Having previously won IEM Chengdu and the Thunderpick World Championships, FURIA have now wrapped up a win at BLAST Rivals Hong Kong to take their trophy tally to four for the season – and make themselves favorites for the StarLadder Budapest Major.

Their latest victory came against Falcons, with Falcons showing a new look in the final to demand more out of FURIA than any team has before.

FURIA leave Asia with two trophies

Thanks to their victory over Vitality in Chengdu, FURIA had already proven they could translate their success in smaller tournaments into wins against the world’s best teams. However, consistency on the big stage had not yet been achieved, and their status as one of the favorites to win the Major was still somewhat uncertain.

That doubt will be gone now, though. Although Falcons’ new look Inferno and a rare top frag performance from Damjan “kyxsan” Stoilovski saw the Saudi organization take the advantage off the back of a 13-3 win, FURIA dug deep into their playbook to take the next three maps in hard-fought victories. 

The first of those three maps, Nuke, looked destined to go the way of Falcons. After a strong start from FURIA on their CT, Falcons star Maxim “kyousuke” Lukim led a T side fightback, putting his team into a fantastic position to make it 2-0 in the series as they went on to the more favoured CT side with the score tied at 6-6. 

However, sadly for Falcons, Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis cared little for the idea of a “more favoured side.” The Latvian went on to pull off a generational T side on Nuke, recording a 21-3 K/D and a monstrous 4.06 rating as FURIA secured a 13-9 win. To put into perspective just how crazy that half was: FURIA’s next highest fragger was Yuri “yuurih” Santos, who picked up seven.

The remaining two maps, Train and Mirage, were bloodbaths that both required double overtime in order to find a victor. The AWPers for either team, Danil “molodoy” Golubenko and Ilya “m0NESY” Ospiov, both came alive, trading blows as they looked to force their team over the line.

m0NESY’s efforts would see him claim the MVP award, but it will be a bittersweet reward as it was molodoy’s frags that ultimately made the difference. FURIA took the advantage in the series on Train with a 19-15 scoreline, then closed it out on Mirage at 19-16.

The favourites for the Major

After winning four of the last five events they have attended, FURIA are now the nailed-on favourites for the StarLadder Budapest Major.

The Major was previously up in the air, given that the likes of Falcons, MOUZ, Spirit, and Vitality all saw their names potentially floated, but no one boasts the same form as FURIA heading into the event.

A lot can still change within the three weeks until the final, especially with teams like Falcons already improving their map pool, but as FURIA IGL Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo continues to hint towards retirement, is it time for one last Cinderella story for one of Counter-Strike’s greatest ever players?