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There have been many exciting developments in the Counter-Strike esports space since the launch of CS2, the long-awaited sequel to Global Offensive, but arguably none has created greater hype than the emergence of Danil “donk” Kryshovets, one of the biggest talents to emerge in recent years, banging out elite players like he’s smurfing on them, posting eye-popping stats as a rifler and upending the competition as we know it.
But who is he, can he and his team go all the way at the first Major, and what is in his future? Read on to learn more about this generational talent.
Danil "donk" Kryshovets is a 2007-born Counter-Strike professional hailing from Russia who just turned seventeen years old this January. While casual fans only just got to see him in action at one of the biggest LAN events in the world, he has been on the radar of many of the best and brightest in the game for years, having been featured as shi1ro's bold prediction as far back as his 2022's HLTV top 20 posting. The portal later highlighted him as "one for the future" last summer.
Image by Helena Kristiansson via ESL Gaming
Having come through Team Spirit's academy program in late 2021 and graduating from it to join the main team in July 2023 after the org let Patsi, s1ren, and w0nderful go, he proved his mettle all along the esports ladder. The CIS org lacked the prestige and the invitations to compete in many of the early big CS2 tournaments, but fans could already see in smaller-scale events that donk was the real deal, with some truly incredible stats and dominating performances against tier 2 competition.
From just a human perspective, he was also a breath of fresh air upon his arrival. Young and unburdened, even by esports standards, with a big broad smile on his face, running and gunning all around the map and producing the sort of explosive highlight reel that non-gamers can appreciate as well: he's just the whole package, a ready-made meme machine, with a bit of spice and controversy in his in-your-face attitude to add.
And soon after, the Counter-Strike world would learn that he isn't just a tier 2 merchant.
While Counter-Strike connoisseurs already knew about donk's incredible potential based on his FPL showings and Team Spirit's results in lower-level events, the first real test with the then-16-year-old on board came at IEM Katowice 2024, one of the most prestigious tournaments on the entire CS esports calendar.
It was quite the test, and one donk and co. passed with flying colors, winning the event outright in dominating fashion. After straight wins in the play-in over Apeks (who suffered the 13-0 treatment) and The MongolZ, they defeated NAVI, Complexity, and FaZe Clan to qualify directly for the semis of the event. A 2-0 win over Team Falcons followed, with a spectacular 3-0 pasting of FaZe in a rematch on the stage of the Spodek to cap things off. Ultimately, their only map loss in the entire tournament came against NAVI in the group stage, a 13-11 on Anubis. As for donk, he broke multiple records, becoming the youngest-ever player to be named an HLTV MVP at an elite event while also achieving the highest-ever recorded rating at 1.70. Already, his approximate total earnings add up to almost $170,000 from just a few tournaments, with no doubt much more to come.
Unsurprisingly, Team Spirit then had an easy time qualifying for the upcoming Major, albeit with one hiccup against MOUZ along the way. So it begged the question: could they go all the way again in Copenhagen, at the very first CS2 Major?
It was not out of the question that the young Russian talent could immediately reach the summit of competitive Counter-Strike. After all, he's clearly proven his mettle on an individual level against the best and brightest of the modern game, and his team ended up lifting the IEM Katowice trophy in the Spodek on his big tournament debut.
That said, it was always clear that fans should expect some countermeasures. That is the nature of a debut on the big stage, after all: even with all the hype around you based on your FACEIT performances and your showings in tier 2 play, donk was still a bit of an unknown. As time went on, there were more and more high-quality demos to study, along with tactical adjustments to be made. While there is only so much you can do when the player in question is younger, better, faster, stronger, there are still some moves to be made and surprises to be sprung to limit his individual impact – especially if you can chip away at his supporting cast, as his teammates (and there is no shame in this) aren't quite on his level. That is the beauty of Counter-Strike as an esport: it isn't really possible to individually outduel everyone at all times in a 5v5 team battle.
In fact, if you take a look at the Regional Major Ranking events for Europe at the time, MOUZ seemed to have found a way to neutralize Team Spirit's young superstar in their series, and you can bet your bottom dollar that all the big teams and their coaches were studying that demo to figure out how they can replicate these efforts should they run up against this side at the Copenhagen Major or beyond.
On form, Team Spirit and donk were definitely among the favorites heading into the showpiece event, but there's a reason why it took so long for s1mple to win his first Major, and why NiKo never got to lift the biggest of all trophies in the CS:GO era – ultimately, it is just not this easy to predict who's going to go all the way.
Ultimately, donk and Team Spirit had an impressive CS2 Major debut in Copenhagen, but they couldn't quite replicate their heroics from Katowice. Storming through the Elimination Stage with a clean 3-0 record – defeating Cloud9, Imperial, and NAVI along the way – they were stunned in the quarterfinals by FaZe Clan in an incredibly close-fought series that featured two overtime games on Nuke and Vertigo.
Despite their defeat to Spirit, it was NAVI who went on to lift the big trophy – and this trend has mostly continued throughout 2024, where donk and co. kept getting the better of Aleksib's merry men in individual series but never quite could pull things together at the business end of tournaments, with G2 being a particularly thorny roadblock on multiple occasions. In the end, they lifted two trophies later in the year: the BLAST Premier Spring Final 2024 title and a win at BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024 #2, netting a cool $450,000 in total.
Still, donk adapted fantastically to tier 1 play and continued to bring consistently strong performances to the table week in, week out, meaning Spirit always remained a threat across the various competitions. The year and the season culminated in the Shanghai Major in December, and this was where everything came together for Spirit in a stupendous way: after an initial stumble against FURIA, they swept the rest of the Swiss bracket with wins over Wildcard, NAVI (again), and Heroic, defeating Team Liquid and MOUZ in the playoffs to set up a rematch against FaZe Clan for all the marbles. FaZe were on a Cinderella run of their own after a tough second half of the year, beating Vitality and G2 back-to-back to earn their spot in the final, and despite the international side firing on all cylinders, Team Spirit ultimately triumphed in a fantastic three-map series, with donk and magixx going nuclear on the biggest stage of them all.
The accolades kept on coming, too – donk closed out 2024 by topping HLTV's prestigious top 20 chart for the year ahead of Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov, Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut, and Nikola "NiKo" Kovač.
While the first half of 2025 was all about Team Vitality's incredible records as NAVI faded from the spotlight, Team Spirit's results and performances still warrant commendation. In their six tournaments played (excluding the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 qualifier, which they also passed with flying colors), they always made it to the semifinals or beyond, establishing themselves as one of the top teams alongside Vitality, MOUZ, and Falcons – and no doubt they will remain among the top contenders by the time the StarLadder Budapest Major rolls around later in the year.
For most of 2024, it felt like Team Spirit's got a pretty good thing going, with chopper and magixx continuing to prove their credentials and zont1x turning out to be a bit of a revelation of his own. Better still, it was also confirmed donk has shown no interest in leaving Spirit for any supposedly larger team anytime soon, showering praise on his teammates and the organization. Their academy also continued to crank out talent: 19-year-old Kirill "Magnojez" Rodnov won both FPL EU seasons in February with an incredible 79.3% win rate, so reinforcements were already lined up, and even greater prospects like Maxim "kyousuke" Lukin were also coming down the pipeline. In fact, Team Spirit has gone in so hard on the talent generation project that they announced in April that they would expand their academy by four more teams (two U16 rosters, an U14 and an U12(?!) squad), "deliberately modelled on soccer academies," per HLTV, following their past track record where they have signed promising talent at an extremely young age.
This begs the question, though: how will all these exciting new players find a home in the Team Spirit ecosystem? They likely won't – that is the honest answer here. Magnojez has already found himself a new home on BetBoom Team, and kyousuke's prospects have been a source of huge controversy inside the team – which brings us back to donk and his future on the team.
The initial hype around kyosuke has reached almost donk-like levels, and yet, reports suggest that the young Russian has agreed a deal with Falcons to join their burgeoning Counter-Strike superteam. Reports suggest that the higher-ups in the org were unwilling or unable to facilitate a spot for the youngster in the main squad alongside donk, making Danil rather mad in the process. Having just dominated the LanDaLan 2 finals with a whopping 1.57 rating – and Spirit Academy's coach saying "he was upset that the final was so easy," it seems like a donk 2.0 situation could be on our hands.
On May 31, Spirit Academy withdrew from ESEA Advanced Season 53 Europe's playoffs and forfeited their matches, with reports suggesting that kyousuke is no longer even practicing with the team, suggesting that a move to Falcons on the eve of the BLAST.tv Austin CS2 Major is indeed imminent. If donk is as frustrated by this development as the rumor mill suggests, who knows what's next for him?
Heading into the Austin Major, he posted yet another all-time carry performance at PGL Astana to lift the trophy, but the rumor mill keeps churning about his concerns with the standing Spirit roster – which is, of course, somewhat ludicrous considering they are the defending champs heading into Austin, but with such potential upgrades slipping through their fingers (and heading to direct rivals, no less), perhaps we could still see donk searching out greener pastures as well if their results should see a downturn. There would be many suitors, that is for sure.
If you're just as excited about the upcoming BLAST Austin Major as we are, why not check out the Bitsler blog for comprehensive coverage and discussion on all things esports? We're working around the clock to create exciting content about the biggest games and events all around the world, and we are not stopping anytime soon.
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