magixx and zont1x return to Team Spirit CS2 roster as chopper and zweih benched

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

Last Updated: 18/12/2025

Team Spirit have announced major changes to their Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) roster following their StarLadder Budapest Major disappointment.

The Russian organisation were eliminated by Team Vitality in the StarLadder semi-finals, leaving star player Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets visibly frustrated.

After a performance review, Team Spirit have decided to bench Leonid ‘chopper⁠’ Vishnyakov and Ivan ‘zweih⁠’ Gogin.

And they will be replaced by the returning Boris ‘magixx⁠’ Vorobiev and Myroslav ‘zont1x⁠’ Plakhotia, who were both previously benched.

Back in September, zont1x was moved to Team Spirit’s bench due to personal reasons.

In his place, Team Spirit signed Andrey ‘tN1R’ Tatarinovich from HEROIC who will also remain in the starting line-up.

Now, zont1x is returning to his original role with Spirit claiming he has had “good rest, sorted out his personal problems and is eager to get back into action.”

Meanwhile, back in July, magixx was benched by Spirit and replaced by zweih.

magixx was removed from the active roster after six-years with Spirit and replaced by the 17-year-old.

While zweih has now been benched himself, it is actually captain chopper who magixx is replacing.

magixx is taking over as Spirit’s in-game leader (IGL) despite not previously playing in that role.

However, this is the move Spirit believes will lead them forward, with the organisation’s statement reading:

“We fully trust Boris [magixx] and hope he adapts to his new responsibilities swiftly. The refreshed roster will gather to prepare for the upcoming season very soon.”

Team Spirit were riding high earlier in the year, winning both BLAST Bounty 2025 and IEM Cologne.

However, the organisation had disappointing performances in the second-half of the CS2 season and is now looking to change their fortunes in 2026.

Spirit head coach hally explains CS2 roster changes

Following the announcement of the roster changes, Team Spirit CS2 head coach Sergey ‘hally⁠’ Shavaev explained the org’s reasoning.

The lengthy statement recapped the organisation’s year and explained their long-term planning:

“The first half of 2025 proved rough for us. We failed to win any prestige tournaments and accumulated significant losing streaks against Vitality and MOUZ, our direct competitors for trophies.

“By May, it became clear that several players had to deal with certain psychological problems and physical health issues, which further worsened the overall situation.”

Coach hally claims that the need for roster changes became evident but ideal replacements weren’t available, so they signed two prospects.

In doing so, he explains Spirit hoped this approach would let them rest pros and judge the prospects’ potential, to piece together the ideal roster by the end of the year.

hally then went on to express that benching zweih wasn’t easy:

“It’s important to point out that replacing zweih proved a very difficult decision for us.

“We truly consider him a very talented player and a great teammate. If only it was possible to field more than five players, we’d be happy to keep working with him.

“However, it is pretty obvious that zweih naturally gravitates towards slightly different roles, not the ones we need of him at the moment. Besides, he still needs to mature and become a more complete player to compete at the elite level.

“I sincerely wish him the best career ever.”

Jack Stewart, Senior Editor

In my seven years of esports writing, I've introduced esports coverage to newspapers, interviewed some of the biggest names in the industry, and driven viewers mad with the puns in my YouTube scripts. I'm most proud of the latter.

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