Forget the world-shaping conflicts and major events unfolding across the globe. During 2025, only one question truly mattered: donk or ZywOo?

Saturday’s HLTV Awards officially brought the competitive year to a close and gave us the final verdict. The French AWPer was crowned the world’s number one - a decision that was always destined to ignite debate, one way or the other.

The donk stans (and donk himself) asked a simple question: if this is an individual award, how can the player who tops virtually every notable stat end up second? The kid just delivered the greatest statistical season in history, and yet lost out to a player who trailed him in most metrics, but collected significantly more trophies and MVPs.

If deep runs and MVP medals carry that much weight, can this truly be called an individual award? After all, no player competes alone. And in that sense, there was no better ensemble in 2025 than Vitality. If that’s the case, does the debate simply boil down to ‘whoever wins the most is the best’?

Honestly, we’re not sure. What is clear, though, is that both sides have a point. And, perhaps, that is what makes the debate so compelling.

For us, the HLTV Awards weren’t defined by who topped the list. The real outrage dropped about an hour before the show even began.

How the f-ck did the StartLater Budapest Major win Event of the Year?!

Audio issues, on-stream lag, ticketing and seating problems, endless delays, atrocious logistics, absurd humiliation rituals, sleep-inducing playoff games… do we really need to keep going? We’d need seventeen f-cking newsletters just to catalogue every problem. Were they playing League of Legends at the Austin Major or IEM Cologne?

And if you think we’re being too harsh, even StarLadder’s own chief-whatever-officer seemed genuinely baffled by the win.

In other news, Vitality won pretty much everything there was to win. Closer (ropz), Anchor (mezii), AWPer (ZywOo), IGL (apEX), Coach (XTQZZZ), and Team of the Year. Shocking.

Elsewhere, molodoy claimed Rookie of the Year after a great debut season, while BIG EQUIPA and ASTRA took home the Female Team and Player of the Year awards. The highlight of the year fittingly went to the second-best player in the world, who singlehandedly dismantled the best player and the best team of the year. Ironic.

And finally, buried beneath all the rankings, arguments, and outrage, HeavyGod was found in the #21 spot. NAVI’s PR really is unmatched.