On December 18, Team Spirit announced that Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov was moved to the bench and that Boris “magixx” Vorobyev would return in his place, taking over the in-game leader role. In his Telegram channel, Leonid posted a lengthy message in which he summed up six years spent on Spirit’s CS2 roster, highlighted key players, and concluded the post by saying that he is now taking a break, after which he will decide whether it is worth continuing his career as a professional player or not. A significant number of experts predict his transition to a coaching role after 12 years of playing career.
I think the replacement option is a logical conclusion to my path at this moment. Right now, the plan is to rest and reset. A lot happened this year, where, no matter how it may sound, life and certain situations affected both my level of play and the team, so everything is quite natural. Going forward, I wish the team and the organization all the very best, so that your results become better than they were and all goals are achieved. At first it may be hard, or maybe not — who knows. A global rebuild always takes time, so please give the team that time (this is an appeal to the fans!).
As for me, I’ll focus on myself. It’s New Year now, no decisions yet, and later we’ll see each other on streams. Maybe I’ll get a chance to commentate matches and try myself in different areas until the summer. And then it will be possible to understand whether it’s worth continuing to play or not. See you!
Leonid “chopper” Vishnyakov
Over 6 years, Chopper together with Spirit reached incredible heights, earning over $1 million in prize money and winning dozens of trophies, with the most valuable being Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, Intel Extreme Masters Cologne 2025, Intel Extreme Masters Katowice 2024, and others.
