donk reclaims FACEIT’s CS2 Elo crown with an even higher record

The Team Spirit rifler reached 5,434 Elo with eight days remaining in FACEIT Season 8.

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Counter-Strike 2 player donk wearing a headset while seated at a tournament gaming station

Team Spirit rifler Danil “donk” Kryshkovets has reclaimed the all-time FACEIT Elo record in Counter-Strike 2, reaching 5,434 points in Season 8. That total moved him past Liam “MaiL09” Tugel’s previous record of 5,415.

Donk still had eight days left in the season when he set the new mark, giving him a chance to add to the record before the current ranking period ends.

How donk reached 5,434 Elo

Season 8 began with donk at 3,935 Elo after the usual soft reset. Since then, he has gained 1,499 points across 152 matches while maintaining a 1.49 FACEIT Rating.

FACEIT highlighted the achievement in a post on X, pointing to the combination of donk’s long run of matches and his steady performance across the season.

The highest Elo in FACEIT CS2 now belongs to @donk1337 at 5,434, surpassing MaiL09's record of 5,415.

Since starting Season 8 at 3,935 Elo, he's climbed 1,499 Elo across 152 matches, averaging a 1.49 FACEIT Rating.

Eight days remain for him to raise the record even further. pic.twitter.com/argXvwlq9S

— FACEIT CS2 (@FACEITcs) July 28, 2026

His FACEIT results have also matched a strong stretch in professional competition. Season 8 began in April 2026, shortly after IEM Rio 2026, where Team Spirit reached the final against Team Vitality. Donk then averaged a 1.46 rating at the IEM Cologne 2026 Major.

MaiL09’s record lasted nearly six months

Donk previously held the record after reaching 5,350 Elo in July 2025. That mark stood until MaiL09 passed it in November of the same year.

MaiL09 reached 5,415 Elo and became the first player to break 5,400. The Swedish player also became the youngest person to sit at the top of the FACEIT Elo rankings, having been 16 at the time.

MaiL09 currently sits at No. 61 in the European FACEIT rankings with 4,188 Elo after taking breaks during the season. He has since returned to Metizport’s active roster for the tier-two circuit, leaving a possible response for Season 9.

donk’s place in the CS2 scene

At 19, donk is already one of the leading players in Counter-Strike 2. During his rookie year, he won MVP honors at the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, set a rating record at IEM Katowice 2024, and received the HLTV Player of the Year award ahead of ZywOo and m0NESY.

His aggressive mechanics have also made him easy to recognize in matches. The “donk-slide” became one of the techniques associated with his style, while his FACEIT results included five straight No. 1 finishes from Season 1 through Season 5.

With eight days still available in Season 8, the record may move again before the season closes. Donk will also have official matches to manage during BLAST Bounty Season 2 2026.

What do you think of donk’s latest FACEIT record? Share your thoughts in the comments, and follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram.

Counter-Strike 2 is a free-to-play multiplayer tactical first-person shooter developed and published by Valve. Released in September 2023, it is the fifth main entry in the Counter-Strike series and serves as a direct replacement for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive on Steam. Two teams, Terrorists and Counter-Terrorists, compete in objective-based rounds across modes such as bomb defusal and hostage rescue. Built on the Source 2 engine, the game introduced volumetric smoke physics, revised weapon handling, and a new sub-tick server architecture. It inherited all cosmetic items from its predecessor and features both a map-specific Competitive mode and a numerically ranked Premier mode.