Team Spirit benches two players, following a disappointing season

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Following the Budapest Major, the Counter-Strike team Spirit announced changes to its player lineup. Fans are excited about the updates, which include bringing back two players who have previously won Major championships and giving one player a new, more important role.

CS2 Team Spirit is parting ways with players Ivan “zweih” Gogin and Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov. While the reasons behind their departures differ, as explained by the team’s coach, both stem from Spirit’s uneven performance throughout the latter half of 2025.

The team’s new lineup shouldn’t upset fans too much, as it features players they already know and love.

  • Myroslav “zont1x” Plakhotia is back to his previous in-game role. Reportedly, he recovered from psychological issues.
  • Boris “magixx” Vorobyev has become an in-game leader for Team Spirit.

A short presence of zweh

In early July 2025, Spirit signed player zweh to their team. He previously played for Nemiga Gaming, a smaller CS2 team, and took the place of magixx.

With zweh, Team Spirit won two big CS2 tournaments in the first half of August:

  • IEM Cologne 2025;
  • BLAST Bounty Fall 2025.

Spirit’s coach, Sergey “hally” Shavayev, praised zweh as a skilled and supportive teammate. However, he noted that zweh needs further development to consistently perform against top-tier competition.

We’d love to continue working with him if we could use more than five players on the field. But it’s clear he’s best suited for a different position than what we currently need.

Spirit | hally

Benching chopper again

We’ve seen this happen before with Team Spirit – they removed chopper from the active roster in November 2021, but he returned in February 2022. However, a return to the lineup this time seems less likely.

Chopper joined Spirit in March 2019 and later led the team to victory at the CS2 Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024 as their in-game leader.

The coach’s message regarding chopper became pretty personal.

Over the years, you’ve become my most trusted teammate. I’m so grateful for all the great moments we’ve shared and everything we’ve accomplished together as a team.

Spirit | hally

Back to active CS2 esports: zont1x and magixx return to Spirit

Most Spirit fans are reacting positively to the new roster, largely because it includes the return of two familiar players who are eager to compete.

Zont1x has been with Spirit since 2021, starting with their academy team and eventually joining the main roster. In September 2025, he asked to be temporarily removed from the active lineup for personal reasons, following Spirit’s failure to qualify for the BLAST Open Fall 2025 main event. HEROIC’s Andrey “tN1R” Tatarinovich took his place at that time.

This return to Spirit is significant for magixx, who is now the team’s in-game leader. He’s been with the team since 2019, and fans widely see this as a deserved advancement in his career.

Spirit, the team of donk

Team Spirit had a strong start to 2024 and early 2025, winning the Perfect World Shanghai Major and several other major tournaments. However, their performance declined leading up to the Budapest Major in 2025. While they still placed in the top four at that large CS2 tournament, it appears the team wasn’t satisfied with that result.

This year, a common critique of Spirit was their reliance on star player Danil “donk” Kryshkovets. While the team achieved success at major tournaments thanks to donk’s outstanding plays, their losses often stemmed from a lack of proactive support from his teammates.

These changes don’t represent a major overhaul of the team, as it’s not a completely new lineup. The only real difference is the addition of tN1R and the departure of chopper. Aside from that and some individual adjustments, Team Spirit remains largely the same.

This newly updated team will first get to show what they can do at BLAST Bounty Winter 2026, taking place from January 22nd to 25th. It marks the beginning of the 2026 Counter-Strike 2 esports season.

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2025-12-19 12:11