Natus Vincere superstar Oleksandr ‘s1mple‘ Kostyliev kicked off ESL One Cologne 2019 in fine form – dishing out a round-saving 4k against mousesports.
The sixth edition of ESL One Cologne kicked off on Tuesday, July 2nd with early action from Group A as Team Liquid took down MVP PK and Na’Vi held off mousesports.
While both games ended in closely contested 16-14 victories for both the respective favorites, it was arguably the world’s most talented player who stole the show from the get-go – breaking mouz’ hearts in devastating fashion.
As the two teams did battle on Train in a best-of-one, Na’Vi fell behind early in the first half as mousesports jumped out to a 6-3 lead. With the European upstarts looking to bag themselves a four round lead, they downed two foes before s1mple’s team even had the chance to respond.
Yet, with the situation looking dire, he stepped up. The Ukrainian star sprayed down Frozen and ChrisJ to level things up in a three-on-three before sneaking further towards the outside bombsite.
Woxic quickly responded with an AWP kill to give Mouz a slight upper hand but they were unable to press home their advantage as s1mple and Zeus picked up tandem kills – leaving Ropz as the final target. Despite the Estonian star taking down Zeus, s1mple quickly fired back to give his team the round win and another notch in their first-half total.
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As ever, s1mple’s ability to clutch up propelled Na’Vi to a 16-14 over the new look mousesports lineup as they jumped out to a perfect start in Group A.
The Ukrainian superstar completed the game with yet another impressive stat line – racking up 32 kills and only falling to 17 deaths. His +15 K/D was more than double highest of anyone on the server as he put his explosive talent on show for all to see.
He’ll need to be in fine form yet again as Na’Vi’s win landed them a date with world #1 Team Liquid in the upper bracket of Group A.
