HLTV lists 70 candidates for 2026 Rookie of the Year

cmtry is the only one with an MVP award and FUT have three players near the top, in a race HLTV calls wide open under simpler rules.

HLTV has published the players who can win its 2026 Rookie of the Year award: 70 names, sorted by how many maps they have played at notable events this year. The list covers most of the eligible players, in HLTV’s own words, and the winner is named at the HLTV Awards in Belgrade on 9 January 2027.

Who counts as a rookie is less obvious than it sounds. It has nothing to do with age, and until this year it also meant checking how many weeks a player had spent in the top 20 of HLTV’s ranking. That check is gone.

Four numbers decide who is a rookie

Everything is counted up to 31 December 2025. A player who was under all four limits at that point is a rookie for 2026:

The rule is about when a player breaks into tier one. HLTV gives 2023 winner Guy “NertZ” Iluz as the example, and this year’s list holds both the 25-year-old Luciano “luchov” Herrera and the 16-year-old Danylo “s1zzi” Vinnyk.

For most of them there is no second try. HLTV marks 48 of the 70 as already past the limits for 2027.

The names with something to show

HLTV points to nine players by its own awards and map counts so far in 2026:

Player	Team	Age	2026 so far
cmtry	Astralis	19	The only rookie MVP, at PGL Bucharest
dem0n	FUT	19	Two EVPs, third most maps
luchov	9z	25	Two EVPs
xiELO	PARIVISION	20	Most maps of any rookie
dziugss	FUT	18	One EVP, second most maps
tenzy	magic	21	One EVP
nota	Rune Eaters	19	One EVP
xelex	MOUZ	18	One EVP
syph0	Nemiga	18	Stood out at PGL Masters Bucharest

FUT are the team of the list. dziugss, dem0n and Aulon “Krabeni” Fazlija are second, third and fourth by maps played, so three of the four busiest rookies of the year are on the same team. dem0n has also made his mark away from tournaments: at the start of November he passed donk as FACEIT’s highest-rated player.

The top 20 picks the winner

The award is decided internally by HLTV, on the same criteria as its Top 20 players of the year. In practice, HLTV writes, “the highest-placing rookie on the Top 20 invariably wins the award”. All four winners so far made the list:

Last year came down to molodoy against kyousuke. This time HLTV sees no such pair and describes a contest that “remains wide open with two months left to play”, with the PGL Major Singapore still to come.

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