17-year-old gamer prodigy dominates everything and everyone in his 1st Major in Counter-Strike

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The 17-year-old Russian Danil “donk” Kryshkovets made a name for himself with an outstanding performance at the IEM Katowice major tournament in Counter-Strike 2 (Steam). He led Team Spirit to victory, bagging $80,000 in prize money and becoming the tournament’s youngest MVP. The praise is overwhelming: some call it the greatest achievement by a player in CS:GO ever.

This is the situation:

  • Counter-Strike is to Europe, and especially Eastern Europe, what Call of Duty is to the USA. 4 of the top 5 players in the world come from countries like Estonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Russia and Israel. The best player, according to the HLTV ranking, is French.
  • The Russian player “donk” comes directly from Team Spirit’s academy team and has only been playing in the professional team as a rifler and entry fragger since mid-2023. He is responsible for getting his team’s 1st kill.
  • At 17, he’s already won $166,000 in prize money, $80,000 of which just came from winning IEM Season XVIII – Katowice in Counter-Strike 2. This was his first major tournament in Counter-Strike. He played outstandingly.

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    Experts are full of praise

    How good was he? The player got 82 kills in 62 rounds, only dying 40 times. His average damage was 124 – 40 points more than anyone else scored.

    As the site Gamesradar writes, donk’s performance is praised by some experts as “statically the best performance of all time” or “the best tournament performance I can remember.”

    In the final, he dispatched FaZe 3-0, dominating the competition and outscoring his teammates.

    What is particularly unusual is that donk played his first major tournament in Katowice, so he didn’t need any start-up times.

    The prodigy’s achievement comes at a time when the real star of CS:GO, s1mple, is still taking a break from esports.

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    What are the effects of dominance? donk won the award as MVP of the tournament. He is the youngest winner of the IEM Kattowice MVP.

    There was also a boost for the tournament on Twitch, with numbers 20% higher than last year.

    Players have also made numerous jokes about him, such as “Advise players whether Donk can play in the next tournament.”

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    It will now be interesting to see whether Donk will really become a dominant force in Counter-Strike 2 or whether the prodigy will be disenchanted after all.

    Counter-Strike has produced some dazzling professionals. We once reported on one in detail: CS:GO: Player proposes to his wife after winning the World Cup, she destroys his life – that’s what he’s doing today

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