donk: "We didn't face Vitality, and we need to beat them to become the best team in the world"

The Russian phenom is chasing his personal best five MVPs in a year after winning his fourth of 2025 in Malta.

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets is continuing his precocious crusade in the record books after winning his 10th career MVP at BLAST Bounty Season 2, equalling GeT_RiGhT as the most successful riflers of all time. He is now one of only six players to reach double-digit career MVPs, and has done so at only 18 years old.

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donk wins his 10th MVP at BLAST Bounty S2

Seven of those MVPs have come at Big Events+, and he only trails Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač among riflers in that category (the Bosnian has eight), although this year his MVPs have been mostly from non-elite events (both BLAST Bounties and PGL Astana) — in large part due to Vitality's firm grasp at the top in the first half of 2025.

This year, after having won his fourth, donk trails Mathieu "⁠ZywOo⁠" Herbaut by three, but seeing Vitality struggle at both IEM Cologne and at BLAST Bounty, donk could give the Frenchman a run for his money as he tries to beat his personal best five MVPs in a year.

Spirit, meanwhile, have laid claim to the top spot in the VRS with a 19-1 record in their last 20 matches, as well as winning back-to-back trophies at both IEM Cologne and BLAST Bounty Season 2 to make it a perfect start after the summer break.

Following Spirit's victory The MongolZ 3-0 in the BLAST Bounty Season 2 grand final, we caught up with the Russian phenom to hear about his team's run in Malta, becoming the top team in the VRS, and Ivan "⁠zweih⁠" Gogin's positive evolution so far.

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You had two good maps in the final, and one in which you were very dominant. You had a crucial triple on Nuke, the big quad-kill in Mirage. How was the series for you, not dominating throughout, but still having huge impactful moments.

I was not comfortable because the settings on my monitor weren't working for the first time, and I just tried not to get influenced by that and just played my game. The first map was kind of chill. I got a duel with the sniper like four times, and that's why the T side was kind of shaky, but on the CT side, I think I was pretty good because I knew everything they were doing. Mirage was a hard one. The T side was average, and in the CT side, I was bad, really bad, and my team just did really a lot to bring the win on this map.

You really dominated the pistol rounds and got good leads early on. Did anything special go into that, or did you just have a really good day in pistols?

We have good firepower in the pistol rounds because we got a new player who has great mechanical skills and who can go and get some entry kills. He's brave. I think, to be honest, the whole history of this Spirit roster, for two years, also with magixx, we found some problems with pistol rounds.

We were always fine on them, and in the first half of 2024, we were dominating pistol rounds. We were the best team in the world on pistol rounds, and after we lost a lot of shape, but I think that we don't have some issues on pistol rounds. We can say it's a good day for us, but I think it's an average day for us.

You won the tournament without dropping a single map. You beat good teams here, like MOUZ and The MongolZ. How do you feel about making this a clean run and not giving up a single map?

It's nice. It's amazing. It will make us much more confident than we were before. Even after Cologne, we weren't so confident about ourselves. But now it's clear to us that we can beat anyone, on probably any map, if we just play our game.

You have a 19-1 record in the last 20 games. You've won a couple of trophies, and passed Vitality on the VRS ranking as the number one team in the world. Do you feel like you're starting to become that number one team in the world?

Not really. We didn't face Vitality, and I think we need to beat them to become the best team in the world. Vitality has some issues, but they can fix them and still become the best team in the world because they have everything for it.

You speak about zweih, his bravery and good mechanics. He's had a good tournament here and is finding his place and stepping up. What words can you say about your teammate and the way he's progressing in the starting lineup?

He's great, and he's improving very fast, very quickly. He's listening and learning everything that we're telling him — what to do, how he needs to play, and everything. He's a really fast learner, and I see how quickly he adapts to the highest level of CS.

You were MVP again. It's your fourth this time; you had five last year. Are you hoping to maybe beat your personal best this year?

Yeah, why not?