donk: "Every matchup that I am facing the stavn and jabbi duo, it's always personal for me"

donk admits there is extra fuel to his fire whenever he faces Astralis' core rifle duo.

Spirit delivered on their status as favorites to claim the trophy at PGL Astana, and as always it was their superstar rifler Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets who did the bulk of the heavy lifting, claiming the eighth MVP award of his career for his efforts.

Despite an event-winning run, donk only has his eyes looking forward to BLAST.tv Austin Major. "This championship was to find some issues in our system," he told HLTV. "I think we found them, we will fix them, and we will go to the Major in better shape."

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donk clinches second MVP of 2025 in Astana

During Spirit's grand final win there were words exchanged between Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund and donk in the in-game chat, and the Russian shed some light on the situation, saying past issues between a friend of donk and the stavn and Jakob "⁠jabbi⁠" Nygaard duo were the catalyst for the anymosity.

"I just didn't understand why he is typing in chat when he is losing 0-2," donk stated. "Every matchup that I am facing Astralis, the stavn and jabbi duo, it's always personal for me because they were typing shit to my best friend."

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Spirit clinch PGL Astana trophy after 3-1 final against Astralis

In a quick interview with HLTV following Spirit's grand final triumph, donk also addressed his thoughts on the final bout with Astralis and his feelings about his and Spirit's year thus far.

Listen to the interview here.

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You won PGL Astana after quite a tough final I would say against Astralis. Did you expect it to be this tough?

I wouldn't say it was a hard one, only Train I guess. The third map, Mirage, we just got smashed, like we didn't join the server, we played really badly. That's why it was so hard.

The first two maps, Dust2 was pretty easy, and Nuke… what score did we win…. 13-10, but it was some micro decisions that we didn't play good in clutches. Yeah, I will say it was a hard one because we weren't doing some good stuff, that's why it was hard, but we were understanding all the stuff they were doing, and we felt comfortable against them on the Nuke and Dust2. Mirage, it just sucks. Train was the really tough one, and Nuke was medium I would say.

You said you knew what to expect from Astralis, but was it hard to prepare for them? I know you played against them in the group stage, but they are a very new team with a new IGL.

In the group stage yeah, it was kinda hard to prepare for them, because they had only four maps that we could watch. They are picking Inferno and we don't play Inferno, so we had I guess two Mirages, one Dust2 and one Nuke. After we beat them they played against Virtus.pro and faced NAVI and Aurora in the playoffs, so it was a lot of material, which made preparation much easier.

I saw there was some typing going on in the game, between you and stavn mostly, so does it feel even better to win after that? And how do you feel about this whole thing in general?

I don't care to be honest what he is typing, I just didn't understand why he is typing in chat when he is losing 0-2, and it's like 5-3 on the third map. Bro, you will lose anyway, so why are you typing? Every matchup that I am facing Astralis, the stavn and jabbi duo, it's always personal for me because they were typing shit to my best friend. Every match I have played against them is revenge for my friend.

The big names weren't here at this event, MOUZ, Falcons and Vitality. I guess the only goal for you was the trophy, but does this give you some confidence going into the Major?

I would say that it gives some kind of confidence, but this championship was more about preparation, some problems. This championship was to find some issues in our system, our maps, everything about it. I think we found them, we will fix them, and we will go to the Major in better shape than we were in this event and before.

For you personally, this is your second MVP and second trophy of the year, so are you happy with how this year has gone so far?

No. We are only top four. We are getting only top four, in every championship we are losing in the semi-finals, so not really I would say. We still have some months to show ourselves and we will see, but not yet.