s1mple's loan-ly CS2 run so far

Of all crazy roster swaps and moves of late, s1mple's transfer to FaZe on loan has been one of the most discussed topics in the Counter-Strike community. In the beginning of May, FaZe benched broky and swiped s1mple off of NAVI's bench on a loan. s1mple's FaZe debut against Liquid later today is set to see him and EliGE reunite after nine years. The duo played together for Liquid in 2016.

One of CS:GO's legends, s1mple has had a rough transition to Counter-Strike 2 and has pulled no punches, voicing out his opinions on the state of the game. s1mple even declined communications with Valve when the developers reached out to him asking about his opinions on the state of the game.

While players like ropz and donk locked in and went absolutely ballistic, s1mple sat on the sidelines of NAVI, struggling to replicate his CS:GO magic. His Counter-Strike 2 debut came with Falcons, where the Saudi org brought s1mple on, in a loan arrangement. s1mple's CS2 debut came at BLAST Premier Spring Showdown 2024 where Falcons went down to Metizport and crashed out of a straight forward single-elimination bracket.

s1mple had an abysmal outing in the opening map with a negative KD and a rating of 0.84 but he picked up the pace in the second map, topping the charts with an ADR of 104, however, his overall performance in the series was just a shadow of his former self.

The stellar Ukrainian AWP picked up the pace later that year at Thunderpick World Championship and ESL Challenger Katowice 2024. Once one of the most feared players in Counter-Strike was now barely making it at the ESL Challenger League. While s1mple consistently topped the charts with 30-40 frag games, Falcons did not win a single match in 2024 with s1mple until November where they took down ECLOT in the Shanghai Major's RMR.

s1mple's performance dipped drastically after this as Falcons conceded back to back games against FaZe, SAW and GamerLegion to get knocked out of Major contention. In Falcons' elimination game against GamerLegion at the Shanghai Major's RMR, s1mple opened with a 0.53 rating performance on Vertigo. s1mple slowly found his footing towards the end of the series on Mirage where he posted an ADR of 118 and a HLTV rating of 1.65 but GamerLegion ended up winning the game anyway and Falcons were knocked out of the RMR, after which the Saudi org opted for a major overhaul, returning s1mple to NAVI's bench.

s1mple's temporary move to FaZe might fare very differently in comparison with Falcons as the latter was a developing project in an early stage. FaZe on the other hand have been putting up stellar runs at tournaments but have come up short towards the very end. s1mple's addition might just provide FaZe with the extra firepower to fuel strong late tournament runs.