Natus Vincere star Aleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev will fill in for mousesports in Thursday's ECS matches against Virtus.pro, the StarSeries i-League Season 4 champions have announced.

The Ukrainian talent will replace Martin "⁠STYKO⁠" Styk, who will sit out this pair of fixtures after his doctor advised him to rest.

This is not the first time that MOUZ have turned to Oleksandr "⁠s1mple⁠" Kostyliev to secure a last-minute stand-in. In December, the 20-year-old replaced Tomáš "⁠oskar⁠" Šťastný in the semi-finals and the final of LOOT.BET Cup 2 - cs_summit 2 qualifier.

s1mple will give mousesports a hand against Virtus.pro

STYKO will be hoping to get back into shape quickly as MOUZ prepare for DreamHack Masters Marseille, which will kick off in a week's time. The European mixture have been drawn in Group B, alongside SK, Ninjas in Pyjamas and Valiance.

MOUZ are currently fifth in ECS, with four victories from ten matches, while Virtus.pro are seventh, also with four victories but with seven defeats.

sadly doctor recommended me to rest and I won’t be playing vs https://t.co/p2jTLnSJYr today. @s1mpleO will stand-in instead of me. glgl 💪🏻

— STYKO 🚜 (@STYKOcsgo) April 12, 2018