The HLTV Awards have quickly become Counter-Strike’s “end-of-year Oscars”: a slick, stage-driven celebration where the scene’s biggest names finally get their flowers in front of the whole community. The HLTV Awards for 2025 will be held January 10, 2026 in Belgrade, Serbia (Sava Centar), with the broadcast starting 18:00 CET. Today, we’re gonna focus specifically on the Panel Awards, which are role-based trophies and highlights, decided by a curated expert panel.
HLTV confirmed the panel locked finalists for AWPer, IGL, Opener, Closer, Anchor, Coach, and Highlight of the Year. With that in mind, here are my predictions, built around the confirmed finalists and what HLTV has already revealed about the voting and shortlists and my honest opinions based on my experience and background as a Professional Coach.
1) AWPer of the Year
Finalists: m0NESY, sh1ro, ZywOo
HLTV’s own finalist write-up gives you the shape of the argument:
- m0NESY: elite year, strong rating, multiple MVPs (and the “repeat” narrative after winning 2024).
- sh1ro: statistical monster and famously hard to kill.
- ZywOo: the “engine” of a record-breaking Vitality year, with a staggering MVP count and top-of-the-leaderboards impact metrics.
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When an AWPer is simultaneously the best player on the best team, and the season includes that level of individual dominance, the award usually follows.
I personally prefer m0NESYs aggressive style as an awper, genuinely think that he often plays more with awp than ZywOo himself but ZywOo is just more consistent and has proved himself a lot more on the bigger stages while mONESY´s failed to show consistency when his team needed the most in high pressure situations pretty much towards the whole year. It is fair to say that it’s not only his fault, there were a bunch of roster changes and drama surrounding their roster but still. Fair to mention as well that during the second season, I personally feel like molodoy from FURIA probably overperformed all of these awpers in terms of impact, and he is my bold prediction to be on this top 3 for 2026.
Final Prediction: ZywOo
Dark horse: m0NESY (if the panel leans into pure eye-test impact and superstar difficulty)
2) IGL of the Year
Finalists: apEX, bLitz, FalleN
This is a surprisingly spicy trio because each represents a different kind of leadership story:
- apEX: the frontman and emotional core of a historically dominant roster, with trophies and Major wins stacked behind him.
- bLitz: the “history maker,” driving The MongolZ to a world #1 stint and landmark results for the region.
- FalleN: the “revival arc,” steering a dramatic turnaround and a late-year title streak that redefines the team’s season.
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If you’re rewarding the one with the biggest results, apEX has the cleanest case. I personally feel like he’s the most likely favorite to win and that’s fair because of what he accomplished but I would choose FalleN because I think what he was able to do with FURIA throughout the second season is just way harder. From rebuilding the roster with 2 international players while one of them was specifically scouted by him (molodoy) to becoming a Rifler and Anchor while having to change the main language of the team, integrate two new players, where one of them had absolutely 0 lans and big tournaments experience, for in the less than a year being able to beat majority of the best teams in the world, having a short title streak and finishing the year as one of the best teams in the world. That’s enough for me to reward him with the trophy, with all due respect to apEX and his ability as an IGL, but for me IGL goes beyond what happens just in the server and you have to look at characteristics on the outside.
Final Prediction: apEX
Dark horse: FalleN (if voters reward historic regional impact and ability to redefine FURIA´s season)
3) Opener of the Year
Finalists: donk, flameZ, YEKINDAR
Opener is about more than just first kills, it’s the willingness to take the first fights, create space, and still post superstar numbers. HLTV’s notes on donk are… absurd: elite rating, elite kill pace, elite opener output.
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- flameZ is the “classic entry” profile and a key piece of the Vitality structure.
- YEKINDAR has the impact + leadership texture in his case
- But donk looks like the category’s final boss.
In this one I don’t have many comments, it’s just really hard to compete against donk while he’s putting those numbers while his team not necessarily helps him that much, I certainly dont think Spirit plays for him, it’s in fact the other way around where he is the best definition of a opener by nature and you can tell that he doesn’t care about his stats or anything like that, obviously flameZ has been tremendously helpful on Vitality as well and helped them tremendously to have the year they had, but I would personally like to give a special shout-out to YEKINDAR being able to reinvent himself with FURIA, many people think that molodoy was instrumental for FURIA´s recent success but from a Coach perspective I think YEKINDAR has had tremendous impact not only on the role but on the way FURIA plays counter-strike nowadays, you can tell he is sort of a coldzera from back in the days and the second voice in the team, while molodoy just has to focus on doing what he does best, killing people with the big gun.
Final Prediction: donk
Dark horse: flameZ (if the panel rewards system entry value on the year’s best team)
4) Closer of the Year
Finalists: frozen, KSCERATO, ropz
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Closers are judged by how reliably they win the late-round, high-pressure, low-margin moments. All three finalists are worthy:
- frozen: elite individual year and late-season peak moments.
- KSCERATO: MVP-level impact and a defining year.
- ropz: immediately becomes a cornerstone of the Vitality “superteam era,” with a pile of EVPs and top performance at the highest-end events.
The “closer” identity maps so perfectly onto ropz’s brand, and his year sits right at the center of the most dominant storyline. it’s just really hard to compete against him cause in my opinion he does all of that while being creative and constantly changing the meta with how impactful a smart lurk can be during the rounds, you can tell how much impact he also has on gathering information to help apEX to call even better on mid to late rounds, while I think KSCERATO is more of a hard lurker where the team plays rounds and tries to put him in the best situation as possible because he is nowadays probably the best player in the world in clutch situations.
Final Prediction: ropz
Dark horse: KSCERATO (if the panel prioritizes raw “I win rounds alone” power and MVP highlight moments)
5) Anchor of the Year
Finalists: b1t, HeavyGod, mezii
This is the category where prediction gets genuinely tricky, because anchor value can be “invisible” unless you watch roles closely.
- b1t is the reigning winner and still put up strong elite-level stretches.
- HeavyGod has a compelling “big replacement, big performance” arc including a notable MVP.
- mezii gets the “redemption” framing, criticism in 2024, then major-event impact and a clear support/anchor identity on the year’s strongest team.
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This is the only category that I highly disagree with one of the selections from the panel, I would easily replace b1t with yuurih on this list. First because I don’t think NAVI and b1t have done anything crazy through the year both as an individual and as a team, secondly because Yuurih has had to just like FalleN reinvent himself in a new role to just shortly after become one of the best anchors during the first season and at the BLAST Austin Major, he has been very consistent throughout the second season as well so I don’t see why his name is not on this list, but either way, anchors often get rewarded when they’re the glue that enables a juggernaut to function. That points to mezii and the crazy amount of consistently he’s brought to Vitality during this year, I am sorry to HeavyGod and I know he was instrumental for that trophy G2 lifted while being the MVP but mezii has just been a way more impactful anchor throughout the whole year.
Final Prediction: mezii
Dark horse: HeavyGod (MVP narratives can swing voters even in role awards)
6) Coach of the Year
Finalists: hally, maaRaa, XTQZZZ
This is the “systems” award, and each finalist is basically a different coaching archetype:
- hally: continued elite results and major trophies.
- maaRaa: scouting/development mastermind and the architect of The MongolZ rise.
- XTQZZZ: the strategic foundation behind an empire year, if Vitality’s season is “historic,” the coach gets a hefty slice of credit.
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I made a tweet not too long ago stating that its unfortunately literally impossible for anyone outside of a team to measure the impact of a Head Coach, If the panel leans “achievement + sustained dominance,” then we already know who the favorite of this list is, but I personally value way more things over that, such as presence on stage, roster changes that worked, tactical and players development, successful timeouts etc.. and on all of those departments, I think both of the other options on maaRa and hally has had way more impact in their teams, but unfortunately that’s just not the way majority of the people look at things and they just care about trophies and accomplishments, so based on that I already have my choice.
Final Prediction: XTQZZZ
Dark horse: maaRaa (if the panel rewards overperformance and talent development above all)
7) Highlight of the Year
Finalists: donk 1v5 vs Vitality, ropz two-second ace vs 3DMAX, Twistzz 4k 1v3 Deagle vs NAVI
First of all ,I personally would have chosen the ace clutch 1v5 from Jimphatt during IEM Dallas 2025 over the Twistzz rounds any day of the week, but anyway.. Highlights aren’t just about mechanics, they’re about myth-making. A clean 1v5 against the year’s superteam is exactly the sort of clip that lives forever. Easy prediction in my eyes.
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Final Prediction: donk 1v5 vs Vitality
Dark horse: ropz dualies ace (pistols always play well as “pure skill” clips)
