The Ukrainian superstar begins 2021 with the highest individual award after leading Natus Vincere to victory in the BLAST Premier Global Final.

Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev has clinched the first Most Valuable Player award of 2021 following NAVI's win in the grand final, in which they handily beat Astralis just hours after a full three-map series against Vitality earlier in the day.

The 23-year-old led the way as Natus Vincere came back from an opening loss to Liquid in the upper bracket, putting up team-leading performances almost every step of the way as the team completed the lower bracket gauntlet from the first round with wins over Complexity, G2, and Liquid in a rematch.

s1mple went on to play particularly well when the stakes were the highest on the final day of the tournament, recording a 1.47 rating against Vitality in the consolidation final and a 1.57 rating in the grand final facing Astralis.

Over the course of the whole tournament, the Ukrainian averaged extraordinary numbers — even for his own uncommonly high standards —, leading 12 different event leaderboards, including overall rating (1.41), kills per round (0.89), damage per round (89.6), KAST (79.4%), and success in opening duels (72.4%).

With this accolade, s1mple has increased his total MVP count to 12. That sees the Ukrainian distance himself again from Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, his closest individual rival at BLAST Premier Global Final, as the player with the second-most MVP awards to his name, and close the gap to Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz, who currently has 18.