Prospects ranking: October 2026
Daniel "syph0" Ageyev is the big story in this month's Prospects ranking after leading Nemiga to the CIS LAN Season 7 title.
syph0 jumps eight places to end the month in second place.
Daniel "syph0" Ageyev is the big story in this month's Prospects ranking after leading Nemiga to the CIS LAN Season 7 title.
The 18-year-old Kazakh, a Spirit Academy graduate who once trialled for Cloud9 , also has 4558 ELO on FACEIT, which has helped him jump from tenth last month to second by the end of September.
Check out the new Prospects page on-site
There's a small reshuffle around syph0 , with David "Dawy" Bibik retaining his number one spot and players moving up or down one or two spots below him.
Klimentii "kl1m" Krivosheev is a big faller, down five places as his inactivity starts to bite. He's overtaken by compatriots Danila "kashl1d" Dronov and Vladimir "b1st" Krasikov who both hit their Prospect ranking peaks inside the top seven.
As we go down the list, there's more big changes. Egor "ayuki" Ershov has climbed ten places after some strong online form, with Artur "pleynnn" Syzdykov (+9) and Nikolai "Nikodeon" Sørensen (+8) joining him in the top 20.
Zolbayar "tikuak" Chimedtseren and Vyacheslav "slaxejezzz" Vinokurov both struggled to maintain their tier two form after being signed to big teams, and tumble down the ranking as a result. The same is true for Roman "n0te" Hamze , further down.
Zhassulan "Botpa1" Assembek , meanwhile, has become a local LAN specialist. He has a 1.20 LAN rating in our six month period, winning four trophies, and went even better at iPlay Esports Halyx with a 1.39 rating.
There were also good LAN showings for Liam "MaiL09" Tügel in Prague, Georgi "Jorko" Mitev in Las Vegas, and Rickson "Rkzinho" Ribeiro Dias in Rio de Janeiro.
The CIS LANs in Moscow are proving to be a Prospect hotspot too, as Ilya "flouzer" Selifonov and pleynnn both exceeded 1.25 ratings. syph0 , though, with his 1.25 playoff rating en route to the trophy, deserves the most plaudits.
Explore the data behind the ranking in this month's interactive dashboard
Graduates
Kalan "sliimey" Lorenzo , Alisher "tasman" Marat , and Pedro "pepe" Almeida all graduated this month after turning 21.
sliimey was the Oceanic representative on the list since April, and is still averaging above a 1.20 rating in the last three months.
tasman has also been a staple on lists this year, competing with Botpa1 as to who can star the most in the Kazakh LAN circuit.
pepe never escaped the top 40, but made it into seven editions of the list before ageing out.
For a reminder of the criteria, see here:
Prospects criteria, as of August 31, 2026:
Under 21 years of age Fewer than 50 maps at Big Events Fewer than 50 maps in a top 20 team vs a top 20 team Fewer than 100 maps in a top 30 team vs a top 30 team Fewer than 300 maps in a top 50 team vs a top 50 team Fewer than 1000 career maps Note: Eligibility is now updated for each monthly ranking
Stat Attack
We've got some new metrics for this month's stat attack, as we dive a bit deeper into round swing.
On the horizontal axis, we've got tiebreak swing , or swing when teams have the same amount of players. This includes openers in 5v5s and clutch wins in 1v1s, as well as the ones in the middle.
On the vertical, it's clawback swing (h/t btrams for the name), or swing when the player's team has a man disadvantage. The average is quite low for this one, as you'd expect given the inherent unlikeliness of turning these situations around.
AWPers like Gleb "gr1ks" Gazin excel in even situations, though the Belarussian is bottom of all 50 prospects when his team are in a disadvantage.
Kirill "Kiryasoo" Solovkov , kashl1d , and b1st in that bottom right corner of players who are great in a 3v3 but unlikely to move the needle once their team falls behind, whether because of saving or lost clutches.
Riflers are spread out more evenly, though those with higher opening attempts actually score much better at clawback swing. This might be because of their explosive nature, or a more boring case of their swing coming earlier in rounds when you lose less win probability for a death.
Diogo "diozera" Oliveira Nunes is our clawback king, right alongside fnatic opener Volodymyr "mazay" Iorhachov . Number one Dawy is also great here, in third place.
In tiebreakers, MaiL09 is actually our top rifler, alongside the unfortunately benched duo of tikuak and slaxejezzz — and North American Chance "WUMBO" Boyer .
Top 50 Prospects: September 2026
How Prospects works
weightedRating: Weighted rating against top 50 teams in the last 6 months formRating: Recency-weighted rating in the last 180 days roundWinRating: Contributions to round wins in the last 6 months
weightedLAN: Weighted rating on LAN in the last 1000 days 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
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Source: HLTV