kyousuke interview: dream move, playing with donk, and top 30 ambitions with Spirit Academy

Russia's latest wunderkind spoke to HLTV ahead of Spirit Academy's victory at BB LanDaLan.

Spirit Academy have earned their reputation as a talent factory for the top tier of professional Counter-Strike.

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets, Myroslav "⁠zont1x⁠" Plakhotia, Timur "⁠FL4MUS⁠" Marev, Kirill "⁠Magnojez⁠" Rodnov, and Robert "⁠Patsi⁠" Isyanov have all worn the dragon on their chest as youngsters and that's just to name a few.

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OverDrive interview: scouting, leaks, donk and kyousuke

The latest on the conveyor belt, Maxim "⁠kyousuke⁠" Lukin, was scouted by Aleksei "⁠OverDrive⁠" Birukov in a test during some qualifiers.

After not impressing head coach Dmitry "⁠S0tF1k⁠" Forostyanko the first time around, OverDrive requested a second trial and kyousuke made his mark. A few years later, he's the name on everyone's lips and forum posts thanks to an average 1.28 rating in the last 6 months.

Just before his LAN debut (a tournament he went on to win), he swung by HLTV's microphone to chat about his plans for the future, being open to English-speaking teams, and whether he could play in the same team as donk full-time.

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Editor's note: This interview was conducted in Russian on February 10, on before BetBoom LanDaLan began, and has been translated by HLTV staff.

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Maxim, this is your first LAN tournament, a certain step in your career. Do you feel like you have to show yourself here, or do you see it only as an opportunity to gain experience?

I think we have just come here to play. Not much of an experience, there’s no arena. Just to play.

Matches that took place here featured an audience, albeit small. There was some noise from the crowd. Do you find it any interesting or exciting?

No, no, everything is alright. Not that big of an arena to be a reason for any interest or excitement about playing on LAN.

Spirit Academy is a clear favorite at this event judging by the rankings. Do you guys feel as such?

We try to. It’s the first such event for us, where we are clear favorites.

Does it add any pressure, perhaps?

No, I think everyone is alright, everyone feels it as a regular tournament. There’s no pressure that it’s a LAN, or that we’re the favorites. All is good.

Three months ago, you guessed that by March, you would be ranked #33 in the HLTV ranking. You are #34 now, unless the ranking has updated since. What place do you think you’ll manage to get to by the end of this year?

Top 30. We’ll be top 29.

Not big of an increase. What do you think will stop your...

My bets always go for 100. I don’t bet on myself losing, I bet on a win. We will be #29, but I won’t be guessing more. Maybe it will be better.

What are Spirit Academy’s team goals for this season?

Come to a full-fledged LAN, a LAN with fans. Trying something new. Win some tournaments as well.

Don’t you think that goal is quite ambitious considering that, in order to reach a bigger LAN, you need to either make it through the qualifiers or be high enough in the VRS?

Yes, this is a big goal. But we’re playing CCTs for this, trying to win them. Now we’re in the Playoffs. Win CCT, get Valve ranking, and with Valve ranking, you get an invite to the closed qualifiers, and through them, you get to the event. Little by little.

Wanted to ask some questions about you playing, particularly. You obviously play very well, and numbers prove that. With firepower 100 on HLTV, do you have any interest in keeping track of your stats, like your rating? Or does it not really matter anymore?

Well, I try to play better, and, of course, I’m following the stats. Now I’m in a slump, but I’m trying to improve it. Without winning as a team, you won’t have good stats. We’ve played badly at CCT, so that’s it.

You said you watched donk’s demos but no one else. Can you tell me why?

I watch donk’s demos, NiKo’s, and some other teams. But I don’t watch a specific player. Like, I know how to play micro, I watch more because of macro if I watch a demo. But there are POVs that can be used to watch for micro. Overall, I watch many players, even from FACEIT, if the POVs are on YouTube.

If we talk about your future, how do you see it in the ideal scenario from the current moment? In what time frame would you want to reach tier one?

We’ll see. I think by the end of the year. Maybe next year.

How do you decide if you are ready to play on a higher level? Do you rely more on your feeling or on the opinion of the coach and the management?

I look at how I play over time. I just ask Dima (S0tF1k) what my form is or if I’m ready. What tier I’m playing at, more or less. I ask about this.

Do you have any impatience to jump into...

No, no, no such thing. I received offers, and everything is alright.

So you yourself weren’t eager to accept them?

[nods affirmatively]

Do you personally consider your promotion into the main team likely in a year’s time? Or do you not count on this considering how the team’s results look now?

It will depend on how I play, how the team plays. It all depends on that.

But from the standpoint of what scenario you consider most likely?

I don’t consider any scenarios.

Do you prefer not to think about it?

Yes.

If you receive an invite to the main roster of Spirit, will you be adjusting to a different role, presuming that donk will remain donk?

Depends on roles. It all depends. I can play different roles, not just the ones I play now. But it depends on what roles.

What roles could you take?

Second supporter. Like... so-called second carry.

If you could get on any team besides Spirit, like if we imagine that you could choose any team in the world and replace any player, whose spot would you find most interesting?

I would want to play with NAVI, try to work with B1ad3. Dima praises him. Got to check on their structure from within.

Speaking of donk, again, his signature map is Dust 2. Recently, he had a crazy rating of 1.75 in three months on this map specifically. What map do you feel most confident on?

I think I felt more confident on Vertigo than on all other maps. But it was removed, so now I think it’s Nuke.

What do you think about Train?

An okay impression. It’s a hard map to learn in terms of micro, specifically. It’s going tough, but we’re trying our best.

Speaking of making it to tier one, do you think you are ready to play for an English-speaking team?

I think, in terms of CS specifically, it’s good, and I can talk about basic life things, speaking to someone, having a dialogue. We’ll see about more. But I know the basic things easily.

Would you prefer to play in a Russian-speaking roster?

No.

It doesn’t matter at all?

No, it doesn’t.

What does matter then? What would you want?

Good players, a good coach.