Inside K27's teenage core: HLTV profiles xeedo, kashl1d and qw1nk1

HLTV has published a triple-edition Prospects spotlight centred on the young core driving K27, profiling Aleksey "xeedo" Mikulich, Danila "kashl1d" Dronov and Daniil "qw1nk1" Kabilov, who sit third, seventh and eleventh respectively on the outlet's prospects ranking.

xeedo, the team's opener and the highest-ranked player on the October list, grew up in Vitebsk, Belarus, and still lives there despite a schedule dominated by travel. He played various games from the age of six but only took Counter-Strike seriously in his teens, moving onto FACEIT in 2021 and reaching his first LANs with friends in 2023.

According to HLTV, a Belarusian scout known as dstr, later identified as Alexey Baranov, spotted him and invited him to a LAN in Minsk, where he played alongside fellow Belarusian Svyatoslav "MaSvAl" Masko. xeedo said that experience convinced him he needed to keep grinding and developing in the game.

His path was not straightforward. He joined Nemiga's academy in 2022, left in March 2023 and stepped away from Counter-Strike for six months. He told HLTV that watching Danil "donk" Kryshkovets dominate the scene pulled him back, and that donk has remained his role model since.

On his return, now playing CS2, xeedo broke into the top 15 of the FACEIT Elo ranking and began drawing interest from CIS teams, failing several tryouts including one with Vaseline Worms. Ivan "zweih" Gogin, departing that roster for Nemiga, recommended him instead, and within two weeks he had joined the side already known as K27, around the time CEO Vanya Kondrat came on board.

xeedo described prioritising Counter-Strike over university almost immediately, with his older brother helping explain the decision to their parents. He enrolled at university, attended for a week, stopped going and was eventually expelled. He credited scout dstr, CEO Vanya Kondrat's investment in the team, and in-game leader Daniil "X5G7V" Maryshev for shaping his development, and told HLTV his ambition is to reach a Major and sustain that level against every Tier S side.

kashl1d, described by HLTV as the most vocal of the trio and the longest-serving name on the prospects list since it launched in the second half of 2025, is from Voronezh and now lives in Moscow alongside his teammate qw1nk1, whom he called his "lil' bro" in the interview.

Now 19, kashl1d said his father introduced him to Counter-Strike: Source at age eight, and that he moved on to FACEIT and streaming a few years later, around 11 or 12. He told HLTV that balancing school, sport and competitive Counter-Strike created friction at home, as his parents did not immediately grasp how serious he was about the game.

A more serious complication followed: kashl1d disclosed a VAC ban from his pre-teen years that was only lifted roughly a year ago after being found wrongful, following bans he said stemmed from using a skin changer and cheats in matchmaking between the ages of nine and twelve. He said the ban would otherwise have kept him out for seven years rather than five and barred him from competing at a Major.

HLTV's feature names qw1nk1 as the third subject of the spotlight, ranked eleventh among the site's prospects, though the published detail on his background centres on his living and playing arrangement with kashl1d in Moscow.