Mauisnake on donk: “His chances of being named the best player of the year are very small right now.”
In the latest episode of the Snake & Banter podcast, analysts Alex “Mauisnake” Ellenberg and Donald “voo” Parkhurst assessed Danil “donk” Kryshkovets’ current form and his chances of being named the best player of 2026, and also reflected on Dmitry “S0tF1k” Forostyanko’s work as Team Spirit’s coach.
On donk’s slump
voo: I think it’s getting harder and harder to justify donk’s setbacks. If you look back at PGL Astana, he killed more blinded enemies there than anyone else in the world. Team Spirit players threw a ton of grenades in matches and created an incredible number of opportunities for donk to prove himself. However, he’s now having more and more poor map performances. I think now is the perfect time to blame donk for his poor performances. Team Spirit is relying on him even more than they did in 2024.
On donk’s consistency and his chances of being named the top player of 2026
Mauisnake: Right now, donk isn’t closing out plays in situations that used to seem easy for him. He’s retained his strong aim and still gets incredible frags, but his performance is nowhere near as consistent as it was before the IEM Cologne Major. Back then, it seemed like donk was the strongest player in the world. His chances of becoming the best player of the year are very small right now—not only because of his dip in form, but also due to Team Spirit’s mediocre results.
On S0tF1k as Team Spirit’s coach
Mauisnake: To be honest, I’d like to see S0tF1k as Team Spirit’s head coach. Under his leadership, the team played an interesting style of CS—focusing more on teamplay and grenade usage. I don’t know how S0tF1k managed to reshape Spirit’s style so quickly and bring out the players’ strengths. However, the team looked significantly better with him at the helm.
Earlier, Team Spirit lost to MOUZ in the BLAST Bounty Summer 2026 final with a map score of 1-3. The team finished in 2nd place at the championship and earned $97,188. donk’s rating during the LAN stage of the tournament was 1.16.
Photo by Adela Sznajder, ESL.
