The Rookie of the Year prize has been awarded to tier one’s best newcomers since 2022, and it is time to reveal who is eligible for this year’s award show. We are also pleased to announce that the 2026 award will be presented by ATK Gear.
The criteria have been given a tweak to make tracking eligibility easier, and we are now down to four metrics.
New Rookie of the Year criteria
Data taken on 31 December 2025.
Previously, we would also have to check how many weeks each player had spent in the top 20 of our world ranking. Now, it is possible to check whether a player is eligible via just these four stats pages.
Age remains irrelevant to rookie status, a mechanic that allowed Guy “NertZ” Iluz to win the award in 2023. This is so that players’ rookie years are when they break into tier one, which can happen at vastly different ages based on life circumstances and player development.
Whereas last year’s race developed into a head-to-head battle between Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin and Danil “molodoy” Golubenko, 2026 promises a contest that remains wide open with two months left to play.
The Rookie of the Year is decided internally by HLTV, and is done using the same criteria as the Top 20 Players of the Year. This means that the highest-placing rookie on the Top 20 invariably wins the award, as has happened with molodoy (#6), Danil “donk” Kryshkovets (#1), NertZ (#14) and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov (#7).
cmtry is our only rookie MVP so far in 2026
Moving on to this year’s race, Vladislav “xiELO” Lysov has played the most maps of any rookie at notable events, followed by Džiugas “dziugss” Steponavičius and Dmytro “dem0n” Myroshnychenko from breakout team FUT.
Luciano “luchov” Herrera and dem0n are the only rookies with two EVPs, while Nikita “cmtry” Samolotov is our solitary rookie MVP, from PGL Bucharest.
dziugss, Nikita “tenzy” Kochenyuk, Emil “nota” Moskvitin and Adrian “xelex” Vincze have all earned one EVP nod so far this year, while Daniel “syph0” Ageyev stood out at PGL Masters Bucharest.
Eligible players
These are most of the eligible rookies, sorted by maps played at notable events in 2026 so far.
If players are already ineligible for the Rookie of the Year in 2027, they are marked with an asterisk:
