STYKO on new Spirit prodigy: His potential is huge

At the Shanghai Major, Spirit demonstrated that they already possess a lineup capable of winning the biggest trophies in Counter-Strike, led by the rifle prodigy Danil “donk” Kryshkovets.

But Spirit’s academy roster is also making waves, housing another potential superstar. 

He goes by the name of Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin, and is widely tipped to be the next big thing in Counter-Strike

"He's next in line"

But who is this kyousuke that everyone is talking about on HLTV’s forum? Is he just a copy of donk? And what is his potential? 

To delve deeper, we spoke to the professional player and analyst Martin “STYKO” Styk, who offered an analysis of the wonderkid and his playstyle, strengths, and the possibility of Spirit promoting him.

- The potential is huge, STYKO starts off when describing kyousuke.

- He’s the best academy player in Counter-Strike right now, and I believe the hype around him is justified. Everyone is looking at him, and he’s probably one of the hottest prospects outside of tier-1 right now. Spirit and NAVI have promoted multiple academy players in recent years, who have achieved great results in tier 1 Counter-Strike. And looking at his statistics, kyousuke looks to be the next in line. 

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kyousuke at a glance

What kind of player is kyousuke?

- He is extremely confident, and a guy who doesn’t shy away from fights. He’s basically smacking everyone at his own level. If you look at his K/D it might not be as impressive as donk’s. But when you look at Kyosuke’s impact and the way he looks for these kills it’s actually really, really impressive how well he’s playing, STYKO explains.

He continues:

- You can see in his stats that he’s out of this world when it comes to shooting and his impact rating. He can do it all. 

Similarities to donk

A young, aggressive rifler from the CIS region—sound familiar?

According to STYKO, kyousuke shares many traits with his countryman Danil “donk” Kryshkovets, who is just a year older.

- There are a lot of similarities between him and donk when it comes to their playstyle, positions and even their age. 

- He and donk play a lot of FACEIT together and you can definitely see parallels in their movement and the way they approach fights – and also their shooting techniques. They also play a lot of the same positions on the maps, where there are a lot of overlaps between them. And honestly, that could be a triggering point why kyousuke could be stuck in Spirit Academy for now. Because donk is irreplaceable at this time. 

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Should kyousuke get a promotion in 2025?

In our talk with STYKO, we asked the Slovakian analyst about the possibility of Spirit adding kyousuke to the main lineup.

A change that STYKO finds unlikely at this point in time.

- I don't think Spirit’s Major win will change too much for kyousuke. It was anyway unlikely that he would get promoted. Because if he were to replace magixx or zont1x, I think role-wise it would destroy a lot of structure - made by hally and chopper - that works in Spirit right now.

- His overlapping positions with donk are actually the biggest problem. It is similar to the m0NESY and s1mple situation in NaVi and NaVi Junior. m0NESY was probably ready to go into the main lineup but s1mple is irreplaceable, similar to what donk is now. m0NESY had a lot of success getting into an international team for a hefty buyout but the questions are if kyousuke can communicate in English well enough and if his buyout is reasonable for any big organization to approach him.

You can check out STYKO analyze a demo of kyousuke playing in the video below.