In 2024, donk swept the HLTV Awards: Rookie, Opener, Highlight, Player of the Year. He won a Major at 17 years and 324 days old, the youngest player ever to do it. He put up a 1.70 rating at IEM Katowice 2024, tied with NiKo for the highest Big Event rating on record, and got 4 aces at the Shanghai Major, tied with s1mple for the most at a single Major. That's not a good rookie year, that's one of the best individual years anyone has had in this game.
In 2025 he finished runner-up for Player of the Year. On paper that reads like regression. It isn't, or at least it isn't the obvious kind.
Winning Player of the Year as a teenager nobody has fully scouted yet is a different task than doing it again a year later, after every team in the world has a full season of film on you and every coach has built a game plan assuming you're the primary threat. Staying in the conversation for the top individual award while being the single most prepared-for player on the server is arguably the harder version of the same achievement, even if the trophy count says otherwise.
The panel weighs in
The Prosecutor: An entire article convincing us a runner-up finish was secretly a win. I've heard this defense before, usually from someone's parents.
Weekend Warrior: Did we really need five hundred words to say 'he's still good'? I could have told you that in a sentence.
Sunshine: This is exactly the kind of piece Stazione should be writing. More donk slander-defense, please.
Worth arguing about: does finishing runner-up after a full year of being the most scouted player in the world actually mean more than the original breakout, or is this just a way of dressing up a step back as a step forward?
Argue it out in the discussion thread — that is where this actually gets resolved.