magixx on donk: "He is going for his peeks, fights, and multi kills, and it is working for him"

Boris "⁠magixx⁠" Vorobiev sat down with HLTV to talk about his change of in-game roles, his teammate Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets, and Spirit's expectations for the rest of the year.

Spirit's academy project has been one of the most successful youth projects when it comes to promoting players to their senior team. Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov, Aleksandr "⁠KaiR0N-⁠" Anashkin, Pavel "⁠S1ren⁠" Ogloblin, and Aleksei "⁠NickelBack⁠" Trofimov are just a few names that represented Spirit Academy before their promotion to the main team or a successful transfer to another organization.

It was therefore no surprise that the organization called upon their young squad for reinforcements once again after Patsi transferred to Liquid and Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov and S1ren found themselves on the chopping block. All of this transfer activity meant that three Spirit Academy players got the call-up to complete the roster, as only Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov and magixx remained.

The chosen trio were Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia, Artem "⁠ArtFr0st⁠" Kharitonov, and donk. The latter came into the team with a lot of hype despite being only 16, and his early online performances have proven there was some truth to the high expectations. After laying waste to his opponents online, the 16-year-old made his LAN debut alongside his new teammates at the PARI Dunav Party held in Belgrade, Serbia.

magixx, who sat down with HLTV in Belgrade after their opening win against FORZE, said that the tournament is a good learning experience for his teammates. "There's no actual expectations going into this tournament," he began. "We have been working heavily on watching our replays from the online tournaments that we played in the past weeks.

"We just want to see how well we have fixed the things which we have seen in our past matches. It's going pretty well and there's no issues. We are doing a lot of work, communicating a lot with each other, and everyone is doing a great job."

The conversation then quickly transitioned to his prodigious teammate donk, and magixx began waxing lyrical about his new colleague. "He is an aggressive rifler who is confident in himself, who is going for his peeks, fights, and multi kills. And it is working for him, he brings a lot of good situations when you are playing the round. He is doing so much shit during the game," he said of the young prodigy, who has averaged a 1.34 rating since he joined the main team.

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One for the future: donk

When asked about whether he has seen any weaknesses in the 16-year-old's game, magixx paused for a few seconds as he struggled to find any in-game shortcomings about his teammate. "I'm not sure that he should be fixing that many things in the game. It's much more about him tilting. It kind of happens sometimes, and if he could work on it, it would be better. But even if he's not having that great of a mood, he's still hitting, and that's awesome," magixx said with a smile on his face.

Much has changed for the 20-year-old during the offseason, as he became a senior figure in the team. That meant more responsibility outside the game, as well as a switch in terms of in-game roles. "Well, there was some change because zont1x is playing lurker everywhere, and it was clashing with some of my positions.

"I now have more of the B-anchor positions and more supportive positions on each map. We decided to let our new players play the positions which they have been playing in the academy, so they are more comfortable in the game."

Given that PARI Dunav Party is a regional LAN with seven out of eight rosters hailing from Russia, the 20-year-old then touched on the future of the CIS scene. "Yes, I do believe that it [CIS domination] is going to happen in CS2 because it's just our mentality. It's just the approach to the game, people are ready to grind and are hungry for results, and they're working really hard."

He ended the interview by talking about Spirit's expectations for the season. "Honestly, we don't have any high expectations. We just want to learn to play well. And of course, when CS2 is out it will be different," he touched on the game's upcoming release. "But the main thing is working on the communication, with how to support your mate or how to play in the mid round. We should get good at that and it will help us no matter which version of CS it's going to be."