HLTV Awards: Who won what, and why? Counter-Strike’s biggest 2025 success stories
The prestigious HLTV Awards have finally concluded, with Team Vitality sweeping several accolades for the 2025 season, Scream announcing his return to competitive Counter-Strike, and m0NESY walking away with a special award for “Chinese Girls Crush of the Year.”
Here’s who won what, and why, at the 2025 Counter-Strike season’s HLTV Awards.
Team Vitality’s HLTV Awards sweep: how many titles did the roster collectively gain for their remarkable 2025 season?
As expected, Team Vitality dominated the HLTV Awards for the 2025 season. With nine trophies across the year and an incredible unbeaten run at the start of the season, no other team could come close to consideration.
However, the Team Vitality roster also claimed an impressive number of individual HLTV Awards.
Of course, the most prominent of these individual achievements is Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut’s Player of the Year status. ZywOo claimed an impressive 8 MVP awards across 2025.
He also took home the award for AWPer of the Year, coming out on top of both Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov from Team Falcons and Dmitry ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov from Team Spirit.
Meanwhile, Robin ‘ropz’ Kool claimed Closer of the Year, William ‘mezii’ Merriman took home Anchor of the Year, Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire won IGL of the Year, and Rémy ‘XTQZZZ’ Quoniam claimed Coach of the Year, all for Team Vitality.
Therefore, Team Vitality won a total of seven awards for their 2025 season.
The donk vs ZywOo debate: weighing statistics against results
While ZywOo’s Player of the Year title comes as no surprise, given Team Vitality’s overall performance as a team, some question his position at number one.
Although finding far less overall success in team wins, Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets was the statistically superior individual.
Admittedly, donk excels on an individual level beyond what many would expect. He claims the top spot in ratings on the 3.0 HLTV system, CT rating, Major rating, Elite rating, Grand Final rating, and more.
He even surpasses ZywOo on his pistol round rating, despite Team Vitality’s reputation for strong eco plays.
This led some to protest the positioning of ZywOo over donk for Player of the Year, given that, as a standalone player, donk appears more skilled.
Others have pushed back against this perspective, noting that while individual skill is vital, it is rendered less valuable when not effectively utilised by the team.
Despite donk’s indisputable strength, Team Spirit won far fewer titles.
In 2025, Team Spirit claimed the prestigious IEM Cologne trophy. They also won BLAST Bounty Spring 2025, which they are set to compete in again for 2026, PGL Astana 2025, and BLAST Bounty Fall 2025.
Team Vitality, on the other hand, won IEM Katowice 2025, defeating Team Spirit in the Grand Final, ESL Pro League S21, BLAST Open Spring 2025, IEM Melbourne 2025, BLAST Rivals Spring 2025, IEM Dallas 2025, the BLAST.tv Austin Major, ESL Pro League S22, and the StarLadder Budapest Major.
Notably, this long list of trophies includes both 2025 Majors, an extraordinary achievement.
With Team Vitality evidently better leveraging their players’ individual capabilities, ZywOo was the player who ultimately emerged on top in the HLTV Awards.
Of course, donk’s skills were still recognised elsewhere, with his wins in Opener of the Year and Highlight of the Year.
Rookie of the Year draws eyes to FURIA’s drastic 2025 improvement
Perhaps one of the most unexpected stories of 2025 Counter-Strike was FURIA’s meteoric rise to the top.
In January 2026, FURIA sat at #10 on the VRS Global Standings. By May, they had dropped to #20.
However, Danil ‘molodoy’ Golubenko had joined FURIA in April and was just starting to warm up to the team.
From June to September, FURIA quietly advanced up the table, moving between #16 and #6. Then, in September, they found their formula. This was where the entire team, with explosive performances from Rookie molodoy, reached winning form.
Between September and December 2025, FURIA went on to win Fissure Playground 2, the Thunderpick World Championship, IEM Chengdu, and BLAST Rivals Fall.
Remarkably, after spending the first half of 2025 floating between #10 and #20, FURIA ended 2025 ranked #1 in the VRS Global Standings.
Unsurprisingly, his role in this drastic improvement for FURIA earned molodoy Rookie of the Year status.
HLTV’s top 20 players of 2025: the complete list
With the conclusion of the HLTV Awards, the HLTV Top 20 players of 2025 were also finally complete. As per the Player of the Year award results, ZywOo took the number one spot, followed by donk and ropz.
Following on from the top three, m0NESY and sh1ro rounded out the top five.
Other notable members of HLTV’s top 20 are Rookie of the Year molodoy in sixth place, and NiKo in 18th, marking his 9th consecutive appearance in the top 20 rankings.
All HLTV Awards winners
The full list of HLTV Awards winners is as follows:
Player of the Year: Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut
Second Place: Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets
Third Place: Robin ‘ropz’ Kool
Women’s Player of the Year: Mayline-Joy ‘ASTRA’ Champliaud
Second Place: Wiktoria ‘vicu’ Janicka
Third Place: Bruna ‘bizinha’ Marvila
Team of the Year: Team Vitality
Second Place: Team Spirit
Third Place: MOUZ
Women’s Team of the Year: BIG EQUIPA
Second Place: MIBR fe
Third Place: FURIA fe
Rookie of the Year: Danil ‘molodoy’ Golubenko
Second Place: Maxim ‘kyousuke’ Lukin
Third Place: Drin ‘makazze’ Shaqiri
Opener of the Year: Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets
Second Place: Shahar ‘flameZ’ Shushan
Third Place: Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis
Closer of the Year: Robin ‘ropz’ Kool
Second Place: Kaike ‘KSCERATO’ Cerato
Third Place: David ‘frozen’ Čerňanský
Anchor of the Year: William ‘mezii’ Merriman
Second Place: Nikita ‘HeavyGod’ Martynenko
Third Place: Valeriy ‘b1t’ Vakhovskiy
AWPer of the Year: Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut
Second Place: Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov
Third Place: Dimitry ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov
IGL of the Year: Dan ‘apEX’ Madesclaire
Second Place: Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo
Third Place: Garidmangnai ‘bLitx’ Byambasuren
Coach of the Year: Rémy ‘XTQZZZ’ Quoniam
Second Place: Erdenedalai ‘maaRaa’ Bayanbat
Third Place: Sergey ‘hally’ Shavaev
Highlight of the Year: Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets
Second Place: Russel ‘Twistzz’ Van Dulken
Third Place: Robin ‘ropz’ Kool
Talent of the Year: James ‘BanKs’ Banks
Second Place: Chat ‘SPUNJ’ Burchill
Third Place: Freya ‘Freya’ Spiers
Event of the Year: StarLadder Budapest Major
Second Place: BLAST.tv Austin Major
Third Place: IEM Cologne
Streamer of the Year: Mark ‘ohnePixel’ Zimmermann
Second Place: Erik ‘fl0m’ Flom
Third Place: Vadim ‘Evelone192’ Kozakov
Creator of the Year: dima_aimbots
Second Place: NadeKing
Third Place: Virre
Skin of the Year: JTPN – AWP Printstream
Second Place: Horameow – Glock-18 Shinobu
Third Place: dwern – M4A4 Full Throttle
Stay Updated with the Latest News
Get the most important stories delivered straight to your Google News feed — timely and reliable
From breaking news and in-depth match analysis to exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes content, we bring you the stories that shape the esports scene.
Monthly Visitors
User Satisfaction
Years experience
