Bold Predictions for 2025: Who are they?

16-1-2025 15:30

Spirit's youngster, kyousuke, got six shouts from the Top 20 players of 2024.

Another year, another round of bold predictions from the Top 20 Players of the Year, a staple in the end-of-year celebration of Counter-Strike. How does it work? The best players in the world are asked to name a player they think will break out at the top level, with the guideline that they should be under 20 years of age and have not played in a top 20 team in our world ranking.

Players like Robin "⁠ropz⁠" Kool and David "⁠frozen⁠" Čerňanský or MOUZ's core of Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo, Dorian "⁠xertioN⁠" Berman, and Ádám "⁠torzsi⁠" Torzsás, both mainstays and newcomers to the Top 20 players of the year ranking, were at one point bold predictions.

Now, they are the players doing the predicting alongside the rest of the Top 20 players of the year, and funnily enough, frozen and torzsi were both picks of ropz's at one point.

ropz is teaming up with his 2020 bold prediction, flameZ, in Vitality

Last year's bold predictions were spearheaded by Linus "⁠nilo⁠" Bergman, who was picked five times. The more evident breakout of the year, Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets, was ineligible due to his performances with Spirit late in the year, which included his first MVP award, and thus did not make him bold enough for this list.

nilo had a breakout year of his own — 1.18 rating in 2024 — with Metizport, albeit at a lower level, and was on his way to HEROIC for the 2025 season, but his future now remains uncertain as he is not playing the first event of the year with what was supposed to be his new team.

Bold Predictions for 2024: Who are they?

The beau of the ball this year is Maxim "⁠kyousuke⁠" Lukin, and he does one better by getting not five but six shouts from Top 20 players of 2024, including top three players Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov and Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut, as well as Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov, frozen, Lotan "⁠Spinx⁠" Giladi, and ropz.

The HLTV forums will also be ecstatic that their man got recognition from the best players in the world, as the 16-year-old Spirit Academy prodigy, who sports a 1.30 rating in the past three months and a 1.29 since recording his first matches in May 2024, has been a recurrent topic of conversation.

The intrigue now is whether kyousuke will replicate this dominance against the best teams in the world, and if it will translate to the LAN environment. If proof of concept ever existed, he just need to look at Rookie and Player of the Year donk in his organization's main team.

Top russian AWPers m0NESY and sh1ro both picked kyousuke as their bold prediction

As usual, some players kept their picks along country lines. Player of the Year donk, for example, went with Ivan "⁠zweih⁠" Gogin, the more hipster Russian pick. Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius chose NAVI Junior's Džiugas "⁠dziugss⁠" Steponavičius , gassing him up along the way. "I don’t think we Lithuanians had a prodigy of this caliber yet. We had a few talents and a few hard workers, but never a hardworking talent that had a passion for the game and was so eager to get better," he says.

jL's Ukrainian teammates Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy and Ihor "⁠w0nderful⁠" Zhdanov took their picks from Shanghai Major breakouts Passion UA, naming Nikita "⁠jackasmo⁠" Skyba and Eduard "⁠zeRRoFIX⁠" Petrovskyi, respectively. Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač also appreciated the Ukrainian team's run in Shanghai, but chose to pick their star AWPer, Dmytro "⁠jambo⁠" Semera.

Three different Passion UA players were named in the bold predictions

Mihai "⁠iM⁠" Ivan and torzsi also went with their countrymen. The Romanian went with Mădălin-Andrei "⁠MoDo⁠" Mirea, while torzsi picked Adrian "⁠xelex⁠" Vincze, who is getting his start where torzsi first made a splash in the international scene, MOUZ NXT.

dziugss's NAVI Junior teammate, Drin "⁠makazze⁠" Shaqiri, got the shout on back-to-back days — becoming the only player to be picked more than once other than kyousuke —, when numbers seven and eight on the Top 20 Players of 2024 list, Shahar "⁠flameZ⁠" Shushan and Helvijs "⁠broky⁠" Saukants, picked him, probably after hitting the FPL servers.

NAVI Junior's makazze was the only other multi-pick prediction

Two Americans picked two Americans. G2's breakout star Mario "⁠malbsMd⁠" Samayoa named his successor in M80, Mason "⁠Lake⁠" Sanderson, while Jonathan "⁠EliGE⁠" Jablonowski went with NRG's Jeorge "⁠Jeorge⁠" Endicott.

Ismailcan "⁠XANTARES⁠" Dörtkardeş came out of left field, picking GUN5 youth Vladislav "⁠xiELO⁠" Lysov for his bold rifling skills and his courage in taking fights — a man after his own heart —, while xertioN's heart went to a player that just left his alma mater, MOUZ NXT: Oldřich "⁠PR⁠" Nový.

Also out of left field is Jimpphat, who picked Polish 20-year-old Jakub "⁠jcobbb⁠" Pietruszewski in a move reminiscent of Álvaro "⁠SunPayus⁠" García giving the nod to Kacper "⁠Bambosh⁠" Szlachta or Benjamin "⁠blameF⁠" Bremer calling out Kacper "⁠xKacpersky⁠" Gabara last year before he was signed by Young Ninjas and later transferred to ENCE.

The full list of Top 20 players of 2024 and their bold predictions is:

kyousuke

2025-01-16 15:30

298

10 replies

2025-01-16 15:49

admin, bold or bald predictions? 👀

2025-01-16 17:13

this guy is overhyped my aim is identical to his and im a silver elite

2025-01-16 17:15

5 replies

2025-01-16 17:21

1 reply

loba is silver 3 nt

2025-01-16 17:22

0/8

2025-01-16 17:28

2 replies

niko what? excuse me? falcons?

2025-01-16 17:34

where did i say wrong....... this is a tap style of shooting

2025-01-16 17:36

2025-01-16 20:26

2025-01-17 02:11

Lake is overrated af

2025-01-16 15:31

6 replies

overhated

2025-01-16 15:35

3 replies

Maybe, but bro isn't making to top 20, especially of he stays in NA

2025-01-16 16:42

He plays on a German team lmao

2025-01-16 17:07

two whole different germanies m8-0 and bug

2025-01-16 17:17

Kyousuke

2025-01-16 15:55

bad bait mate 0/8

Kyousuke is a new legend, undoubtedly

2025-01-16 15:32

kyousuke shouldn't even qualify as a bold prediction

Donk wasnt either

2025-01-16 18:23

jcobbb mentioned

2025-01-16 15:33

In the last paragraph jimi is incorrectly written as ropz, anyway nice read would it be possible to make a list of all the bold predictions ever. Thank you.

Fixed, thanks

2025-01-16 15:43

You guys read all the comments ????? anyways CEMEN_BAKIN top1 2025 is obvious at this point.

2025-01-16 17:57

Mods and staff lurk the forums when they have time

2025-01-16 19:08

"Also out of left field is ropz, who picked Polish 20-year-old Jakub "⁠jcobbb⁠" Pietruszewski " you mean Jimi "⁠Jimpphat⁠" Salo who picked jcobbb

2025-01-16 15:37

"they should be under 20 years of age" Jeorge is 21 😬

MoDo as well (he will be 22 in june), I guess there are some exceptions

2025-01-16 15:41

Yeah, it's a guideline, not a steadfast rule. That's why I wrote "should" instead of "must." If it's in the spirit of the game, we allow it. The same goes for MoDo, for example.

2025-01-16 15:48

Appreciate your attention, thanks Mr. Lucas

2025-01-16 18:26

There is a mistake. Near the ending it says that "Also out of left field is ropz, who picked Polish 20-year-old Jakub "⁠jcobbb⁠"" but it was Jimi

2025-01-16 15:40

Well it says at the beginning of the article that the predictions should be under 20yo and not play in a top20 team before, however there are multiple people that are 20 or even 21, for example Modo, jeorge jambo and jcobbb. Not that it matters much but you know..

It would be nice if we could have an article about the bold predictions ever made and how they end up, im sure a lot of them made it to top teams but also a lot of them failed so would be interesting to see just as it says in this article about ropz predicting frozen and torszie

Was looking for the same thing did a google search and found this reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/13..

2025-01-16 15:53

s1mple kinda goated before he started blindly naming navi jr players, he only missed on woro and smooya (this one was definitely a troll)

2025-01-16 23:39

2025-01-16 15:46

Kinda weird nobody said kyousuke.

Lake has reached top 20 with m80?

2025-01-16 15:50

Bold predictions. HLTV, you need to teach these guys with pictures, dances and songs what the word "bold" means. They're picking already established players who played at the major or have been known to be future top players for years, just the most obvious vanilla picks. Or then change the name of the picks to something else like "breakout prediction", there's maybe a handful of bold picks in the list.

2025-01-16 15:52

bold means confident regards

2025-01-16 17:20

Actually, it does not mean confident, at least not exactly. That word used in such a context is a more specific version of "confident" with a nuanced distinction to it: It means being confident or having purpose in RISKY or UNCONVENTIONAL choices/situations, kind of like courageous, intrepid etc. Whereas you can be confident in surefire choices which isn't bold. Here, kyousuke is the opposite of a risky pick. Thus, there is nothing "bold" about this choice Regards

2025-01-17 15:35

you should mention that donk did 2 bold predictions, he mentioned kyousuke too, but because that is an obvious prediction, he went with less known zweih(his friend, they play faceit very often)

2025-01-16 15:54

I feel like I'm losing my mind but I swear earlier I read that kyo was picked *seven* times.

2025-01-16 15:56

#26

2025-01-16 16:17

how is saying kyouskue bold???

2025-01-16 16:00

Picking MoDo like WTF

2025-01-16 16:04

2025-01-16 16:22

ez for cemen_sukin

2025-01-16 16:24

2 players picked cheater as a bold prediction, top lul

2025-01-16 16:27

playing with wall hack can carry you to level 10 just don't tell

Imagine getting humbled by random Kosovo mix at your first LAN appearance.

2025-01-16 17:25

there's also a random swedish mix also from 1999 but you dont mention it

2025-01-16 17:31

who cheats?

2025-01-16 17:26

That balkanian bot.

2025-01-16 17:27

Would be cool to read an article about previous years bold predictions. Who has made it to top20, who is playing on tier 1 and who's nowhere to be found for years.

2025-01-16 16:37