donk: "I like the way I'm playing this year, and I feel like I'm getting better as a player"

Spirit are set to face NAVI at the MEO Arena in the BLAST Open Lisbon quarter-finals.

Spirit showed mostly good form at the BLAST Open Lisbon group stage, with their only loss at the hands of MOUZ and victories over FaZe and Virtus.pro.

The team's North star, Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets, shined at the BLAST Studios in Copenhagen, averaging a 1.45 rating in Spirit's nine maps, including the four they played in the lower bracket.

The Russian phenom took some time during the media day before the tournament resumes at the MEO Arena in Lisbon, where Spirit are slated to take on Natus Vincere on Friday in the four-team quarter-finals.

Date	Matches
BLAST Open Lisbon 2025
28/03/2025	Spirit 20:30 Natus Vincere	Match

You can read the interview, in which donk touches on topics ranging from Spirit's recent shape to his personal growth as a player, below or listen to it on our Spotify playlist, where other interviews from what has already transpired at BLAST Open Lisbon have also been uploaded.

If you can't see the embed above, you can listen to the audio recording of this interview on Spotify.

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donk, I wanted to start off by asking about the two losses against MOUZ. Both games were very close, but it still came as a surprise to many that you would lose to a team that just changed an IGL, so is still trying to adapt to a new leader. Were you surprised by how those games turned out?

Not really surprised, MOUZ is still a good team. They changed their IGL, but they still have their coach, sycrone, who is good at counter-stratting and making strats, countering you. They control the tempo of the game and all things about it.

The first loss we were affected by the fact that two of our players were sick and we couldn't practice three days right before the playoffs because we qualified 3-0 in the group stage and we were in good shape and we felt like we're good right now, but after our players got sick we couldn't practice and our shape got worse and worse. It was the main reason, I guess, that we lost.

Here, in Copenhagen, at BLAST Open, it was more about our communication wasn't at a good level, a decent level, and we just managed to make some silly mistakes and we have to fix them and we'll just be better.

There's this interesting stat that I came across. In 2025, you took on average 3.5 utility damage per round in matches against teams other than MOUZ. This number goes up to 7.5 when you're facing MOUZ. On Ancient there were several rounds where you were taking a lot of utility damage.

I died four times...

Do you think that they are really prepared to counter you, that they come up with a lot of counter-strats for you, specifically? This is one of the reasons why they seem to be very successful against your team.

No, it's just unlucky. I don't think so. It's only one map and one best-of-three or two, but if you take 2024, it wasn't a problem, so it was just an unlucky match. Ancient is a utility map, and it can happen sometimes.

You're going up against NAVI now in the quarter-finals. You've faced them three times this year, and you won two of those matches. They don't seem to be in a very good moment right now, they seem to be going through some struggles. What are your expectations?

We beat them every time this year, no?

What are your expectations for this match, now?

The same as previous times. They're a good team, maybe in the group stage they feel like they're not in good shape, but they're still a good team...

You lost to them in Katowice, at the group stage.

Ah yeah, the group stage, okay. It doesn't matter. So they can still do damage, and you can't underrate them. You still have to focus on yourself and them, as well, because they're a good team and they can anti-strat you. They can do something unexpected to you because they have B1ad3, and he's smart. We'll play as always against them, with our default mindset.

If you manage to beat NAVI, you'll go up against Vitality. You haven't faced them since the Katowice final. What lessons did you learn from that match, and do you think that if you face them, you'll be better prepared this time?

It's hard for me to say something about some lessons because it's like the casual stories after you get destroyed, you always have the same lessons. I don't think I have to say it, I feel more confident to play against them this time if we pass NAVI, but we'll see what will happen in the game against them because they're the best team in the world right now, for sure, and it's always interesting to play the best team in the world. So yeah, it'll be an interesting match-up, but first, we have to pass NAVI.

You're very self-critical, especially in losses, and we could see in the match you played against MOUZ in EPL that there was a lot of frustration in you at times during that series and after the game. The other players on the team came to you and were trying to offer you some support, and back at BLAST Bounty, you said that you were really frustrated when you were playing badly because that way, other players had to do more than they should. What can you say about the pressure that you put on yourself to perform and to try to be the front figure for the team at all times?

I don't feel pressure. I'm not putting pressure on myself. I just want to perform the best I can, and I want to play really good CS. I want to advance my skills, and I think that the only way not to stop advancing your skills is to be critical. My mind always says that I can do better, and I don't want to play badly. That's it. I want to play the perfect way, I don't want to be average or bad.

I was listening to a podcast the other day with kennyS and he said that this mentality that you have, where you have to perform at all times, might hurt your development in the future. That's what he said. Because if you look at everything through the lens of "OK, I need to get 30 kills per map or my team is going to lose," that might hurt your development because there are rounds that even though you might get two or three kills, the decision you made might not have been the right one, but you just got the right timing or the opponents did something wrong and there may be some rounds where you cannot get a kill but that was still the right move. So, I wanted to ask you: How do you look at this situation and his opinion that, if you think all of the times that you have to carry the team in every round, in every game, that it could hurt your development?

I don't know, to be honest. I understand his opinion, I had something like this earlier, back in the days, but not right now because first, my own goal is to win a match, not to get 30 kills or something like this, but I understand that if I get 30 kills, I will win. So, I just want to win every duel that I have, and even if I don't get a kill or damage to the enemies, if I still make a good move and we win the round, I'm proud of myself, I would say.

I don't think that I have this mentality, this kind of mentality, right now, because I can give impact in a different way, like communication, not only kills, and my goal in the match is to take space on T side or protect some space or make opponents taking positions hard, and that's it. I don't focus on kills. I don't care about kills. I won't be frustrated if I win the match, and I have like 5-30 each game.

You said at BLAST Bounty that winning the Player of the Year award has motivated you to work even harder. How do you look at the way you've been playing this year?

I can say it's okay for me, it's fine. I like the way I'm playing this year, and I feel like I'm getting better as a player. It makes me feel amazing because I can see that I'm becoming better and better, and yeah, I can still be more consistent, but I think it's fine.

I fucked up only the Katowice final and that's it, I guess. Maybe in the EPL quarter-finals, against Eternal Fire, but in general, I can say that I performed good, but I can still be better.