HLTV Awards 2025 predictions

HLTV Awards 2025 Predictions: Who Will Dominate CS2’s Biggest Night?

Q: Who's most likely to win the Player of the Year award in HLTV Awards 2025?

Danil donk Kryshkovets is expected to win the Player of the Year award in HLTV Awards 2025.

Sportsdunia Desk

Published - Jan 09, 2026, 01:46 PM

4 min

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Counter Strike 2

Summary

The HLTV Awards 2025 are approaching, with CS2 fans eagerly awaiting the reveal of the #1 player, while 15 of the top 20 spots have already been announced, sparking community debate.
With the award night set for January 10, 2026, the final four player rankings are yet to be unveiled, and the focus remains on predicting the “Player of the Year.”

One of the biggest nights of Counter-Strike 2, HLTV Awards 2025, is once again knocking on the doors. CS2 fans across the world are excited to find out who'll claim the #1 spot and ultimately take the crown. HLTV has already revealed 15 spots from the top 20 players.

As we approach the Award Night on January 10, 2026, the names for the final 4 spot will finally be revealed. Ahead of the big announcement, here are our HLTV Awards 2025 predictions. Do note that we'll mainly emphasise who's going to take the Counter-Strike 2 Player of the Year spot this year.

Donk Holds the Upper Hand Over ZywOo in HLTV Awards 2025

While the whole community should root for the mighty Frenchman, Mathieu "ZywOo Herbaut, we can give you a proper explanation on why we still think Donk should claim the top spot.

If you check the individual ratings, Danil “donk” Kryshkovets has an overall 1.42 HLTV rating in 2025. ZywOo, whereas, only has a 1.32 rating. The Frenchman, however, has secured 9 trophies, including 2 Majors and MVPs in eight.

Donk has only four tournaments and has been an MVP in each one. Considering the criteria for the “Best Player”, it has always depended on individual performance. If you've followed the CS2 competitive scene throughout the year, you can probably guess by now that donk has been stellar individually, even though Spirit failed to win something prestigious. Meanwhile, Vitality has been a more successful team overall.

ZywOo has definitely been the star face of the CS2 competitive community. He also won 9 trophies, struggling in the group phase but coming to life in the knockout stage.

If you still don't believe us, take the example of 2018 when Dev1ce and his teammates at Astralis were literally unstoppable, yet S1mple ended up being the HLTV #1.

Team Vitality Lurk ropz (Image Credits: Official website of HLTV)

ZywOo won 9 trophies throughout the year, along with HLTV MVPs in 8 of them. Despite showcasing such dominance throughout the year, the panellists chose S1mple over him due to his individual performance. There can be a whole debate on this topic regardless of what we say.

Our HLTV Awards predictions (2025)

Enough with the “best player of the year” category, here's a list of HLTV Awards 2025 predictions on each category:

Category	Predicted Winner
Player of the Year	Danil "donk" Kryshkovets
Womens Player of the Year	Bruna “bizinha” Marvila
Team of the Year	Team Vitality
Women's Team of the Year	BIG Equipa
Rookie of the Year	Danil "⁠molodoy⁠" Golubenko
IGL of the Year	Finn “karrigan” Andersen
AWPer of the Year	Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov
Anchor of the Year	Sodbayar "Techno" Munkhbold
Closer of the Year	Robin “ropz” Kool
Opener of the Year	Danil "donk" Kryshkovets
Coach of the Year	Rémy 'XTQZZZ' Quoniam
Highlight of the Year	JamYoung's 4K with Deagle
Talent of the Year	James "⁠BanKs⁠" Banks
Event of the Year	StarLadder Budapest Major
Skin of the Year	AWP \| Printstream
Creator of the Year	Virre CS2
Streamer of the Year	ohnePixel