HLTV Awards Rookie of the Year finalists named

Angel Kicevski December 21, 2025

43 1 minute read

HLTV has published the three finalists for its 2025 Rookie of the Year award, putting the spotlight on a trio that rose fast through the Counter-Strike ranks this year.

Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin, 17, cemented himself as a top prospect after moving from Spirit Academy to Falcons. He opened his tier-one run with a 1.34 rating at IEM Cologne, the second-highest of the event, and closed the year with a team-high 1.22 rating at the StarLadder Budapest Major as Falcons pushed into the playoffs.

Drin “makazze” Shaqiri, 18, impressed on NAVI Junior and then stepped into Natus Vincere‘s main lineup after Justinas “jL” Lekavicius left. Makazze posted a 1.15 rating online with NAVI Junior, helped the squad win four online titles in 2025, and picked up EVPs at both the Thunderpick World Championship and the StarLadder Budapest Major.

Danil “molodoy” Golubenko, 20, made his name as an AWPer first with AMKAL, where he had a 1.26 online rating, then joined FURIA in April. Molodoy helped FURIA to four LAN wins in 2025, earned two MVPs and two EVPs, and finished fourth at PGL Astana in his first event with the team.

The Rookie of the Year award recognizes players who broke into tier-one play during the calendar year. Past winners include Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, Guy “NertZ” Iluz, and Danil “donk” Kryshkovets, all of whom have become established names since taking the prize.

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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.