The first HLTV Prospects Top 50 of this season begins with Adrian “xelex” Vincze in first place after he won BLAST Bounty Season 2 with MOUZ.
31 players graduated from the last series, including perennial ranking-toppers Kacper “xKacpersky” Gabara and Džiugas “dziugss” Steponavičius as we updated eligibility over the summer.
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HLTV Prospects Season 2 graduates
From August onwards, however, graduation will be handled month-to-month as players break our eligibility limits rather than waiting six months season-to-season.
This should help keep the top ten more fresh in each update, and prevent players fans are already familiar with lingering in the ranking. So while xelex is at top spot for now, he may not stay there for long as MOUZ pick up more maps against top opposition.
Players like Jason “JBOEN” Boe Nielsen, who turned 21 since the end of Season 2, will also be phased out as the new system bites next month. Here’s a reminder of the full criteria:
As we go down August’s list, Klimentii “kl1m” Krivosheev, who is still teamless after a great loan at MIBR, is in second while David “Dawy” Bibik sits in third.
K27 duo Aleksey “xeedo” Mikulich and Daniil “qw1nk1” Kabilov both make the top six, while Swedish stars Liam “MaiL09” Tügel and Alex “poiii” Nyholm Sundgren are both in the first seven.
JBOEN and Georgi “Jorko” Mitev earned big moves over the summer to FaZe and Liquid, respectively, and made good starts which sees them fly up the ranking.
Plenty of other prospects made a dent on LAN this month, from Alisher “tasman” Marat in Kazakhstan to Vladimir “b1st” Krasikov in Russia or Kalan “sliimey” Lorenzo in Australia.
22 of our top 50 were not in last month’s ranking update, and the highest climber of our fresh faces is Zhassulan “Botpa1” Assembek (#21), who has been in stellar form for Omega with a 1.20 LAN rating over 20 maps in the last month.
Explore the data behind the ranking in this month’s interactive dashboard
In terms of regional representation, Western Europe has Roman “n0te” Hamze, while Marsborne teammates Bogdan “ogwizard” Savula and Chance “WUMBO” Boyer fly the flag for North America.
Russia leads the way with 15 representatives, with Denmark on eight, Kazakhstan on six, and then Ukraine and Brazil with four.
Players who just missed out on the top 50 include Rūdolfs “rud” Osmanis, Yeray “Joey” Serrano Pérez, Andrii “tired73” Hlushko, and Emir “rim3” Dönmez.
Stat Attack
For this month’s scatterplot we decided to look at how our Prospects perform depending on if their team won or lost the round.
AWPers like b1st, Aldiyar “Aldikon” Alim and Alimzhan “Alkaren” Bitimbay (in a fairly small sample) are strong in round wins but poor in round losses, suggesting some costly deaths.
Then our more passive riflers do well in losses, such as the likes of Egor “ayuki” Ershov and Martin “nut nut” Holm Vestergaard, without contributing too heavily in terms of KPRW.
In the top right, we have players who have high output in round wins without throwing their lives away in losses: kl1m, sliimey, Dawy, and Vladyslav “St0m4k” Lykhoshva being the pick of the bunch.
Top Picks
St0m4k also gets a mention in our Top Picks per role section, having been released by HEROIC Academy. He is in action at Stake Pulse for 9INE but is still formally a free agent with a 1.16 rating in the last three months.
Botpa1’s work in Kazakhstan sees him make it too, while we’ve gone for Julius “Junyme” Meyhoff as our early bird AWPer after some good showings for G2 Ares.
Our top picks are the Russophone trio of Ilya “flouzer” Selifonov, Daniel “syph0” Ageyev, and b1st, who all boast ratings above 1.10 against top 50 teams and on LAN in the last six months.
Transfer Updates
HLTV Top 50 Prospects: August 2026
How HLTV Prospects works
weightedRating: Weighted rating against top 50 teams in the last 6 months
formRating: Recency-weighted rating in the last 6 months
roundWinRating: Contributions to round wins in the last 6 months
weightedLAN: Weighted rating on LAN in all of CS2
playoffRating: Weighted playoff rating, based on event tier in all of CS2
evpPoints: EVP score at notable events
Age: Days old. Means a 16yo with the same stats outscores a 20yo
Bold Predictions: How often a player has been shouted out by a top 20 pro
FACEIT ELO: Ranking points on matchmaking platform FACEIT
Previous spotlights
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HLTV Prospects ranking: July 2026
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HLTV Prospects spotlight: koala
