A look back at the last time EliGE and s1mple played together

Oleksander "s1mple" Kostyliev's arrival at FaZe has brought together arguably the greatest player to touch CS with Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski, who may be the best American to ever play the game.

The two teamed before, nearly a decade ago, on Liquid. While playing together from January 2016 to August of that year, Liquid came top-four at the MLG Columbus Major and runner-up at the ESL One Cologne 2016 Major.

The duo, both in their respective careers' infancy at Cologne, showed glimpses of what was to come, posting the best ratings on Liquid and top-15 ratings of all players at the major.

s1mple and EliGE led Liquid through the quarterfinal and semifinal, until meeting SK in the final. The Brazilians had already knocked Liquid out in Columbus, thanks in no small part to Marcelo "coldzera" David's graffiti-worthy AWP antics.

The story would be no different at ESL One Cologne, as SK broke Liquid's hearts in 2-0 fashion to take their second Major title of the year and cement their era.

s1mple and EliGE will be keen to right their previous wrongs, but they will face difficulties as s1mple hasn't proven himself in CS2, and FaZe has struggled massively in recent months.

The current FaZe lineup that will feature at IEM Dallas on May 19th, before the BLAST.tv Major Austin will be:

• Håvard "rain" Nygaard

• Finn "karrigan" Andersen

• David "frozen" Čerňanský

• Jonathan "EliGE" Jablonowski

• Oleksander "s1mple" Kostyliev (Loan)

• Filip "NEO" Kubski (Coach)

• Felipe "skullz" Medeiros (Potential Stand-in for rain)

For old time's sake, here's a video from Vital CSGO recounting s1mple's time with Liquid: