Nine years into his career, the Latvian finally has an MVP medal, and FURIA now have five players with at least one.
Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis is the MVP of PGL Masters Bucharest 2026. HLTV named him the event’s best player after 
FURIA beat 
Nemiga 3-2 in Saturday’s grand final, and it is the first MVP award of his career.
FURIA3-2NemigaAncient 2-13, Dust II 13-5, Cache 13-2, Mirage 11-13, Nuke 13-6The title is FURIA’s second in a row after the Thunderpick World Championship and is worth $450,000, split evenly between the players and the organisation. We covered the final itself in our grand final report.
YEKINDAR himself played it down after the final. He told James “BanKs” Banks, as HLTV reported:
You know the term, life tournament? Don’t expect this every tournament.
Best on the server when it mattered
The 27-year-old went 82-57 across the five maps of the final with 99.6 ADR and 75.8% KAST. His 1.56 rating was the highest on the server by a distance: Nemiga’s khaN was next at 1.18, and KSCERATO led the rest of FURIA at 1.15.
In the playoffs as a whole, HLTV has him first in rating (1.37), damage per round (91.6), kills per round (0.82) and round swing, and joint first in opening kills per round. Over the full event only BetBoom‘s zorte finished with a higher rating, 1.31 to 1.27, and zorte played nine maps to YEKINDAR’s 21.
| YEKINDAR in Bucharest | Maps | K-D | ADR | KAST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Whole event | 21 | 332-281 | 86.7 | 72.0% |
| Grand final | 5 | 82-57 | 99.6 | 75.8% |
The start was less convincing. HLTV points to an up-and-down first three rounds of the group stage, where FURIA lost to NAVI and Team Spirit before beating TYLOO and Team Liquid to reach the playoffs. From there they swept BetBoom, beat MOUZ 2-1 and came back from 0-1 down in the final.
Five MVPs in one lineup
The award also means every player in FURIA’s lineup now has at least one HLTV MVP medal on his profile:
| Player | HLTV MVPs | Events |
|---|---|---|
 FalleN | 4 | DreamHack Austin 2016, ESL One Cologne 2017, BLAST Pro Series Copenhagen 2017, ZOTAC Cup Masters 2018 |
| yuurih | 3 | ESL One: Road to Rio North America, DreamHack Masters Spring 2020 North America, IEM New York 2020 North America |
| KSCERATO | 2 | Thunderpick World Championship 2025 and 2026 |
 molodoy | 2 | IEM Chengdu 2025, FISSURE Playground 2 |
| YEKINDAR | 1 | PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 |
KSCERATO picked up his second at the Thunderpick World Championship less than two weeks ago, so FURIA players have taken the MVP at both of the team’s last two title wins.
A long wait for the entry fragger
The medal has taken a long time. YEKINDAR has been in HLTV’s top 20 players of the year three times, eighth in 2021 and 15th in both 2022 and 2025, without an MVP to go with it.
He came through Elements Pro Gaming and pro100 before joining Virtus.pro in May 2020, where he became known as one of the most aggressive entry fraggers in the game. He was moved to the bench in May 2022, joined Liquid that October and spent two years there before he was benched again in December 2024. FURIA brought him in as a stand-in in April 2025 and signed him permanently that July.
In FalleN’s FURIA he still does the job he made his name with. In Bucharest he took an opening duel in 33.2% of his rounds and topped HLTV’s opening-kills table for the event with 70 opening kills. FURIA won 75.7% of the rounds in which he got the first kill.
There is little time to enjoy it. FURIA fly to Asia for IEM Beijing 2026 and BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2 as FalleN’s farewell tour goes on.
