In a shocking roster move earlier on Monday, FaZe announced the signing of Oleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev on loan from NAVI.
Shortly after the news broke, the Ukrainian star gave a brief interview to streamer Roman Mokrivskiy, where he spoke about joining FaZe, his motivation heading into the BLAST.tv Austin Major, and his admiration for some of his new teammates.
– Yeah, I’m in shape. I’m very happy, guys. My watch was recently stolen, and I’m just thinking that when life takes something, it gives you something back. So, I’m very happy to have the opportunity to play. I won’t fuck up like I did last Major. This time, I’ll do even more. <…> The practice starts on Wednesday. I like my teammates. Some might say the team is old, but I always wanted to play with karrigan and rain, especially with the latter. I played with EliGE, and he’s strong. I only didn’t play with frozen.
– [Mokrivskiy: Please don’t kick rain if you stay on FaZe] Are you mad? Rain? He was the first one who messaged me. I won’t let anyone touch him, s1mple said on the stream via Escorenews.com.
The quotes by s1mple have been translated by Escorenews.com.
A busy day for FaZe
s1mple joins FaZe as a replacement for Helvijs “broky” Saukants, who was benched earlier on Monday after a prolonged dip in form. The Latvian AWPer had been struggling throughout the start of 2025, leading to FaZe making the bold decision to bring in s1mple on a short-term loan from NAVI.
In addition to that, FaZe have also added Brazilian rifler Felipe “skullz” Medeiros as a substitute for the upcoming IEM Dallas, with Håvard “rain” Nygaard potentially missing the tournament due to personal reasons.
s1mple is expected to make his debut with FaZe at IEM Dallas, which kicks off on May 19, before heading into the BLAST.tv Austin Major next month.
