Is molodoy to FURIA the best signing ever?

There was some hype around molodoy, but nothing like the hype we’ve seen around other AWPers who were killing it in tier two and three. This wasn’t a slam dunk pick-up at the time, not least because FURIA had to switch to English.

Absolutely nobody saw him being this good, and FURIA getting this much better.

FURIA overcame Falcons in the grand final to pick up their fourth trophy of the season. If you had said that sentence would make sense to us in May, we’d have drowned you for being a witch. A completely bonkers prediction.

And yet…

When Falcons blew FURIA out of the water on Inferno 13-3 (which we, legitimately, forgot happened until we went back to look at the game again), and then broke FURIA’s pistol round win straight back to start Nuke, the casters were talking about how FURIA needed to get some rounds to ‘make it competitive.’

It’s fair to say they did that, at least. They immediately broke back and put up a 6-1 lead, and though Falcons recovered, they could not stop the tidal wave that FURIA had set in motion. It took double OT on both map three and four, but molodoy collected 32 kills in both.

He wasn’t even the top fragger in the final, largely because YEKINDAR went absolutely bananas on T side Nuke, dropping 27 in a 13-9 win and picking up a 2.21 (!) rating, with 21 of those kills coming in the second half. He was incredible, and yuurih wasn’t too far behind him in the series.

YEKINDAR: your time on Liquid does not count.

Falcons looked like they might push us to a fifth map when they went up 15-12 on Mirage, but FURIA stood tall and denied them that solace, and from there the outcome was inevitable.

FURIA go into the Major as big, big favourites.

How on Earth did this happen?

Trivia

The win at BLAST Rivals Hong Kong is FalleN’s 15th win in a BO5, but when was his first?

Scroll down to find out the answer!