According to the results of the IEM Cologne 2022 tournament, which ended on June 17, the MVP title was awarded to Alexander “s1mple” Kostylev despite the fact that his team finished the competition in second place. For the Natus Vincere player, this is already the twenty-first MVP medal in the collection – and the second this year. He received the previous one less than a month ago at the BLAST Premier Spring Final, thus breaking the record for the number of individual awards. In addition, this is the third time that s1mple has become the best player at IEM Cologne: he previously received the MVP title at this tournament in 2018 and 2021.
S1mple showed impressive play throughout the tournament. His average rating for all matches was 1.25, and in some games it was even higher – for example, 1.36 in the match against MOUZ in the group stage. Of course, he was among the leaders in other indicators, such as the number of headshots and the number of clutches won. Even before the start of the grand finals, s1mple was the main contender for the MVP title, while his closest rival remained Benjamin "blameF" Bremer from Astralis. Despite the fact that FaZe defeated the Ukrainian team in the finals, in terms of individual indicators, none of its players could come close to the level of s1mple.
