	KAST	Award
IEM Katowice	(3-4th)	1.28 (1st, +21%)	84.3	0.83	0.60	1.28	76.0%	EVP
EPL S15	(5-8th)	1.44 (1st, +23%)	91.7	0.92	0.57	1.55	77.8%	EVP
PGL Major	(2nd)	1.20 (2nd, +7%)	81.6	0.81	0.65	1.30	71.9%	EVP
BLAST Spring Final	(1st)	1.37 (1st, +16%)	89.0	0.88	0.58	1.42	78.3%	MVP
IEM Cologne	(2nd)	1.25 (1st, +16%)	82.1	0.84	0.61	1.32	72.5%	MVP
EPL S16	(5-8th)	1.18 (1st, +15%)	78.7	0.77	0.61	1.17	73.6%	EVP
IEM Rio Major	(5-8th)	1.18 (1st, +8%)	79.1	0.76	0.61	1.17	70.4%	EVP
BLAST Fall Final	(5-6th)	1.19 (1st, +17%)	82.1	0.82	0.64	1.34	68.3%
BLAST World Final	(5-6th)	1.10 (2nd, +13%)	75.7	0.76	0.66	1.02	72.2%

5%+ above average

5%+ below average

Closer than 5% to average

Natus Vincere didn’t start out their 2022 in the best way possible, losing best-of-ones to MIBR and a series to Astralis in the BLAST Premier Spring Groups, although a victory over Liquid and Ninjas in Pyjamas was enough for a spot in the Spring Final. s1mple, coming out of a Player of the Year performance in 2021, showed no signs of slowing down and led the charge for his team with a 1.26 rating and 1.41 impact.

The year ramped up at the first Elite Event of the season, IEM Katowice, a tournament that became complicated for the Ukrainian-Russian team who started out on fire with three straight series wins against ENCE, FURIA and FaZe. Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy’s men were on the way to starting off 2022 as they ended 2021, winning, but between the group stage and the playoffs the Russian invasion of Ukraine started. Amid the emotional turmoil of watching the war start from afar, two days later G2 took NAVI out 2-0 in the semi-finals. s1mple was the only positive player on his team in the final with a 1.20 rating and 83.3 ADR, almost as good as his tournament-wide 1.28 and 84.3, which earned him his first of five EVP (Exceptionally Valuable Player) mentions.

“I still believe that because of the war our team crashed. Because of the war, we lost our first LAN event against G2 in the semi-finals of Katowice two days after it started. When you are trying to make an era and you are winning a lot, it [does not stop] because you kick a player or because something happened in the team, it's just because of war.”

ESL Pro League Season 15 came next and Natus Vincere once again put on a spectacle in the group stage, breezing past AGO, Evil Geniuses, Complexity, Astralis, and Heroic, but they were squarely beaten in two maps by FaZe, the budding kings of the year, in the quarter-finals. s1mple earned a second straight EVP with some of his highest numbers of the year including a 1.44 rating — the highest of all players at the event —, 1.55 impact, and 91.7 ADR.

Following a successful run at the PGL Antwerp RMR, where s1mple was the highest-rated player with a 1.40 rating, Natus Vincere had a go at the Major, where they hoped to become back-to-back champions. They were par for the course through the Legends Stage with a clean 3-0 record before landing in the final with playoff victories over Heroic and ENCE. But once again Finn "⁠karrigan⁠" Andersen and company stood between NAVI and the trophy, pulling the rug from under s1mple and company. This time even the player of the year fumbled with a lowly 0.89 rating in the series, although the Ukrainian star was still an EVP for the tournament despite the final blunder as he finished the tournament third in line for the MVP with a 1.20 rating.

NAVI and FaZe battled for hegemony early on in 2022

Natus Vincere’s highlight of the year came in Lisbon, at the BLAST Premier Spring Final, the team's first event with Viktor "⁠sdy⁠" Orudzhev replacing Kirill "⁠Boombl4⁠" Mikhailov and Denis "⁠electroNic⁠" Sharipov calling. Not the flashiest event in the calendar, but one that s1mple and company were happy to win after a half-year drought. A surprise loss to OG in the opener was no setback, as the Ukrainian team left BIG and FaZe in the rearview mirror before taking revenge on OG and pummeling Vitality on the way to the title. s1mple’s year-high 1.42 playoff rating was rewarded with his first MVP medal of the year.

Championship-winning form returned at IEM Cologne, the last event of the first half of the year, where Natus Vincere sailed through the Group A upper bracket with victories over MOUZ, Ninjas in Pyjamas, and Movistar Riders to earn a berth straight into the semi-finals. s1mple ended every map in the group stage with over a 1.10 rating and an average of 1.42.

The Ukrainian team then swept Astralis before playing one of the most memorable best-of-five grand finals not only of 2022, but in history, against FaZe. The series went all the way to five maps with four of them down to the wire, but in the end it was karrigan’s men who pulled through on Nuke in the dying embers of the series with consecutive back-breaking plays by Russel "⁠Twistzz⁠" Van Dulken. s1mple’s MVP medal wasn’t as sweet after the defeat, but his 1.25 rating, 1.32 impact and incredibly high form at the event was undeniable.

s1mple earned an Elite Event MVP at IEM Cologne even though NAVI couldn't pull through in the final

Play returned after the break at BLAST Premier Fall Groups, where NAVI finished among the top three to earn a berth at the Fall Final. s1mple only played the two maps that really carried weight at the event, against Vitality, and left the early lifting to academy player and future Ninja in Pyjama Daniil "⁠headtr1ck⁠" Valitov. It was in Malta at ESL Pro League S16 that the Ukrainian star came back alive, although a step below his form in the first half of the year. Nonetheless a 1.18 rating was enough for a fourth EVP in NAVI’s quarter-final run, which ended at the hands of Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov's G2, after a troubled group stage with losses to Endpoint, Vitality, and Ninjas in Pyjamas.

Natus Vincere cruised through the RMR for the IEM Rio Major, where s1mple gave no quarter to Illuminar, MOUZ, and Outsiders with 1.30+ ratings in the two best-of-ones and the two-map series against Dastan "⁠dastan⁠" Akbayev’s men. The team's form didn’t translate to the Major in Brazil, however, where NAVI had to come back from a 1-2 deficit early on in the Legends Stage with victories over Bad News Eagles and BIG to make the playoffs in the final round of Swiss play.

s1mple, used to loving and cheering crowds the world over, buckled under the pressure of the Brazilian supporters as he and his teammates went up against FURIA. Thousands of fans cheered on the local boys and booed the visiting team in the pressure cooker that the Jeunesse Arena had become and the world’s best player posted a server-low 0.87 rating while looking visibly rattled on camera. Everything taken into account, s1mple earned his fifth and final EVP mention of the year as he was the team’s locomotive with a 1.31 rating in the group stage.

NAVI crumbled in the IEM Rio Major playoffs against the local favorites, FURIA, and their raucous fans

The year ended on a low for NAVI, who got back-to-back 5-6th placings at BLAST Premier Fall Final and the ensuing BLAST World Final, where Andrii "⁠npl⁠" Kukharskyi made his debut. s1mple did not have particularly outstanding results by his standards, 1.19 and 1.10 ratings, respectively, in the two group stage runs, and the star AWPer who had an EVP or MVP at every other event of the year had to settle for VP (valuable player) mentions to close out 2022. s1mple’s two lowest tournaments being at the height of a VP speak volumes as to why, even with his foot off the gas and NAVI undergoing a restructuring right before sdy was let go, nobody could catch up to the best player of the year.

Why was s1mple the best player of 2022?

s1mple becomes the first player to win three first-place HLTV Player of the Year medals thanks to an unmatched list of awards. He took home an EVP at all but two events, with two Big Event MVPs in a year where those medals were unusually spread across the field. His worst event of the year was a 1.10 rating at BLAST World Final, a floor beyond even ZywOo and Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov below him.

As ever, his overall statistics are incredible. He led the field in multi-kills (21.6%) and kills per round (0.83), and came second in Elite Event rating (1.22) by just 0.01 to sh1ro whilst having nearly twice as many maps. He also led the 'Big Three' in kills leading to wins (67.8%) and multi-kills leading to wins (80.3%).

s1mple was the key factor in NAVI's success and he stood a step ahead of all competitors

Much of his success came early in the year, putting together five strong EVPs or MVPs in the first half of 2022. Over those events he averaged a 1.31 rating whilst going deep into every single event, and a 1.42 rating in BLAST Premier Spring's playoffs was crucial to Natus Vincere overcoming FaZe to win their only title of the year.

He was not as dominant as in previous years he ranked first, and even his second place in the Top 20 Players of 2020 ranking might have been more impressive than his 2022, as he struggled in the finals of both PGL Major Antwerp (0.89 rating) and IEM Cologne (1.09 rating), but he was undoubtedly the key factor behind Natus Vincere's consistent deep runs in events.

Bold prediction by 1xBet

npl

s1mple's bold prediction

s1mple picked Natus Vincere's most recent addition to the roster, npl, who already played three maps with the main team in the closing event of 2022, BLAST Premier World Final, as a substitute for the outgoing sdy. Before that the 17-year-old Ukrainian rifler spent a year in NAVI Junior where he averaged a 1.07 rating.

The neophyte showed glimpses in the WePlay Academy League, which he played twice in Season 5 and 6. He averaged a 1.21 rating in his first season, a 5-6th place finish for the NAVI academy team, which he then surpassed in the second season, with a 1.26 rating in his team's third-place run.

Take a look at the Introduction article to learn more about how the Top 20 players of 2022 were selected.