Image: Perfect World Esports
The second CS2 Major will be without the greatest CS:GO player of all time.
Aleksandr “s1mple” Kostyliev and 
Team Falcons have failed to qualify for the Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 after getting knocked out in the fourth round of the tournament's European Regional Major Ranking (RMR) A event on Tuesday (November 19).
This means that the second CS2 Major will happen without s1mple, widely considered to be the greatest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) player of all time and a CS:GO Major champion. It is also another disappointing result for Falcons, considering that they also have two CS:GO Major champions on the roster in the former Astralis duo of 
Peter “dupreeh” Rothmann Rasmussen and Emil “Magisk” Reif.
S1mple joined Falcons in late September on loan from 
Natus Vincere (NAVI) for three months, having been inactive since October 2023. The Ukrainian player had already been loaned to Falcons for the BLAST Premier: Spring Showdown 2024 back in March. Should s1mple's time with Falcons be extended beyond the three-month loan, it will be the first time he fully joined a team since spending eight years under the NAVI banner from 2016 to 2023.
S1mple and Falcons miss out on Shanghai Major
Falcons didn't have the best of starts to the Shanghai Major's European RMR A event, as they had to grind out a 16-13 overtime win in Anubis over ECLOT in the first round. S1mple notably had 20 kills on 15 deaths in the map.
Falcons' second round matchup was FaZe Clan, who defeated them in overtime, 16-12, in Nuke. It was dupreeh who top-fragged in this map with 23 kills on 21 deaths while s1mple had 19 kills and deaths apiece. The team's misery then continued in round three versus SAW, who dominated them, 13-5, in Anubis as s1mple had the worst score on the server with just seven kills against 14 deaths.
Despite losing in rounds two and three, Falcons still had a chance to qualify for the Major if they could defeat GamerLegion in a best-of-three series in round four. The team's struggles continued in game one at Vertigo, where GamerLegion won 13-6 as s1mple had another disappointing performance with eight kills on 15 deaths.
Falcons bounced back in map two at Nuke with a 13-7 score behind Magisk's 21 kills on 10 deaths, with s1mple only managing 11 kills on 10 deaths. S1mple finally came alive in the decider at Mirage, where he had the best performance out of anyone on the server with 23 kills against 15 deaths. Unfortunately, it was not enough as GamerLegion still won the map with a 13-7 score and knocked Falcons out of contention for a spot in the Shanghai Major.
But things are not all doom and gloom for Falcons. If rumours are to be believed, they are set to be reinforced by 
G2 Esports' star rifler, 
Nikola “NiKo” Kovač, after the Shanghai Major concludes. With that said, it is unknown if s1mple will still be with Falcons once NiKo joins as the former's loan period from NAVI is set to expire at the end of the year.
