btrams crunches “one-man show” big events: m0NESY tops the list as donk stands alone with a Cologne title

btrams crunches “one-man show” big events: m0NESY tops the list as donk stands alone with a Cologne title

A new stats deep-dive from data analyst btrams has put a number on one of Counter-Strike’s most enduring storylines: how often does a single superstar end up doing the heavy lifting at the very biggest tournaments? 

In his “Lone Stars” breakdown, btrams tracked big-event runs where a team’s output effectively hinged on one player, then filtered out tournaments where the star had meaningful secondary support — highlighting “help” in particular when a teammate managed a 1.10+ rating at the same event. 

m0NESY out in front — and rarely with a co-star

At the top sits Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, who, according to btrams, owns the record with seven such “one-man show” tournaments.

Notably, btrams adds that m0NESY had “help” by the 1.10+ standard in only two of those runs — with NiKo reaching that mark at ESL Pro League Season 22 and IEM Katowice. 

donk close behind — but the only one to convert it into a Cologne trophy

Danil “donk” Kryshkovets follows, with btrams noting that donk did have a second strong performer more often — “some help at 4/6 of his tournaments,” with sh1ro posting 1.10+ ratings in those cases. 

What makes donk’s entry unique is the payoff: btrams points to him as the only player to win a Big Event in this ‘one-man show’ bracket, citing Spirit’s IEM Cologne triumph where donk still finished far ahead of his closest teammate. 

HLTV’s event record confirms Spirit won IEM Cologne 2025, and the individual event pages show exactly how wide the internal gap was: donk posted a 1.50 rating at the tournament, while sh1ro recorded 1.16 — a 0.34 difference, matching btrams’ note. 

ZywOo’s carry spikes: a 2024 cluster

While btrams’ notes put m0NESY and donk at the top of the leaderboard, he also highlights that all of ZywOo’s “one-man carry” tournaments in this category came in 2024, underlining how sharply Vitality’s season narrative (and opponent quality) can shift from year to year even for a player of his consistency. 

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A conversation shaped by rookies — and why kyousuke’s debut got instant hype

The “Lone Stars” framing lands in a CS2 era increasingly defined by youthful, high-impact entries and teams leaning harder into a single win condition. That’s a big part of why Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin has become a talking point the moment he touched the server for Falcons.

In a HLTV interview, NiKo summed up the early read in a way that instantly fed the narrative machine, saying kyousuke “reminds me a bit of myself… the way he shoots… he likes to go for flashy plays.” 

And while individual debut flashes don’t automatically translate into deep tournament runs, kyousuke’s first big event with Falcons was significant enough to be framed as a major storyline around IEM Cologne 2025, even as Falcons fell short of the playoffs.