Kyousuke had been the most highly-touted CS2 prodigy since last year, with many seeing him as the next coming of Donk.

Team Falcons has officially signed 17-year old Russian Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) prodigy Maxim “kyousuke” Lukin from Team Spirit Academy to be their new rifler, with Emil “Magisk” Reif being benched to make way for the new player. With the addition of kyousuke, Falcons has added yet another big name to its already stacked roster that also includes Nikola “NiKo” Kovač, Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov, René “TeSeS” Madsen, and Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilkovski.

Kyousuke had been the most highly-touted prodigy since last year, starting his professional career in March 2024 with Team Spirit Academy at just 16-years old. He averaged a stellar 1.29 rating during his time with Team Spirit Academy, helping the team become one of the most dominant squads in CS2's Tier 2 circuit.

Kyousuke's buyout from Team Spirit Academy reportedly amounted to around US$2 million, but Falcons Chairman Musaed Al-Dossary denied those claims and said “the buyout was big but not close to [US$2 million].”

Many have even drawn comparisons between kyousuke and Team Spirit's Danil “Donk” Kryshkovets. In Donk's rookie year in 2024, he was acclaimed as both rookie of the year and best player of the year by HLTV after leading Spirit to four tournament victories, including the Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024.

While it remains to be seen if kyousuke can reach the same heights that Donk did in his rookie year–especially when the former will be playing alongside two superstars in NiKo and m0NESY–Falcons will surely be a team to watch in the upcoming season with their new prodigy.

Falcons' signing of kyousuke comes after a disastrous run for the team in the recently-concluded BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025. Despite being one of the biggest favourites to challenge eventual champions Team Vitality for the title, Falcons failed to make it out of Stage 2 after losing their first two matches of the stage and getting eliminated by MIBR in round four.

Falcons' first tournament with kyousuke in the lineup is expected to be FISSURE Playground #1, which will take place in Belgrade, Serbia from 15 to 20 July. While the official list of participating teams in that event have yet to be released, it will feature 16 of the top-ranked teams in the Valve Regional Standings where Falcons was ranked third in the last standings update in May.

Aside from FISSURE Playground #1, Falcons are also set to compete in Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2025 from 23 July to 3 August, and the Esports World Cup 2025's CS2 tournament from 20 to 24 August.