From underachievers, to underdogs, and now to favourites, FURIA’s rise in 2025 has been a joy to watch.

Prior to this Grand Final they’d already knocked every other top team down a peg. Falcons, MOUZ, The MongolZ, Spirit, you name it, they’d all fallen to the FURIA sword. All apart from Vitality.

Until now.

Thrown into a surprise pick of Ancient after Vitality finally realised they play Train like a bunch of Gold Novas, the Brazilians came out of the gates hot. 8-4 after a solid T half, Ancient had long descended into a puggy bloodbath. Neither of these teams should have been playing the map, but Christ are we glad they did.

Vitality threatened to make their gamble pay off. A mezii pistol ace brought them back into the game, and a crisp ZywOo 4k put them in the lead, but FURIA refused to go down easy. FalleN clutched up to keep his team in it, and FURIA went on to secure the 1-0 lead at 13-11.

It wasn’t going to be that easy to take down the big bad, though. Vitality returned fire on Inferno as they raced to a 5-0 lead on their T side. Still, taking down the final boss isn’t fun unless there’s a challenge, and FURIA rose to it, pulling the game back for a competitive 7-5 half with some clutch plays.

Both sides kept brawling in the second half. FURIA was the team managing to pick up most of the round wins, a six round streak saw them take an 11-7 lead, but you can’t win them all if flameZ is shooting like this.

It’s a good job you only have to win 13 rounds then, really. FURIA secured the map at 13-10.

2-0 in the series and with a ten game winning streak on map three, Overpass, everything was coming up FURIA. Vitality did go into the second half with an 8-4 lead, sure, but as FURIA entered the stronger CT side, the feeling was that these big plays from ropz and ZywOo wouldn’t quite be enough to keep Vitality in the series.

And those feelings were soon confirmed. YEKINDAR kicked off the second half with some quick thinking on the pistol round, and molodoy brought the map within one round with his AWP. apEX did then pull off a nasty clutch, but class was in session, and FalleN needed to take some names.

13-11 when it was all said and done, FURIA had actually pulled it off. They’d 3-0’d the best team in the world. One of the best teams we’ve ever seen. After being completely written off just six months ago, they’d announced themselves as possibly the favourite to win the Major.

Having a big bad is great, but it’s only great as long as a worthy champion rises to usurp them. MOUZ, Spirit, and Falcons? They all tried and failed. G2 won a battle but not the war. But in FURIA, something special has been brewing this year, and now it’s time for them to place the crown on their heads.

Poll

Losing is a hard thing to endure, and we all have our own ways of coping with it. The question is, though:

Here’s how you answered the last poll

After Valve announced that Major finals will now be BO5s, we asked you: What is the next upgrade they should make to the Major?

💀 Remove BO1s 🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ - 34%

➡️ Bring back RMRs 🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ - 19%

❌ Get rid of Stage 1 ⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ - 3%

🗑️ Ban teams we don’t like from competing 🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨 - 44%