FaZe posted a short clip on X where Oleksandr " s1mple " Kostyliev emotionally comments on the loss to Heroic . In his usual style, he called the opponents "bots" and then added that it was a joke.
Heroic Knocked FaZe Out of the Tournament
The match between FaZe and Heroic took place as part of the lower bracket semifinals of IEM Dallas 2025. The series stretched to three maps. FaZe started with a victory on Ancient (13:9), but then lost on Anubis (7:13) and were narrowly defeated on the decisive Mirage (14:16). Thus, Heroic advanced further, while FaZe concluded their tournament run.
Despite his star status, s1mple could not influence the outcome of the match: his statistics were 35 kills, 48 deaths, 61 ADR, and a rating of 5.3 — one of the weakest performances on the team. You can view the full match statistics via this link.
In the released clip, s1mple , as he emphasizes, jokingly says the following:
This one, you can put in the vlog. We lost against f***ing bots. Heroic bots. SunPayus — I respect you. And the guy from Belarus — I respect as well. But we lost against f***ing bots. And I'm 100% sure we will never lose again, even if we don't practice for a month. With rain , we will never lose to these bots. Because they are bots — and we are f***ing...Okay. Maybe I'm not human, but my team are humans. Bots — humans — something else. Okay? So, yeah.
[laughs] I'm joking. But in every joke, there's a small amount of truth, you know? You Americans — you heard about this?
Oleksandr " s1mple " Kostyliev
FaZe's move can be interpreted in different ways: as an attempt to maintain the media presence and "voice" of their main player, or as a slight distancing — like, this is our s1mple , take him with a pinch of salt.
