Vitality’s time at the top of Counter-Strike is already under threat as Spirit tallied up their second event win in a row, and fourth event victory of the year at BLAST Bounty Season 2. The victory brings yet another MVP award to Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets, who broke the MVP record for a rifler at only the age of 18.
Team Spirit dispatched The MongolZ 3-0 in the Grand Final of BLAST Bounty 2025 Season 2, giving them their second consecutive tournament victory following their IEM Cologne win. Two close maps in Nuke and Mirage gave way to an Ancient in which donk dismantled The MongolZ’s defences, leading to a 13-5 victory and Spirit lifting the trophy.
The victory for Spirit came despite the expected removal of Myroslav ‘zont1x’ Plakhotia, who is reportedly set to be replaced by Andrey ‘tN1R’ Tatarinovich as Spirit attempts to yet again bolster donk’s supporting cast following the signing of Ivan ‘zweih’ Gogin in July.
As Spirit step up their challenge, and with Vitality falling flat at their second event in a row, is Vitality’s much-hailed ‘era’ already under threat?
Is Vitality’s era under threat?
Spirit’s second consecutive victory coincides with two semi-final defeats for esports betting sites favourites, Vitality, by Mouz and The MongolZ, respectively, who Vitality simply tormented in the first half of the year. Both rosters were playing elite-level Counter-Strike last season, but could not match Vitality’s era-defining standard.
Vitality’s superb floor was rarely challenged last year. The roster’s immense individual talent was complemented by what seemed like flawless teamwork. When Vitality were pushed, it always seemed they had that extra gear to push on to, as well as the internal resolve and cohesiveness to take it one round at a time, and remain focused.
They began to build that Astralis-like aura, where it seemed no deficit was too big to overcome; in fact, it wasn’t so much that any comeback was possible but that it was fully expected.
The epitome of feeling came at IEM Melbourne as Vitality fought back from 12-6 on Nuke against Falcons on Map 5 to take it to overtime, surviving another map and a championship point there to come out on top 22-20 and lift the trophy as well as the ESL Grand Slam.
That invincible aura is certainly gone after their defeats. They look vulnerable; they look like five humans rather than Counter-Strike machines. However, the sheer dominance of their era and the depth of the roster, which features stars in every role, point to the idea that this may only be a blip as they come to terms with being the most scrutinised roster in Counter-Strike, with every team analysing their era to catch up to their level.
As for the rising tide of Spirit, there’s no reason to panic. Vitality have not lost to Spirit since the BLAST World Finals in October 2024, most notably defeating Spirit 3-0 in the IEM Katowice 2025 Grand Final. But Spirit are ramping up their challenge, improving the framework around their generational rifling talent to compete with Vitality’s depth.
If Vitality do not return to their January-June form, their era may be under threat of being a FaZe or Na’Vi-like era, which is characterised by dominating a season or year rather than a generation of Counter-Strike.
For Vitality, they will only care about returning to winning form, as IGL Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire chases his purported goal of 10 trophies in 2025. The French IGL blamed himself following their elimination at the hands of The MongolZ, pointing to his aim and his calling, but Vitality’s machine is not functioning at its brutal and suffocating peak, and that comes down to more than its IGL.
donk stakes his claim as the GOAT rifler at 18 years old
The tournament victory coincides with donk’s 10th HLTV MVP award, breaking his tie with Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač and making donk the joint most individually decorated rifler of all time on HLTV alongside Christopher ‘GeT_RiGhT’ Alesund.
With donk’s awards coming at stacked events, and in a more professionalised era, many have claimed this marks donk’s beginning as the greatest rifler of all time.
GeT_RiGhT and NiKo’s 10 and 9 MVP awards were reflective of their ability to transcend the general impact of a rifler. The majority of CSGO MVP awards were dominated by AWPers who would traditionally get the best stats and the most resources dedicated to them.
Now, in CS2, we are seeing more of a mix of roles getting the award. Justinas ‘jL’ Lekavičius, Mihai ‘iM’ Ivan, and Valerii ‘b1t’ Vakhovskyi were the MVP recipients of NaVi’s 2024 victories, with Robin ‘ropz’ Kool and NiKo amongst other riflers to win the award during the CS2 era.
Despite the relative balance between the weapons, donk is a huge outlier in how consistently he can be the top-rated player of an event as a rifler, appearing as the top-rated individual at events like BLAST Rivals 2025, ESL Pro League Season 21, and BLAST Open Lisbon where Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut took home the awards as Vitality made deeper runs and ultimately won the tournaments.
Like GeT_RiGhT and NiKo, there is no doubt that donk is a transcendent talent, redefining what is possible with the relatively lower investment of a rifle. The Russian has set an unmatched standard in terms of entry and opening impact, consistently giving his team advantages and space, but it goes further even than that.
The Russian is setting standards that transcend the game itself, like Oleksandr ‘s1mple’ Kostyliev and ZywOo before him, he is putting up numbers that were previously seen once in a blue moon on a consistent basis, once again breaking the 1.5 rating boundary at BLAST Bounty Finals, recording a 1.53 rating at the LAN event and 1.39 for the whole tournament.
Yet, despite CS2’s newfound emphasis on entry riflers, ZywOo has still dominated the MVP awards won during the Vitality era, securing 7 this year alone. ZywOo holds the overall record, with 27 MVP awards since his 2019 Tier-1 debut year, where he won 5.
donk may already be the greatest rifler of all time, but in his rivalry with ZywOo, he will at least have some competition that he will not surpass before his 19th birthday.
Darragh Harbinson is an esports writer specialising in Counter-Strike. He has written for Esports News UK, Esports Insider, UKCSGO, Dexerto, and Rush B Media.
