Former Counter-Strike player Daniil “Zeus” Teslenko shared his thoughts on whether Danil “donk” Kryshkovets has surpassed Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostylev. Zeus compared their levels of play during a Twitch stream.
“Every era had its superstars: in 1.6 there were NEO, f0rest, in 2004 Ivan [F_1N] was the toughest, then s1mple, device, dupreeh and many other players appeared. Now it’s just the era of youth, and that’s normal. Donk is also a phenomenon who really took all the awards and showed himself very strongly. But when you say that he is tougher and better than prime s1mple, I don’t agree here. Firstly, s1mple had a period of time in which he established himself as one of the best players in the world – it wasn’t just one season. We need to look at the long term. Yes, donk made a very strong breakthrough, but what will happen in a year, two or three – we do not know. Theoretically, he has everything to continue to be tough and [dominate], but time will tell. Plus, Spirit as a team has grown very much. When your team [destroys], takes first place at the major, then you are also a tough guy and show yourself.”
“In s1mple’s prime time, we competed with an [incredibly] strong Astralis, which constantly [beat] us. We had problems with the roster, we got a cool roster when we already took electroNic, and still the team did not look 100% complete, because I was over 30 years old, and all the other guys were 20 years old, and we were [dominating]. And even then we were top-2 in the world <...>. At the same time, s1mple very often received MVP despite the fact that we took second place in championships. That is, prime s1mple, it seems to me, still remains the toughest. But we’ll see in the long run. There were no HLTV Awards back then. If there were HLTV Awards in 2018-2019, s1mple would also receive [a lot of] these statuettes.”
Earlier, Zeus spoke about his relationship with s1mple during their time together in Natus Vincere.
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