Danil “donk” Kryshkovets is undoubtedly the best Counter-Strike player in the world, and perhaps already the best player of all time. Despite that, Team Spirit have failed to ever string together a consistent run of trophies, largely down to their oft-criticized system.
That system, which seemed largely unchanged as their new roster debuted at BLAST Bounty, has undergone significant changes for IEM Krakow, and those changes will lead to donk having his greatest year yet as CS2’s premium superstar.
It’s all about support
For the longest time, every part of Spirit’s system was reliant on donk. Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia and Dmitry “sh1ro” Sokolov were both effective closing pieces to his star opening, but if donk’s prowess was restricted by the opposing team, the limitations of Spirit’s system soon became apparent.
This became especially true when Boris “magixx” Vorobiev was benched for Ivan “zweih” Gogin, and zont1x was replaced by Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich, because even though the team had seen an upgrade to its passive elements in tN1R, zweih didn’t offer the same natural aggression that magixx had provided during his stint with the team.
In addition to this, Spirit were throwing fewer flashbangs than other teams. In 2025, sh1ro threw 0.55 flashbangs per round on the CT side, while tN1R chimed in for another 0.58 per round. In 2026, sh1ro has seen a mild increase to 0.58, while tN1R is all the way up to 0.75. All of these flashbangs are being funnelled donk’s way, providing him with much more favourable fights when taking his 30.2% of opening duels on the defensive side.
This increase to flashes is also seen on the T side, with magixx’s 1.24 flashes thrown per round being far higher than chopper’s 1.09 for 2025. magixx’s flashes are more effective, too, blinding enemies for 1.24 seconds on average, 0.05 higher than chopper in 2025. This increase has seen donk’s effectiveness when opening rounds skyrocket, with his opening kill success rate increasing from 58.2% in 2025 to 72.9% so far in 2026.
Although flashbangs are the most obvious form of support in Counter-Strike, the pure shape of the team can also provide players like donk with a great chance to shine. For that, we have to look at a team’s spacing, or ability to secure a trade kill when a teammate dies.
In 2025, chopper took 20.7% of Spirit’s T side opening attempts, with a 35.7% success rate. When he failed, his death was traded 31.4% of the time. In 2026, although magixx is slightly lower thus far at 18% opening duels, his success rate is higher at 37%, and his deaths are traded more frequently at 35.3% of the time.
These increases are seen later in rounds, too. chopper’s T side deaths were traded just 24.4% of the time in 2025, while magixx is far higher at 30.6%. These traded deaths for magixx are frequently happening while trying to entry bombsites, with donk primarily being the one trading him as the second player in on those executes.
Changes to systems like these are the kinds that allow star players to shine without having to rely exclusively on their extreme skill. It’s noticeable in donk already, as now that he gets to fight more blind opponents, his CT rating has increased from 1.35 in 2025 to 1.47 in 2026.
With donk already being the most feared and hard-to-stop player in the elite level of CS, this greater level of support should supercharge him, and it could be the change that allows Spirit to finally ascend to the level of dominance they promised to when the young Russian announced himself tot he world at IEM Katowice 2024.