One of the kings of Counter Strike is set to make a comeback. According to Sheep Esports sources - confirming the information revealed this Friday morning by HLTV -, Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyljev will replace Alvaro “SunPayus” Garcia at Team Falcons. He'll join the Saudi team, on loan, for the Shanghai Major's Europe RMR.

Elected best CS:GO player of the year by HLTV in 2018, 2021 and 2022, the Ukrainian had been on the NAVI bench since last October. He had, however, already played a match for Falcons at BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown 2024, in March.

An exceptional year in 2021

With NAVI, the AWPer racked up a string of prestigious titles, including an exceptional year in 2021 when the team seemed simply unbeatable: NAVI won the IEM Cologne, the Stockholm Major and the BLAST Premier: World Final, among others.

While 2022 was less dominant for NAVI, they still managed to secure several titles, before a generally unsuccessful 2023 season. After the switch from CS:GO to CS2, S1mple was quickly sidelined by NAVI and never had the chance to fully prove his worth on the new version of the FPS.