donk wins Rookie of the Year award

The Russian phenom was imperious in his first full year of elite-level competition.

Spirit superstar Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets took home the Rookie of the Year award on Saturday at the HLTV Awards in Belgrade. The Russian youngster beat out competition from G2's sensation Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa and teammate Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia to claim the honor.

donk had a breathtaking 2024, during which he averaged a 1.37 rating and won the MVP award at IEM Katowice, Betboom Dacha Belgrade, BLAST Premier Spring Final, Betboom Dacha S2, and Perfect World Shanghai Major.

His Spirit team claimed four titles during the year, the most important of which came in Shanghai, where donk put up a 1.49 rating overall as well as a 1.67 in the grand final against FaZe.

donk beat malbsMd to the award, with the Guatemalan coming second. malbsMd joined his first tier-one team in G2 in the summer break but did enough in the small sample size to prove he has what it takes to compete at the top.

He averaged a 1.12 rating across his G2 tenure in unfamiliar anchor roles on the CT side and helped the team win the BLAST Premier Fall and World Final, which meant he finished at No. 12 on the top 20 Players of the year list.

Coming in third was donk's teammate zont1x, who fulfilled Spirit's third-star role with aplomb and averaged a 1.08 rating across the year.

donk follows in the footsteps of Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov and Guy "⁠NertZ⁠" Iluz, who won the award in 2022 and 2023.

Rookie of the Year

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets

Other nominees:

Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa - Second place
Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia - Third place