Who is leading the race for the HLTV Awards?

12-7-2025 20:23

With less than six months left in 2025, the leading candidates for the HLTV Awards are beginning to take shape.

As the end of the player break rapidly approaches, HLTV took the time to assess and share which players are currently leading the pack for the HLTV Awards, including the leading names for 2025's Player of the Year, alongside a slew of other announcements and teasers.

HLTV Awards offseason check-in: Frontrunners, announcer, HoF map to be revealed

Prior to digging into the HLTV Awards frontrunners, the first award announcer for this year's iteration of the event was revealed to be Belgian star rifler Adil "⁠ScreaM⁠" Benrlitom.

Additionally, viewers also got a first glimpse of the HLTV Hall of Fame map, which will allow fans to visit the iconic players' tailored exhibits in virtual form.

Later into the stream, Milan "⁠Striker⁠" Švejda, Zvonimir "⁠Professeur⁠" Burazin, Freya "⁠Freya⁠" Spiers, and Conner "⁠Scrawny⁠" Girvan began discussing the leading candidates for the various categories for this year's HLTV Awards.

While many of the categories currently feature the winners from last year, such as Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets as a contender for Opener and Player of the Year, Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov for AWPer of the year, and Valeriy "⁠b1t⁠" Vakhovskiy as Anchor of the Year, some categories so far lack last year's winner among the frontrunners.

Aside from Rookie of the Year, which necessarily features a whole new batch of players, Andrey "⁠B1ad3⁠" Gorodenskiy is so far outside the top five for the honor of Coach of the Year, while Justinas "⁠jL⁠" Lekavicius is not among the leaders for the Closer of the Year category.

Organized alphabetically, the leading candidates for each category are:

Opener of the Year:

Closer of the Year:

Anchor of the Year:

AWPer of the Year:

Coach of the Year:

IGL of the Year:

Rookie of the Year:

Player of the Year:

Team of the Year:

2025-07-12 20:24

16 replies

VITALITY IS GOAT, So: If we are OBJECTIVE, all those Awards should go to Vitality players and Team Vitality, because they have best player in each role AND Current Team Vitality is GOAT of all CS, they having Era during when skill level never been this high and their bo3/bo5 streak even beat NiP and Astralis records already I doubt there will be anybody who would disagree with arguments

2025-07-12 22:53

15 replies

you can argue that Mongolz coach could be the best considering his team background against Remy who already has best players and organization staff on his side. Donk is more consistent than Flamez.

2025-07-13 02:47

4 replies

What background have anything to do in this case? He got bad background, while Vitality coach got great, not mention he have been 100x more successful coach, look which team is having Era in CS right now: Yep, Vitality

2025-07-14 01:00

3 replies

I think RT2K is saying MaaRaa built Mongolz from the ground up, while XTQZZZ got ZywOo, FlameZ and ropz so his job is much easier (IMO mezii and apEX are great too, but building any team with woo and ropz is going to be a lot easier)

2025-07-14 02:57

2 replies

You seriously think coaches build teams? Owners hear top players, in begin coach may have some say if its totally new team from scrach, but very soon after that its players show and they decide with who they want play or not want By your logic we should give coach award only to those who have bad players to choose instead of best(s) team(s) and the actual best coach (XTQZZZ). XTQZZZ told others about ropz and recommended that team (players) take him to make them perfect team, and look what happened to Vitality after it after players heard his recommendation to take ropz to team? They win everything, break NiP and Astralis bo3/bo5 records, have Era, become GOAT... XTQZZZ deserve it way more, more than any other coach in years (probably more than any coach ever)

2025-07-14 04:07

1 reply

Idk why you're writing multiple paragraphs I was just tryna clear up what looked like a miscommunication

2025-07-14 14:08

ropz should be anchor of the year

2025-07-13 03:31

opener of the year is donk and not flamez idc how good of a year ur having its donk lol id even argue that donk will be the player of the year above zywoo because donk is just individually better than zywoo and thats a fact u cant deny, every pther category yeah vitality player should win it

2025-07-13 09:11

His baiting…

2025-07-13 09:42

Sorry, but donk disappeared in to many important matches this year and as the best player, you should also inspire your Team to a better game. Zywoo did all of this,donk not enough. If thats no arguement, then all the MVP Titles should be.

2025-07-13 10:21

With full repsect to donk but if you look at his top 20 and top 10 raiting he has much worse than his all raiting so that mean that he farm raiting on lower team Zywoo top 10 raiting 1,38; top 20 raiting 1,38 Donk top 10 raiting 1,36; top 20 raiting 1,40 Donk has much more regress compare to zywoo who is more consistant Ofc that may be because donk has much worse team but in spirit thay play for donk if you know what i mean. Drop ak (or deagle in eco) every round but in vitality they don't do that so many times as spirit

2025-07-13 15:47

flamez is smarter opener and ZywOo is way better than donk, ZywOo alone carried Vitality to win all events in row and having Era and made Vitality GOAT team donk well.. like everyone been telling you, is just stats farming against low tier teams, he don't have skill/power to carry his team to Era and constatant tournament wins like ZywOo

2025-07-13 18:12

idk, but i Guess dosen't have a Rookie in the Vitality Team 😅 xD

2025-07-13 14:32

cope harder, no team will ever be as dominant as astralis was (THE BEST OF ALL F-ING TIME) when vitality win 4 majors in a row then we can talk.... and we all see how easy it is to drop out of the major with just a tiny mistake, not to mention playing it 4 majors with no mistakes to win them we have also seen how vitality crumble when zywo isnt playing good... IT didnt happen in astralis era, it was a team effort, if someone isnt playing good the other teammates would step up AND im not even a fan of astralis... I hated them

2025-07-14 15:30

Astralis cannot be "the best of all... time", since they played low skill era, thats like comparing 1925 football to this 2025 day level top football. Back then good teamplay was enough, nowadays skills matter most and astralis players who still play lack that skill, that why they aren't top1 anymore, haven't been for long time. And Vitality is already proven to be more stable and better than Astralis ever was, every tournament count and Vitality tournament win rate is 100% and so is their bo3 and bo5 win rates, they even broke NiP record, not mentioning astralis who don't come even close to Vitality dominating now during high skill era, when Vitality's having Era (True GOAT) Some statistics that you can see things objectively: img-cdn.hltv.org/gallerypicture/Dti3KGgs..

2025-07-14 17:09

Vitality objectively just had the most dominant season in modern CS history...

2025-07-14 21:24

zont1x robbed

ZYWOO 5th MONESY 2nd @NER0cs WTF XD

2025-07-12 20:28

12 replies

Because zywoo's name starts with Z bozo. It's ordered by first letter of the players name

2025-07-12 20:29

188

zywoo fans arent very smart, theyre not ranked like that, right now, its random

2025-07-12 20:31

5 replies

It's not even random, it's alphabetical by nickname.

2025-07-12 20:38

Uh oh looks like monesy fans aren't very smart either

2025-07-12 21:24

nah its just elextures dw

2025-07-12 21:42

didnt even think about that xd makes sense lol

2025-07-12 23:29

rent free

This is so fucking funny

it's not in order I think

2025-07-12 21:17

"Organized alphabetically" dude

cant be serious name flair flag

2025-07-12 22:27

are we serious rn

2025-07-13 00:06

dont be stupid, not that i know you can help it.

2025-07-12 20:33

nah not at all tbh

2025-07-12 22:26

expected

bump sry Still think it could be cool if the nominees up get something, doesnt have to be on the main trophy tab (the one with the scroll bar) but maybe just under the awards tab a silver version of the award would be cool. Just call it "Rookie of the year Nomination" or something, its not like it really matters but personally I just think it would be cool to keep track of, otherwise its just gonna be forgotten that this guy was actually a super good entry this year, he only lost to donk, yknow? hltv pls mens

2025-07-12 21:15

ICY xDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

donk ropz mezii ZywOo ⁠XTQZZZ⁠ apEX tN1R ZywOo Vitality

17 replies

true +1

2025-07-12 20:52

2025-07-12 21:23

mezii and XTQZZ don't deserve to win these awards, why don't you put flamez over donk to make shit bigger.

2025-07-12 21:30

yes mezii does, idk about xtqz cuz I dont really know what he brings to the team and yes flamez deserves opener over donk, while the latter trades his teammates, the former clears the way for his team

2025-07-12 21:44

Mezii definitely deserves it, though I’m not a big fan. He’s a bit overrated ,people say he’s a support, but he gets best T-side roles and rotates on Inferno. That said, he’s phenomenal at anchoring on CT, easily his best trait.

2025-07-12 22:19

Correct list, but personally I would choose sycrone. I think his impact as a coach is more than XTQZZZ's

2025-07-12 22:28

Maybe but for coach this award goes to one who won the most especially with major and well 7 big tournaments with major included won in a row.

2025-07-13 00:28

then it’s a useless award, not in any way different from team of the year

2025-07-13 19:11

Nom there is something in this, well we can't do anything with that, but there is a problem with this award cause if you not choose winner by the most won tournaments then what should determinate winner, if they make another way they must evaluate coach work inside an org or his timeouts but we know that they cannot public this.

2025-07-13 21:05

They literally made the point that none of us know what each coach does in the background. We can only go off of results, in which XTQZZZ is leading by far.

2025-07-14 21:25

a hell ofa lot can still change tho

I would replace ⁠XTQZZZ⁠ and apEX with bLitz and maaRaa

2025-07-13 00:10

Really? you wouldn't place the IGL with 7 trophies won and a 1.30 rating performance in a major final ? In his stead you would place an IGL with 0 trophies won this year, in a team known for their crazy individualities over a strong teamplay ? That makes sense.

2025-07-13 17:06

yes, vitality aren’t winning trophies because their startbook is miles ahead of all the competition, they win because of the combination of players complementing each other perfectly, alongside with having some of the best players in their positions in ropz and zywoo (based off of this year could even argue for flamez and mezii). now i don’t mean that apex is not a great igl, his calling and capabilities do certainly have some role in vitalities successes however on the other hand, given what blitz has been able to achieve with mongolz and that he was able to lead this team of “playoff chokers” into the first major final for any team from asia ever, as well as playoff finishes in nearly every other t1 event this year, i think its a pretty solid argument for him

2025-07-13 19:23

Many superstacked rosters have failed in the past, i cannot agree that apEX isn't a great part of that. I would also invite you to check on YT the dozens of videos detailing Vitality's strats and playbook. You'll see that it is really deep, unpredictable, though to counter etc. That would be for the tactical aspect. You might aswell want to add that apEX is a gigachad, one of the greatest leader of men the scene has, only in competition with karrigan on this level. The way he absorbed all the crowd's pressure in Austin to transform it into fuel is pure genius. The way he talked to FlameZ after a terrible start on mirage against NaVi ignited something in his player to make him do like 4 double kills in the next 4 rounds. Mongolz perfomance is notable, a great asset for them moving forward with such young roster, but lets face the fact they had a lucky run, facing a stand-in FaZe and pain to reach finals. Would they have beaten Vitality, MOUZ, Spirit or even NaVi in quarters had they faced them ? history tells us its unlikely.

2025-07-14 10:10

Good list, xtqzzz imo is a fraud, so sycrone would be coty for me or even maaraa And for Rookie you could argue Molodoy cause he shown higher peaks then t1nr already, that i wont mind tho but xtqzzz noooooo

2025-07-13 08:44

the only one i kinda disagree is xqtzzz, i'd personally put maaraaa but both options are great imo

2025-07-13 14:26

Where is top 2 anchor zont1x?

2025-07-12 20:26

b0t aka 0.99 ct side against top10 is there tho

ICY not even rookie

it’s at t1, which he practically is. outside of the major what t1 event did he play with amkal? regardless idk why tf he’s on here, he’s been unremarkable at best

Vitality and donk that’s all

and ropz and zywoo...

who are in vitality yes

2025-07-12 20:40

i maybe just missunderstood his comment? i thought that his point was that only those 2 categories are kinda locked for now

2025-07-12 20:41

yeah its fine

2025-07-12 20:42

icy wtf hahah

2025-07-12 20:27

0.99 rating goat

2025-07-12 22:24

niko not even honorable mention in POTY #savem0nesy

So zywoo is 5th? Unlucky for him yet again.

despite donk, vitality will dominate the other categories

some easy, some debatable... opener donk ez (remember, its not pure entry but opener) closer ropz ez anchor probably mezii awper zywoo ez coach...i mean what do we know? nothing...so i will go with voldemort bcs of achievments coach apex...same as above rookie too soon player zywoo ez team vitality ez and having zonic in coach of the year debate is pure cope from hltv...sorry but thats just absolutely ridiculous

2025-07-12 20:35

7 replies

Tn1r best rookie so far has a insanely high ceiling and barely any lows

not saying you are wrong, its just too soon...matys will be in g2, pr is still there and obviously kyousuke debut is there:D thats why i thnk its too soon to judge

I agree, zonic is there because falcons played some finals, but the major fiasco should put him in fifth position

2025-07-12 21:25

voldemort? professor x u mean surely

2025-07-12 22:29

rookie i would say jottaaa but im biased so idk

2025-07-12 22:42

apex kinda ez too since we see what strat they use more or less and sometimes we hear comms too. the strat from vita are just that good rn and apex is a big part of it. if you also add he is a fragging igl it just becomes better over his competition

2025-07-12 23:44

I think main problem with COTY is that it's basically TOTY award. I think Ash/maaRaa/Fabre should be in the running for that award.

2025-07-13 04:50

there's no way falcons gets team of the year, even doing a 1 to 1 of vitality's last season they would still be 2nd

z0nic hahahaha no fkn way

2025-07-12 20:34

ropz could very well be #3 this year. Ever so slightly less stats than two awp abusers, vastly more accolades. IMO he's #3 rn.

when cs2 came out: awpers are done mid 2025: awp abusers are still a thing bcs of zywoo lmao

2025-07-12 20:36

10 replies

Awping amplifies your rating that's the entirety of the takeaway you need to know. Best regards.

2025-07-12 20:37

9 replies

cry me a river, thas all you need to know. best regards

2025-07-12 20:39

8 replies

actual rampant ??? moment

dude your name and all comments about magisk are rampant...deal with reality and everything gonna be ok

2025-07-12 20:44

6 replies

@MedsProvider Please help.

2025-07-12 20:45

noone can help you....

2025-07-12 20:46

I have 58851 reason why you should probably go outside at this point. It's getting kind of sad ngl.

2025-07-12 20:47

oooh so nice from you that you care about me...but guess what? idgaf so maybe go and try to care about someone you know irl(hard task to do i know)

2025-07-12 20:49

Unc badge but still posting ragebaits 🥀🥀🥀🥀💔💔💔

2025-07-12 20:51

Truly. Blud needs divine intervention.

2025-07-13 10:45

Until Nero works for HLTV it isn't gonna happen, unfortunately.

2025-07-12 22:39

frozen 🙏🙏🙏

Im more glad to see PR is multiple categories

2025-07-13 08:23

true, im afraid he isnt going to win anything tho

2025-07-13 13:13

well, it all depends on the next 5 or so months...I believe he can win at least one if he gets some good tournament runs

2025-07-14 02:26

Where is r1nkle? Have more thropies that m0nesy

2025-07-12 20:48

Delusional turks under the Twitter post saying xantares best opener xddd bro isn't even fifth

2025-07-12 20:50

who invited brollan and ICY

brollan is doing better than siuhy was and karrigan said he would be next goat igl so idk seems fair to me also PR with no major attendance also kinda very questionable

2025-07-12 22:30

Opener of the Year: donk Closer of the Year: ROPZ Anchor of the Year: MEZII AWPer of the Year: zywoo Coach of the Year: ⁠XTQZZZ⁠ IGL of the Year: ⁠apEX⁠ Rookie of the Year: ⁠tN1R⁠ Player of the Year: ⁠ZywOo⁠ Team of the Year: Vitality

2025-07-12 20:57

Opener: donk Closer: ropz Anchor: mezii AWPer: ZywOo Coach: XTQZZZ IGL: apEX Rookie: kyousuke Player of the Year: ZywOo Team of the Year: Vitality

2025-07-12 20:59

how can u have kyousuke as the rookie of the year??? he hasnt even played tier 1 yet xdd

2025-07-13 00:45

cuz the strongest candidate besides him is tn1r, who has not been around enough at the higher scene yet. saying kyousuke will get the title is not insane at all, remember malbs made it to top20 only by playing half of the year

2025-07-13 00:55

Sadge to not see papa blade even in top 5 coaches of the year

2025-07-12 21:16

When your team with that good of a ceiling is forced on the outskirts of top 10 for over 6 months, it's gotta be your fault to some degree.

2025-07-12 21:22

i'd argue their ceiling in current tier 1 is just under the top 4 vita, spirit, mouz and falcons. maybe a bit over spirit but now they changed the team (and navi too)

2025-07-12 23:46

mezii should be considered for player of the year.

2025-07-12 21:45

Coach of the Year: Denmark Danny "⁠zonic⁠" Sørensen. "Im thinking"

zywoo best middle round and closer in the world since years and not in that category? frozen wicadia tesses... wtf

2025-07-12 22:45

Team of the Year: Falcons NER0 just logout from your alt acc.

2025-07-12 22:46

PR? where is REZ he has been much better this year

2025-07-12 23:53

Team and Player of the year are already set in stone. Vitality and Zywoo have done something that no other team or player can match in the rest of the year. it's already over. why pretend like there are candidates?

2025-07-12 23:58

rookie of the year icy who has already played in 3 majors….

1. Why is PR a candidate for anchor? Surely there are other anchors that were better than him so far this year like yuurih? Or would yuurih be considered a closer, and can't be in 2 categories? Or maybe PR just has better metrics in the specific categories that they look for "anchor" and is technically better at anchoring metrics? 2. ICY is a rookie????? Why? He played on C9 half of last year, and amkal made some t1.5 runs with him too. Then why isn't heavygod a rookie? Very awkward cutoff it seems. 3. Basically no mater what happens, besides a complete collapse, bLitz and maaRaa should win their respective categories. Gone should be the days of wins alone deciding coach and igl of the year. bLitz is a star on his team while calling at an extremely high level, and maaRaa built this team from the ground up over the past 4+ years, slowly putting the pieces together and turning nobody Mongolians into major runner-ups and a consistent top 5 team. I hope they don't get robbed

2025-07-13 00:04

I personally don't want every award just to be who was the TOTY. Like xtqzzz winning Coty to me makes no sense.

2025-07-13 05:02

Vitality will sweep this, unless they crash and burn at some epic propotions for the last part of the year.

2025-07-13 00:21

Me :)

2025-07-13 03:57

POTY top 5 : donk, zywoo, s1mple, mayonesy, flamez TOTY top 5 : vita, mouz, faze, spirit, failclowns

2025-07-13 04:00

Opener: donk Closer: ropz Anchor: mezii TOTY: Vitality POTY: Zywoo AWPer: Zywoo Coach: XQTZZZ IGL: apEX Rookie: tn1r/molodoy

2025-07-13 07:18

Kyousuke could dominate zywoo

2025-07-13 09:24

Zonic in the run for coach of their year? His probably still thinking… no1 fraud of the year maybe. Or no1 cheat meal of the century

2025-07-13 09:45

ZOnic wasn’t even that fat 10 years ago when he was still playing. He must be injecting liquid fat or drinking olive oil to maintain the bulk his on

2025-07-13 09:46

Donk Ropz Mezii Zywoo Maaraa Apex Icy/tnir Zywoo/donk Vitality

2025-07-13 11:08

dunno what’s the point of this, obviously vita and zywoo have already won it. it’s unprecedented for all the t1 events to have been won by 1 team since late Jan, and all the MVPs to have been scooped up by 1 person. it’s not unthinkable that zywoo will have more MVPs than everyone else combined by end of the year, even counting Mickey Mouse events like Astana. As for opener it will go to donk, every other role will be filled by vita players. oh but we can have ‘flick aimer of the year: m0nesy’

2025-07-13 12:45

even though i would rly enjoy to see falcons bomb out every event for the rest of the season, probably if they do well ROTY will go to kyousuke

2025-07-13 19:06

Blabla......Self-hype.... Blablabla....more self-hype..... Blablabla That's HLTV awards in a nutshell. Totally irrelevant without it's self generated hype.

2025-07-14 04:24