S1mple, NAVI Win Best Esports Athlete and Best Esports Team at The Game Awards 2021

NAVI CS:GO truly reigns supreme in 2021.

Aditya Singh Rawat
Updated On: 
<div class="paragraphs"><p>S1mple Wins Best Esports Athlete At The Game Awards 2021</p></div>
S1mple Wins Best Esports Athlete At The Game Awards 2021

Cover-Credits: 

Highlights
Natus Vincere (NAVI), for its immense success in competitive CS:GO, has been named as the 'Best Esports Team' at The Game Awards 2021.
NAVI's star player s1mple, for his individual prowess, has been named as the 'Best Esports Athlete' at The Game Awards 2021.
NAVI CS:GO head coach - B1ad3, despite being nominated under the category of 'Best Esports Coach' conceded the title to Kim "kkOma" Jeong-gyun.

Natus Vincere (NAVI) has truly dominated the entirety of the 2021 CS:GO competitive circuit, winning every single LAN event that took place this year without dropping a single series. The man leading this successful squad was none other than their star player, Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, who has delivered peak performance in every single event.

S1mple's efforts have resulted in him winning the title of 'Best Esports Athelete' at The Game Awards 2021, while the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) juggernaut NAVI was named as the 'Best Esports Team' due to the immense success of its CS:GO team.

While NAVI won two of the most prestigious CS:GO tournaments in 2021 - Intel Grand Slam Season 3 and PGL Stockholm Major 2021, s1mple also flourished individually by winning seven MVP titles so far - equalizing the record of maximum MVPs won in a calendar year.

NAVI and s1mple score big at The Game Awards 2021

NAVI and its players keep raking in all the awards and titles this year for their brilliant performance in competitive CS:GO. The CIS juggernauts have remained indomitable on LAN in 2021, gifting their rookie Valerii "b1t" Vakhovskyi the best-ever debut in the history of the game.

NAVI - Best Esports Team at The Game Awards 2021

But as impressive as he might have been, the true star of the NAVI show was s1mple, who kept delivering consistently throughout the year. The seven MVP titles that he has won so far are as follows,

  1. BLAST Premier Global Final 2020 - 1.41 Rating, +116 K/D

  2. DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 - 1.41 Rating, +132 K/D

  3. StarLadder CIS RMR - 1.35 Rating, +157 K/D

  4. IEM Cologne 2021 - 1.51 Rating, +151 K/D

  5. ESL Pro League Season 14 - 1.35 Rating, +157 K/D

  6. PGL Major Stockholm 2021 - 1.47 Rating, +106 K/D

  7. BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2021 - 1.39 Rating, +84 K/D

All this success resulted in NAVI also securing the Intel Grand Slam Season 3, becoming only the third CS:GO team to have won this title. This was the most competitive season for the title so far and though NAVI entered this race pretty late, they racked up the required victories to register the most successful year ever for a CS:GO team.

Subscribe to AFK Gaming's Newsletter

Get a weekly recap of all the latest developments in the global esports industry with our esports business insights newsletter: AFK Weekly

Subscribe for free to receive insights, analysis and opinions on the biggest developments in esports business, provided by our team of experienced journalists in collaboration with thought leaders across the industry.


Published On: 
author profile picture
Aditya is the in-house CS:GO writer at AFK Gaming. While his understanding of the esports space is not restricted by geographical borders, his current focus lies in the Asian region. Understands and follows almost all major esport titles.