As the CS2 launch closes in, rising star Danil “donk” Kryshkovets has already begun making a name for himself. The 16-year-old Russian rose up the ranks through Team Spirit’s academy squad, eventually making it to the main roster this season—and he’s been their star player ever since.

Donk has managed to push Team Spirit over the line against rosters like Virtus Pro, MIBR, and Bad News Eagles since his arrival mid-way through July. Out of his 25 maps so far with Team Spirit, donk has only had an HLTV rating lower than 1.11 only once—and that was on just his third match for the squad.

Since his move to the big leagues, donk has garnered a rating of 1.39. While the rifler hasn’t tackled many top CS:GO rosters yet, stats like these are nothing to shrug off.

And by the looks of it, Spirit has found their game-winning player.

Despite Spirit being overloaded with fresh faces, the squad has already placed first at CCT North Europe Series Six and looks to make it to the Global Finals in 2024. The roster just sent Virtus Pro to the lower bracket at the CCT Online Finals Two, with Spirit now sitting in limbo waiting for the victor of VP and Aurora to meet them in the grand final.

While these tournaments only feature a few noteworthy names, this is a promising sign of what’s to come. These results come just a month after a three-player roster change for Team Spirit after what has been a lackluster 2023 so far. The squad promoted Myroslav “⁠zont1x⁠” Plakhotia, Artem “⁠ArtFr0st⁠” Kharitonov, and donk to the main roster after Spirit’s three original young guns moved on to other ventures.

With the previous roster’s playoff runs at the PGL Antwerp and IEM Rio Majors in 2022, we’ll have to wait and see if Spirit’s new lineup can recreate the same magic.