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GUIDES
Simple Radar
© 2026 TLDR Media, All Rights Reserved.
But the Godfather has risen.
Take yourself back to June. Now imagine someone told you that in five months time, FURIA will take down Vitality 3-0 in a Grand Final. What substance are you guessing they’re on?
MOUZ are never beating the Spurs-y accusations.
For those of you not into football, that means they’re a team of bottlers who will always, always let you down. If things are going right for them, it’s only a matter of time before they don’t.
Vitality struggled more than they should have against Astralis, but they did eventually move past them in three, setting up a semi-final against MOUZ. Alright, we’ve all been here before. 10 times this year already, now 11. MOUZ vs Vitality. Vitality always win.
But MOUZ had won in the group stage, and it started brilliantly.
Nuke was picked by Vitality, but you wouldn’t know it. Vitality had to fight tooth and nail for all three of their T side rounds, and MOUZ matched that four rounds into the second half. MOUZ were 1-0 up in the series, and could go on to their own ma-
What?
What do you mean they lost from 12-4 up?
It’s hard not to let out a sigh and metaphorically pat MOUZ on the head every time you see them lose in the playoffs to Vitality, but this one was heartbreaking. Just to make it worse, they even won map two. They won Vitality’s pick!
If they hadn’t thrown away a 12-4 lead…
Vitality, predictably, went on to win Inferno in a tight-ish fashion and moved on - unconvincingly - to the Grand Final.
They would face FURIA, who easily dispatched of The MongolZ and then, remarkably, did the same to Falcons. YEKINDAR said before the game that ‘m0NESY is great, but we have molodoy’, which seemed like a recipe for disaster - like when you see an old tweet from a Man U fan saying they ‘don’t need Haaland, we have Hojlund’,
It wasn’t like that at all, but in fairness it wasn’t molodoy at the top of the scoreboard. It was yuurih and YEKINDAR who took over and ended the Falcons hopes.
They always had the third place decider, which we’re contractually obliged to tell you finished 2-1 to MOUZ.
Nice of NiKo to show up in the biggest game of them all.
The StarLadder Budapest Major is just around the corner, but before we get there, we’ve got one last tier 1 event to enjoy. Just make sure you avoid Passion UA games - there’s probably not much enjoyment to be had there.
BLAST Rivals 2025 S2 will be kicking off this Wednesday in Hong Kong, featuring a solid team lineup: FURIA, Vitality, paiN, The MongolZ, Spirit, Falcons, TYLOO, and the clown in the middle of the army squad.
In Group A, made up of The MongolZ, Passion UA, Spirit, and Falcons, we’ll start things off with a donk vs. kyousuke matchup that is always fun to watch. As for the likely outcomes, it’s hard to look past The MongolZ, Spirit, and Falcons making it through.
Out of curiosity, do you remember when Passion UA’s last played an official match? Yeah, we didn’t either. It was a 2-1 victory over EYEBALLERS at Urban Riga Open Season 1, all the way back on September 30th. This is going to be a trainwreck.
When it comes to Group B, things get a bit more interesting. The opening matchups - FURIA vs. paiN and Vitality vs. TYLOO - set up a strong possibility of a FURIA vs. Vitality rematch in the upper final. You can bet apEX and the boys can’t wait to get revenge after what went down in Chengdu.
The potential lower final between paiN and TYLOO could also get spicy. While paiN are the favourites on paper, it wouldn’t be shocking to see TYLOO pull off the upset and secure a Playoff spot.
Oh, and just one more tiny detail. Most of us won’t get to watch a damn thing, since it’s yet another tournament in a god-forsaken timezone. We’re really starting to feel for you Aussies.
Who is this player? We’ll give you a hint: he’s Brazilian. Although we hope you knew that already.'
Scroll down to find out the answer!
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.
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?
Trivia answer: steel (The Brazilian one, obviously)
