donk at 19: The Teenager Who Rewrote Counter-Strike's Record Book
Youngest Major champion, youngest Player of the Year, and the highest rating ever recorded at a Major. How Danil Kryshkovets went from a four-year-old in Tomsk to the most feared rifler in CS2.
Most Counter-Strike careers begin in the late teens. Danil Kryshkovets started at four, when his brother introduced him to the game in Tomsk, Siberia. By 17 he had won a Major, been named its MVP, and finished the year as the best player in the world. The rest of the Counter-Strike scene has spent the time since trying to work out how to stop him.
Known everywhere as donk, the Team Spirit rifler turned 19 in January and is still collecting titles. In May he led Spirit to the PGL Astana 2026 trophy, and on August 23 he was MVP as Spirit beat FUT Esports 3-1 to win Counter-Strike at the Esports World Cup in Paris. He goes into the PGL Singapore Major, starting November 24, as one of its biggest draws.
From Tomsk to the academy
donk was born on January 25, 2007. He moved from the original Counter-Strike to CS:GO at six, and at 14 he was already playing in FPL-C, the European competitive ladder for promising players. In 2021, the former pro Aleksey "OverDrive" Biryukov spotted him and recommended him to Team Spirit's academy.
Two years of academy matches followed. In 2023, Spirit moved him to its main roster. That December, at BetBoom Dacha Dubai 2023, he won his first HLTV MVP award with a 1.31 rating, making him the second-youngest player ever to win one.
The Shanghai Major
The year 2024 turned donk from a prospect into a phenomenon. Spirit won IEM Katowice in February and the BLAST Premier Spring Final in June, and finished second at the BLAST Premier World Final. Then came the Perfect World Shanghai Major in December.
Spirit's roster of donk, chopper, sh1ro, zont1x and magixx beat FaZe Clan 2-1 in the final. donk was named MVP with a 1.49 rating, a Major record that edged out the 1.47 set by Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev. His 1.67 rating across the three-map final was the highest ever by a rifler in a Major final, and he hit four aces in the event, another Major record.
He became the youngest Major champion and youngest Major MVP in history. Weeks later, HLTV named him its Player of the Year for 2024, at 17 years and 352 days, the youngest winner ever. Only coldzera and ZywOo had previously won the award in their first full professional season.
Second to ZywOo
2025 was strong but not dominant. donk won MVP at the BLAST Bounty Season 1 Finals, PGL Astana 2025, IEM Cologne 2025 and the BLAST Bounty Season 2 Finals. At the StarLadder Budapest Major in December he posted a 1.57 rating across nine maps, the highest rating ever recorded over a Major, although Spirit went out in the semifinals.
HLTV ranked him second in its 2025 Top 20, behind Vitality's Mathieu "ZywOo" Herbaut. It pointed to ZywOo's MVP count, deeper tournament runs and playoff performances. The two now share the sport's biggest individual rivalry, and you can read the other side in our ZywOo profile.
2026: the titles return
The first months of 2026 were thin by donk's standards: a third place at IEM Kraków, second at IEM Rio, and early exits elsewhere. Then, at PGL Astana 2026 in May, Spirit beat Team Falcons 3-0 in the playoffs on the way to the title, and donk was MVP with a 1.61 rating. It ended a nine-month wait for a top-tier trophy and gave him his 11th HLTV MVP, the most of any rifler.
At the IEM Cologne Major in June, Spirit survived a quadruple-overtime quarterfinal against G2 before losing to eventual champions Falcons in the semifinals. In Paris in August, donk was named MVP of the Esports World Cup final, earning an extra $25,000 bounty, as Spirit came from a map down to beat FUT.
Why he matters
Counter-Strike has always had star AWPers and clever leaders. donk is something different: an entry rifler who plays at a pace and aim level that makes opponents rethink how to defend a site. He is also a product of Spirit's academy rather than an expensive transfer, a reminder that the most valuable signing a club can make is sometimes the teenager it already has.
He is still only 19. If his career runs as long as ZywOo's, the record book is going to need more pages. Counter-Strike 2 is free to play on Steam, and donk's Shanghai Major final is the place to start. For the bigger picture, read our profile of Team Spirit.