donk breaks multiple Major records in Shanghai tour de force
When the smoke cleared in Shanghai after an incredible series, Spirit emerged as the champions of the Perfect World Shanghai Major over FaZe in an exciting 2-1 series punctuated by fantastic plays by the stars of both teams. However, no star shined brighter on the Shanghai stage than Spirit's Danil "donk" Kryshkovets, with the 17-year-old posting an insane 1.67 rating in the three-map final.
With the Russian youngster leading his squad to their first Major, donk broke multiple individual Major records, further cementing donk's superstar status in the Counter-Strike 2 world. We have highlighted three of the most notable new records below.
Youngest player to win a Major
The impressive record notched by donk in Shanghai is without a doubt the Russian becoming the youngest player to ever win a Major. While CS2 is undoubtedly a game trending towards young stars like those seen on Spirit and The MongolZ, the record for youngest player to win a Major has been stagnant for some time.
You have to look all the way back to the ELEAGUE Major Atlanta 2017 to see the last time the record was broken. In that Major, Astralis took down Virtus.pro in a fantastic final, netting Astralis' Markus "Kjaerbye" Kjærbye the record as the Dane won the Major at only 18 years and 277 days old.
Kjaerbye winning the Major at just 18 years old was considered an insane feat at the time, but donk completely blew past that figure by winning the Major at only 17 years and 324 days old, nearly a year younger than Kjaerbye.
Highest-rated player in Major history
Another fantastic achievement by donk at the Shanghai Major sees the young star as the best player to ever play a Major in the game's modern history. When looking at records recorded on HLTV with the modern Rating 2.0/2.1 dataset, donk managed to scrape past CS:GO's greatest star Oleksandr "s1mple" Kostyliev, who finished the PGL Stockholm Major 2021 with a 1.47 rating with a 1.49 rating of his own.
This result places donk among some of the greatest players to ever play the game, including s1mple, Marcelo "coldzera" David, Robin "flusha" Rönnquist, and Dan "apEX" Madesclaire.
Highest-Rated Rifler in a Major Finals (Rating 2.1/2.0)
Along with having the best-ever performance at a Major as a whole, donk can also count the best-ever rifling performance in a Major finals on his list of achievements. With donk posting a 1.67 rating over three maps against FaZe in Shanghai, he beat out Evgenii "FL1T" Lebedev's 1.63 rating against HEROIC in Rio, Valeriy "b1t" Vakhovskiy's 1.49 rating against FaZe in Copenhagen, Håvard "rain" Nygaard's 1.49 rating against NAVI in Antwerp.
In fact the only player on Rating 2.0/2.1 to have a higher rating in a Major finals is Astralis' Nicolai "device" Reedtz with a 1.71 rating against AVANGAR in the StarLadder Berlin Major 2019, albeit on the AWP.
With the rifle role being more prone to deaths and less likely to save in man disadvantage situations, among other considerations, donk's achievement is incredibly impressive especially against a team as drilled as FaZe.
Overall, it goes without saying donk's performance at this Major was one of the best of all time and is undoubtedly one for the history books.
