donk says s1mple is the GOAT: "He inspired me to play CS seriously"

There's a heated debate among fans when it comes to choosing the greatest Counter-Strike player ever. The majority is split between either Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev and Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, and some think that Danil "donk" Kryshkovets will be the GOAT soon, given how he burst into the tier-one scene.

But, for donk, s1mple is above both him and ZywOo in the pecking order.

"It's only my second year in tier-one, I think I need to prove myself in terms of stability," donk said in an interview with BLAST. He then talked about his rivals, ZywOo and s1mple.

Everyone chooses the GOAT that he likes. We can take ZywOo as the most stable player in CS. We can take s1mple as the player with the highest peak of all time.

I like them both. I like that s1mple was a huge difference maker in NAVI, and I also like the fact that ZywOo is super stable. So it’s a hard question.

I think I would like to choose s1mple, because I remember watching him play and hard carrying NAVI back in 2018, so he inspired me to play CS seriously. I think I need time and results. I want to become the most titled player in CS.

Both s1mple and ZywOo won the prestigious HLTV Player of the Year award three times each, during CS:GO's life cycle.

donk, on the other hand, won his first award after a superb performance in 2024, the first year that all tournaments were played on CS2 and also the year he made his tier-one debut.

This debate will keep on going, as both donk and ZywOo are killing it this year, and s1mple seems determined to claw his way back to tier-one.