Counter-Strike 2 players to watch in 2025

The 2025 season of Counter-Strike 2 is well underway, with IEM Katowice and BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 already in the books. Now, a lot more tournaments awaiting the best teams in the world. 

Many great players have already made an impact in the competitive scene with their clutches and saves—and we are narrowing it down to the top six to watch for the rest of the 2025 season.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, one of the players to watch this competitive year is Danil ‘donk’ Kryshkovets, 2024 Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year. This unique combination of HLTV awards had some analysts calling this a ‘god year’ for Team Spirit’s Russian entry fragger.

His sheer number of flawless frags, perfect entries, and bewildering clutches has left commentators both speechless and shouting at the major events of 2024. Now, his 2025 has started very well with a win at the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 and a second place finish at Katowice, sporting a rock solid performance at both tourneys.

Donk’s playstyle is leading from the front with top tier mechanics, often picking multiple opponents from forward defensive angle leaving the audience astounded. He’s only at the beginning of his career but is already coveted as hall of fame material going into 2025..

The player that couldn’t have asked for a better start of the year is Mathieu ‘ZywOo’ Herbaut. He won IEM Katowice with Team Vitality after a long hunt, a milestone year in the making. Since his debut in 2018, ZywOo has been regarded as one of the best Counter-Strike players in the world and he has the numbers to prove it.

With the recent win in Poland, the French player is now en par with CS legend Oleksandr ‘⁠s1mple⁠’ Kostyliev in terms of MVP titles for major events, both sitting at 15. He was the Player of the Year for 2019, 2020 and 2023, and a runner-up in 2021 and 2022— all while in the role of AWPer.

In 2024, ZywOo got the highest K/D of the competitive circuit at 1.46 in a year, even though he was up against entry fraggers like donk. With a strong Katowice performance (Vitality beat Spirit 3-0) after a disappointing BLAST Bounty Spring 2025, ZywOo is one player to keep on the radar as he’s poised to leave an even bigger mark than s1mple⁠ on the scene.

Rookie of the Year in 2022 and AWPer of legendary flickery, Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov wants to see his team, G2, get to even higher heights in 2025. The start of the year has not been phenomenal for the Russian player, with a missed podium at the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 and a poor performance at the IEM Katowice. If the rest of his 2025 is anything like his 2024, however, m0NESY has a lot of surprises up his sleeve. 

His performance, along with the rest of G2 at the BLAST Premier: World Final 2024, was one to remember—with a spectacular win 3-0 over what felt like an invincible Team Spirit. With a first place at IEM Dallas and missing victory at the Esports World Cup by just a hair, m0NESY is on a quest for greatness in 2025, making him  one of the top players to watch—if only to get mesmerized by his skill with the AWP.

The story of Dmitriy ‘sh1ro’ Sokolov’s 2024 is, unfortunately, shadowed by his teammate donk’s performance. However, a lot of donk’s setups wouldn’t have worked without sh1ro’s AWP mastery. His Katowice’s clutch in 2024 still populates highlight reels showing the craziest moments but there’s a sore spot on his resume.

His performance oscillated between great and completely off last year, with him admitting that his team’s poor performance at the BLAST Premier: World Final 2024 (which ended 0-3 in favor of G2) was due to his lack of form. In 2025, Team Spirit started off with a bang. And sh1ro was a cornerstone of the newfound success: he had the lowest death rate (0,47) among all players in January and was instrumental in the team’s most recent wins.

Natus Vincere won the first ever Esports World Cup of CS2 with such a phenomenal performance that the roster was awarded the HLTV award for Best Team of 2024. The face of that world-dominating team was Valerij ‘b1t’ Vakhovsjkyj. The name of his game is consistency: his frags are essential to NaVi’s competitive prowess—but they don’t come in the form of insane flicks like m0NESY’s or unbelievable multikills like donk’s.

b1t’s rifling skills are what carries Natus Vincere with confidence through a lot of the early stages in the tournaments. His LAN performance is still not at its full potential, but the start of the year shows promise: NAVI secured a 3rd – 4th place finish in both the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 and the 2025 IEM Katowice so there’s room, and will, to improve.

One of the strongest leaders in the competitive CS2 scene in 2025 has to be İsmailсan ‘XANTARES’ Dörtkardeş. He is the cornerstone of Eternal Fire’s most recent triumphs and the protagonist of a resurgence story for himself and his team. Gleaming results are yet to come, but his most prominent achievement has been getting his team to face big and scary opponents and come out beaten but triumphant, something that could not be said at the beginning of 2024.

The rifling skills of this Turkish player are what’s keeping him and his team at the forefront of this season’s up and coming rosters. They had an incredible run at the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025, which saw them lose only against an absolutely on fire Team Spirit. Their next objective should be, at the very least, to play another big final in front of an adoring crowd.