The race for Rookie of the Year is heating up, and some of the names we are looking at didn’t even have the chance to play the full year at the top. Rookie of the year continues to get more interesting. When you think of the fact donk won it without any competition in 2024, it is a showing of the time we are in and how we need to look at Counter-Strike for the future.
It is not simply about academy teams’ success that started back with the WePlay Academy League, where we got to first see players such as m0NESY, donk, siuhy, xertioN, and others show their level in a dedicated league. It is now the fact that Counter-Strike as a game and as an esport has become so popular that players are starting younger with the idea of making it as a professional player.
The same as in real sports like football, starting young will give you an advantage, you start training earlier, taking it seriously, and having a goal or focus to achieve something. In modern-day Counter-Strike, it feels like this is more prominent than ever. We heard of many players being shown the game by their brothers, some by their Dads, but because of the games age and where the game was, it was not as regular as I am hearing now when talking to new players coming up to the top level.
Now when I interview these players or talk to them and start to learn more about them, they are telling me I started playing at 6 years old, some younger, some older but they can be in their young to early teens and be hitting level 10 on Faceit with 3000 ELO, learning the game and understanding it to such a high level, helping them do things that break the game as well as records.
Some of you might argue that this is not a good thing, spending that much time playing a game at such a young age but, I am not here to argue that, I am here to talk about the conversation for Counter-Strikes rookie of the year at the HLTV Awards for 2025 and who it might be after an already incredibly exciting year!
This year it seems like it is the MOST wide open it could be, there is no sure thing for rookie of the year and a lot can happen in just a few months but this is where we are at right now… Let’s start with the two VERY new comers, starting with the latest Team Falcons addition.
Honorable Mention:
Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin is the most hyped up player of the year, everyone is saying he is the 2nd coming of donk but that is a hard thing to achieve, especially as at the time of writing this article, he has only been at one tier 1 event which we can include, IEM Cologne, his first with the Falcons.
What is crazy though is that despite the horrendously bad performance from Falcons at the event, considering how they were doing before the BLAST Tv Austin Major, kyousuke was dominant and was the 2nd highest rated player of the whole tournament with a 1.39 rating. Donk was above him with a 1.50 rating, while also lifting the trophy and claiming MVP and behind him in 3rd was sh1ro with a 1.22 rating, so it was a hugely stand out performance.
The problem here is that fitting kyousuke in and all the changes, Falcons have given kyousuke everything he wanted except for de_nuke where he is playing ramp, TeSeS, NiKo and even kyxsan have had to make changes to fit him in and it has hurt the whole team, at least for the first event…you can see a video below explaining all of this.
Now this doesn’t take away from his incredible performances and I will go to say that even if Falcons don’t win events, if they can have some deep play-off runs for every event for the rest of the year, he can average a 1.25-1.30 or over rating, then kyousuke can steal this rookie of the year award away but only time will tell what might happen.
Ivan “zweih” Gogin
The other honorable mention is zweih, stat wise he isn’t currently the most amazing one to look at as rookie of the year but he is an interesting player. Team Spirit took him from nemiga, replacing long term member magixxx and the first thing they do is win IEM Cologne.
With a 0.95 rating across 13 maps but managing to lift the trophy, it isn’t likely that he could be one to take rookie of the year, even at the Austin Major on Nemiga he only had a 0.88 rating but he has some great mechanical skill, you can see the individual brilliance that could be unlocked if he gets the confidence and if he is used well.
Time will tell how much of an upgrade he can be for Spirit over Magixx throughout the rest of this year.Now looking at the rookie that could be in with a chance and these 5 I will give my thoughts and order on who I think is closest to being Rookie of the year 2025 today, as of 07/08/2025.
5th – Kaisar “ICY” Faiznurov
In last place currently for me is the first of two Kazakhstani AWPers who have a chance of Rookie of the Year. ICY has some moments of brilliance, some moments where you can see him really get going but I do not know if it is the team, if it is his confidence or exactly what it is but we don’t see the best of him enough.
It is a very turbulent time in Virtus Pro for sure, a lot of changes to personal and players, it is hard to be consistent but I feel like something is holding him back right now, and that needs to be unlocked if he wants to have a chance to be Rookie of the year.
His highest rating at a big event is a 1.08 performance at PGL Cluj-Napoca at the start of the year where the team finished 9-11th and that is not a good look at all. From the eye test though, for sure I know he can do better, it is all about unlocking it.
4th – Oldřich “PR” Nový
Making it to 4th place currently is PR, now this player has shown his great ability from the very start, scouted once again by GamerLegion coach Ash and their analyst imd, they have found another gem here.
There have been many times where I have been impressed by what I saw from him, he can seemingly take over games for the team while still fitting into the system and following along with the plan, the only problem he sometimes has is over extending but that can quickly be fixed.
Overall the results have not been great this year for the team, which is going to hurt him in the long run, it is all about consistency for PR and his team in order to keep pushing forward. My biggest question right now is if he can take this award but if GamerLegion can hold onto him before another organisation tries to take him to their team, a problem that GamerLegion has been plagued with always.
PR’s highest rated big event so far is his first, Katowice 2025 with a 1.17 rating and a respectable 7-8th place, narrowly missing out on playoffs after losing out to Spirit 2-1 in the final match. I am expecting a bright future for PR, no matter where he goes.
3rd – Samet “jottAAA” Köklü
jottAAA came into Eternal Fire, now Aurora and changed EVERYTHING. He may be lower rated for the year as a player compared to PR and I would say myself that PR is a better individual player but jottAAA has delivered more in and out of the server to put Aurora into the best position a Turkish Counter-Strike team ever has been.
jottAAA has moments of brilliance with incredible skill and up until the BLAST Tv Austin Major, the team was flying high and being a consistent dominant force in playoffs of all big events. His highest rating at a big event is 1.13 back at PGL Cluj-Napoca where they finished 5-8th, a surprising result at the time where they were expected to do a lot better.
What I hear from all of his team mates and in interviews is the mood he brings to the team, how he helps the team level up and his fantastic communication. He is a huge upgrade of calyx who he replaced and he deserves because of all of this to be a candidate with a chance to make it as Rookie of the year.
2nd – Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich
Only making it to two big events this year with Heroic, it is a smaller sample size to look at when it comes to tN1R but when you go to all events for Heroic in 2025 it gets a lot more impressive and this is what could hold him back from reaching Rookie of the year in 2025.
His highest rated event of the year is a 1.38 rating at the MESA Nomadic Masters Spring 2025 where Heroic lifted the trophy but there was no tier 1 competition at this event but he did impress and popped off massively, giving us a taste of what we can expect from him with more time.
When I look only at big events, Heroic have only made it to Dallas and Cologne with Dallas being a 1.17 rating from him and a 7-8th place finish, which isn’t bad at all.
The crazy thing for tN1R is that he was not really on anyone’s radar outside of the CIS Region, he wasn’t spoken about as a potential for an international team but he did not shy away from joining Heroic and making a mark. This is a player who came from a stream owner team GUN5 after having some time in CS:GO on Forze, he has shown great improvement since the Forze days and is certainly a player to watch and he is slightly older than the rest of the rookie players at 24.
1st – Danil “molodoy” Golubenko
At least for now, my current Rookie of the year for 2025 is the new FURIA recruit, the Kazakhstani AWPer and star player molodoy. This player has not just shown the ability to take over games and play well, he has not cracked under the pressure of the stages, he has adapted to a new language and he is constantly pushing himself to do better and play better.
He seemingly came out of nowhere as well, this was incredible scouting from guerri the former coach and head of esports at FURIA and what the rest of FURIA saw from playing practice against him. No one was talking about this kid and at 20 years old, there are a lot of other teams who fumbled the chance to get this impressive player.
I remember in Kazakhstan, his first tier 1 event for the PGL Astana tournament, we did not know what to expect. FURIA were struggling, everyone was down on them, even the Brazilian fans had started to worry about the future and potential of this team but everything changed with molodoy and yek1ndar joining.
His first ever big event, his first ever stage game and the whole crowd is cheering for their countryman…he had all the pressure on his shoulders of that and not only did he do the interviews on stage with me like a boss, he delivered memorable moments on stage dropping a 1.54 rating against MIBR in his first ever stage game and then losing to eventual winners Spirit in the semi finals which isn’t something you are going to complain about.
Except him, he complained, he has the right mentality, he wasn’t happy with his 0.94 rating against Spirit in the semi finals, despite having a 1.31 rating on the opening map of Train that they beat Spirit on. He told me he knows he can do better and he wants to do better and this is the same mentality he has had at every event since.
From the eye test, molodoy is doing everything you would want an AWPer to do and he is playing and acting like a star as well, despite being surrounded by many great and experienced players, he is seemingly fearless at the same time.
4 big events appearances for FURIA, 3 play-off positions, including the BLAST Tv Austin Major and IEM Cologne. His highest rating so far being a 1.20 rating during Cologne.
He is the most exciting rookie to watch right now, kyousuke will surely be chasing him for this but will have less time to show it up and I think by the end of 2025 the only two players with a chance of winning Rookie of the Year 2025 will be molodoy and kyousuke and I can’t wait to watch these two go head to head for that accolade.
So there you have it, we are 8 months into the year, these are my current top 5 players for the chance to take home the 2025 Rookie of the year trophy but everything can change as there are plenty more events for the rest of the year. I would love to know who you think deserves to win it in 2025 from your perspective so let me know in the comments!
