Who are the rookie players in CS2 in 2026?

HLTV has simplified the eligibility criteria ahead of the Rookie of the Year award. The award has been given to the best new names in the top-tier scene since 2022. It was also announced that the 2026 award will be presented by ATK Gear.

A player's eligibility can now be checked using only four stats pages. The previous system also looked at how many weeks a player spent in the world ranking top 20. Age is still not decisive for rookie status. Thanks to this rule, Guy Iluz (NertZ) won the award in 2023. The goal is to count the year in which players reach the top level as their rookie year.

Last year's race turned into a head-to-head battle between Maksim Lukin (kyousuke) and Danil Golubenko (molodoy). According to HLTV, the 2026 race is still open two months before the end of the year. HLTV determines the award using the same criteria as its Top 20 Players of the Year list. For this reason, the rookie highest on the Top 20 wins the award. In recent years this has applied to molodoy (6th place), Danil Kryshkovets (donk, 1st place), NertZ (14th place) and Ilya Osipov (m0NESY, 7th place).

In this year's race, Vladislav Lysov (xiELO) is the rookie who has played the most maps at major events. He is followed by Džiugas Steponavičius (dziugss) and Dmytro Myroshnychenko (dem0n) from FUT. Luciano Herrera (luchov) and dem0n are the only rookies to have won two EVP awards. Nikita Samolotov (cmtry) is the only rookie to have won an MVP at PGL Bucharest. Dziugss, Nikita Kochenyuk (tenzy), Emil Moskvitin (nota) and Adrian Vincze (xelex) each won one EVP this year. Daniel Ageyev (syph0) stood out at PGL Masters Bucharest.

The list is ordered by the maps played at major events in 2026. Players who are already ineligible for the 2027 Rookie of the Year award are marked with a star in the list.