s1mple vs ZywOo: The Greatest Rivalry in Counter-Strike History. Who is Better?
Counter-Strike is not just a team game, but also a competition of individuals. In recent years, the world has been watching a duel between two greatest talents: Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut. After winning IEM Katowice 2025, the Frenchman equaled the Ukrainian in the number of MVP titles, thus renewing debates about who is stronger. Let’s figure out who is the greater player.
Career Overview
s1mple
Oleksandr Kostyliev began his journey in 2014 when he was just 16 years old. His first serious teams were HellRaisers and FlipSid3 Tactics. The real breakthrough came in 2016 when he joined Team Liquid, where he first showed his incredible potential on the international stage and reached his first Major final. In 2016, he became a player for Natus Vincere, where he acquired the greatness that makes people talk about him even after a couple of years without serious results on the pro scene.
ZywOo
Mathieu Herbaut started playing much later. His professional career began in 2017 in little-known French teams. In 2018, he joined Team Vitality, where he immediately became the main star and remains so to this day.
Team Achievements
Now let’s look at the team trophies that both players managed to lift during their careers. It’s worth noting that both players won one Major each and also won at the most prestigious tournaments in Katowice and Cologne. Here we considered victories at tier-1 or tier-S tournaments.
s1mple with Natus Vincere (17 trophies):
- ESL One New York 2016
- DreamHack Open Winter 2017
- StarSeries i-League Season 5
- CS:GO Asia Championships 2018
- ESL One Cologne 2018 (S-tier)
- BLAST Pro Series: Copenhagen 2018
- StarSeries i-League Season 7
- IEM Katowice 2020 (S-tier)
- BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020 (Online)
- DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 (Online)
- StarLadder CIS RMR 2021 (Online)
- IEM Cologne 2021 (S-tier)
- ESL Pro League Season 14 (Online)
- PGL Major Stockholm 2021 (S-tier)
- BLAST Premier: Fall Finals 2021
- BLAST Premier: World Final 2021
- BLAST Premier: Spring Finals 2022
ZywOo with Team Vitality (14 trophies):
- cs_summit 4
- ECS Season 7 Finals
- EPICENTER 2019
- IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 Europe (Online)
- BLAST Premier Fall 2020 Finals (Online)
- IEM Winter 2021
- ESL Pro League Season 16 2022
- IEM Rio 2023
- BLAST.tv Paris Major 2023 (S-tier)
- Gamers8 2023
- BLAST Premier Fall 2023 Finals
- BLAST Premier: World Final 2023
- IEM Cologne 2024 (S-tier)
- IEM Katowice 2025 (S-tier)
Both players made significant contributions to their teams’ success, demonstrating not only individual skill but also the ability to work in a team at the highest level. However, from a team achievements perspective, s1mple seems to be the more successful player. He also holds the unique title of Intel Grand Slam Season 3 winner, which only a few players can boast of, and currently, ZywOo is not among them.
Regarding the Online era during the pandemic, both players were at their peak form and won many tournaments, but let’s look at individual successes in terms of MVP titles, where ZywOo recently caught up with s1mple.
Individual Achievements
Here we’ll look at HLTV rankings by year-end and the number of MVP awards. To avoid repeating the team achievements list, in MVP statistics, we’ll indicate the total number and separately highlight the medals for best player earned online and when the team couldn’t win the tournament, but the player still received an individual award.
s1mple:
MVP Awards: 21 awards Notable runner-up MVPs:
- StarSeries i-League Season 4 (2nd place)
- DreamHack Masters Marseille 2018 (2nd place)
- ESL Pro League Season 12: Europe (Online) (2nd place)
- BLAST Premier: Global Final 2020 (Online)
- DreamHack Masters Spring 2021 (Online)
- StarLadder CIS RMR 2021 (Online)
- ESL Pro League Season 14 (Online)
- IEM Cologne 2022 (2nd place)
HLTV Rankings: 3 first places, 2 second places
- 2016: 4th place
- 2017: 8th place
- 2018: 1st place
- 2019: 2nd place
- 2020: 2nd place
- 2021: 1st place
- 2022: 1st place
- 2023: 7th place
Total: 8 rankings appearances
ZywOo:
MVP Awards: 21 awards Notable runner-up MVPs:
- DreamHack Masters Malmö 2019 (2nd place)
- IEM Beijing-Haidian 2020 Europe (Online)
- BLAST Premier Fall Series 2020 (Online) (2nd place)
- cs_summit 6 Europe (Online) (2nd place)
- BLAST Premier Spring 2020 Finals (Online) (2nd place)
- DreamHack Open Fall 2020 (Online) (2nd place)
- ESL One Cologne 2020 Europe (Online) (2nd place)
- ESL Pro League Season 19 (2nd place)
HLTV Rankings: 3 first places, 2 second places
- 2019: 1st place
- 2020: 1st place
- 2021: 2nd place
- 2022: 2nd place
- 2023: 1st place
- 2024: 3rd place
Total: 6 rankings appearances
After ZywOo caught up with s1mple in MVP count, Oleksandr Kostyliev reminded that during the online era, he missed several awards because MVP titles weren’t given for RMR tournaments in the CIS region. By the way, in Europe, the Frenchman received only 2 such awards – DreamHack Open Fall 2020 and cs_summit 6 Europe.
“In other words, they thought the CIS scene was terrible, didn’t give MVPs. In the end, the CIS scene started winning, and then NAVI and Gambit were just fighting for first place. These MVPs that weren’t included for RMR… How many did ZywOo get? Three or four pieces. Yes, yes, that’s how it happens, guys” – Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev
This seems like a fair observation, but firstly, ZywOo only has 2 such RMR medals, and secondly, if we dive into history, NAVI struggled in RMR tournaments of those times and only won WePlay! Clutch Island and StarLadder CIS RMR 2021. By the way, for the second RMR win, Sasha received his award, so we can only confidently claim one missing MVP medal.
Head-to-Head Matches and Statistics
Let’s now look at head-to-head statistics to understand how players performed against each other.
Total matches NAVI vs Vitality (when both were in lineups): 23
- NAVI wins: 14
- Vitality wins: 9
After s1mple left NAVI, they only managed to beat Vitality once in 6 meetings.
There was also one show match in their rivalry history when the teams swapped snipers, and s1mple played for Vitality while ZywOo played for NAVI. Obviously, this isn’t indicative, but the Ukrainian sniper won that confrontation.
What CS Stars Say About Them
Richard “shox” Papillon: “ZywOo is a phenomenon. He plays so naturally, as if he was born with crosshair in his eyes.”
Ilya “Perfecto” Zalutskiy: “When you have s1mple in your team, you feel like you can win any match.”
Janko “YNk” Paunović: “s1mple is pure aggression and confidence. ZywOo plays differently: smart, with cold calculation.”
Duncan “Thorin” Shields: “ZywOo is the purest talent I’ve seen in CS. s1mple is the most dominant player in history.”
ZywOo and s1mple - Present Day
The transition to CS2 affected both players negatively. The Frenchman took time to find his game but managed to win two major trophies, and after ropz joined, their team is now contending for their own era. Alexander went inactive and made two unsuccessful attempts to return to the pro scene, but reportedly still doesn’t plan to completely leave esports.
Whether s1mple will succeed is unknown, but his influence on the industry loses weight each year. If Sasha wants to cement his position as the best, he needs to act very quickly. ZywOo clearly isn’t planning to stop and will definitely earn extra MVPs and repeatedly take the highest places in HLTV rankings.
While their careers continue, the discussion will be eternal, but final conclusions will be made at the sunset of their professional path.
In our view, Sasha’s team achievements still give him a slight edge in this debate, but if he doesn’t return to top-level competition soon, by the end of 2025, he will undoubtedly let the Frenchman take the lead.
