Spirit are the reigning Major champions and currently sit within the top two on both HLTV’s and Valve’s world rankings.
However, if you ask the prominent Counter-Strike analyst Janko “YNk” Paunović, the CIS powerhouse should shake up its roster.
His reasoning? Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin, the organization’s next big star, who’s been making waves in Spirit Academy.
“Promote him”
In the latest episode of Talking Counter, YNk argued that it’s a no-brainer for Spirit to promote kyousuke once BLAST Open Lisbon concludes this week.
– Honestly, Spirit should bring in kyousuke. They should be one of the teams that makes a change after BLAST Open Lisbon. The kid is obviously extremely talented, and I don’t care who they bring him in for, YNl said.
His co-host, SPUNJ, then suggested that the most likely candidates to be replaced would be zont1x or magixx, to which YNk responded:
– Either one of the two. But then you have people saying ‘what about the roles and this that?’
– But I don’t care about the roles. First of all, if kyousuke is such a great player, so he can adapt. Second of all, the player who remain in the squad out of zontix and magixx can also adapt themselves. In this era where everyone is talking about firepower and individual skill and you have a guy like that on your academy team, then you promote him, YNk says in the podcast.
Who is kyousuke?
kyousuke is widely regarded as the next big thing in Counter-Strike, already drawing comparisons to superstars like Danil “donk” Kryshkovets and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov.
Despite being just 17 years old, he has consistently displayed his immense potential in lower-tier tournaments with Spirit Academy, establishing himself as one of the most exciting young talents in the game.
In December last year, we spoke with Martin “STYKO” Styk about the Russian prodigy’s enormous potential. You can read the full article here.
Watch the entire Talking Counter episode down below:
Spirit’s next task will be at BLAST Open Lisbon this week, where they are taking on The Huns in the opening round on Wednesday.
