On February 11, Team Spirit won the IEM Katowice 2024 finals, beating Faze Clan with an impressive 3 : 0 score. In all three maps the team's advantage was very impressive, and on the last map (Overpass) Spirit left no chance to the opponents, losing to them only three rounds. The win earned the team an impressive $400,000 in prize money and guaranteed slots at IEM Cologne and BLAST Premier World Final. This is the first win for Spirit at a tournament of this level.
The best player of the team Daniel «donk» Kryshkovets did not just become the MVP of the tournament. He won the title with the highest personal rating (1.70) in the history of the championships in Katowice. As for his share of the prize money, in one of the interviews donk mentioned that he was going to give all the money to his parents.
The cybersports career of Daniil, who is now seventeen years old, began in Tomsk. He says that the ping problems inevitable for his location affected his style of play: to succeed and win despite the 100 millisecond lag, he had to constantly stay on the move. However, he demonstrated his first successes not on online platforms, but even earlier, at local tournaments in his hometown.
Daniel played his first competitive match, which was included in the HLTV statistics, in 2021, that is, at the age of fourteen. At that time he played for the youth team of Team Spirit and showed a good result, considering that it was the first performance at a high level for him.
Since the summer of 2023 Daniil was transferred to the main squad of Team Spirit. However, it wasn't just his aggressive style of play that caught the overall attention, but his demeanor as well. He often overreacts emotionally (and that's putting it mildly) to his opponents and his own failures. Perhaps it's the fact that because of his young age, he hasn't yet fully learned to control his behavior at official tournaments. In Katowice, Daniel has already been warned for shouting too loudly after successful rounds.
However, the chopper (captain of Teasm Spirit) responded that the team would pay the fine in case of anything, the main thing is that the guy should express his emotions without insults. Maybe, with experience, the player will learn to behave more restrained, although many believe that a daring manner of behavior only makes the game even brighter.
Donk himself says that he deliberately chooses an aggressive style of play. He likes to win duels when he manages to outsmart his opponent single-handedly. His reference point is Nikola «niko» Kovacs from G2. Daniel mentioned that he watches his games and analyzes what techniques he can incorporate into his own arsenal.
