FURIA reach playoffs of IEM Beijing right after winning their last event, as NAVI await another test in the lower bracket.
FURIA have followed up their recent tournament win with another playoff run at IEM Beijing 2026. This time, they got revenge on a recovering NAVI that beat them at PGL Bucharest.
Ihor ‘w0nderful’ Zhdanov was superb throughout the series, putting NAVI on the front foot for most of it. Valeriy ‘b1t’ Vakhovskiy and Mihai ‘iM’ Ivan both also made valuable but futile contributions.
FURIA ended up winning in a three-map affair that had overtimes and match points against them.
NAVI pull through on Ancient
NAVI won their pick of Ancient convincingly, despite going to overtime. They lost both pistol rounds, and yet were in pole position to close out the map multiple times.
An 8-4 first half was carried by w0nderful and Drin ‘makazze’ Shaqiri. A timely 2v4 helped NAVI turned a close half into a dominant run of rounds.
On the second half, FURIA’s never-say-die attitude kept them in the fight to win the series 2-0. Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis continued in his MVP form, getting entries left and right, including one that left NAVI’s captain, Aleksi ‘Aleksib’ Virolainen, speechless.
Still, NAVI’s CT-side prevailed with the help of Valeriy ‘b1t’ Vakhovskiy, who swung rounds by 16% for NAVI just on his behalf on the CT-side. His impact led to NAVI winning the map 16-12.
YEKINDAR said that the map came down to mid-round decisions.
I think we were a better team in terms of decisions in early rounds, but I think it was, they outplayed us completely in terms of mid-round decisions. We started playing Ancient only in this season.
w0nderful’s carry is wasted as FURIA seize upon chances
NAVI were once again on the front foot on Nuke, after logging a monstrous 9-3 CT-side with the help of w0nderful. The sniper had multiple highlight rounds as he shut down FURIA single-handedly.
One round saw w0nderful win a clutch with a Scout with a sequence of headshots, with another having him get a double kill with the Desert Eagle outside.
However, thanks to winning the pistol round, FURIA still had a fighting chance. They would seize upon it in the second half, despite being against three match points while down 9-12.
A fantastic Kaike ‘KSCERATO’ Cerato would be talismanic in their victory, finding a 3k in overtime to fully shut down NAVI’s attempt at winning 2-0, finishing Nuke 23-19 with 94.7 ADR.
With that 16-12 win, FURIA moved onto Cache.
Late-game clutches get FURIA to playoffs
FURIA had won all of the pistols in the series so far to stay in it, but the script was flipped here. It was NAVI winning the first rounds, and then being outclassed with rifles and grenades in their hands.
This map came down to the wire, but FURIA’s dominant 8-4 first half was critical in their victory. A NAVI that could find bomb plants but not round wins was economically out of resources.
In the second half, NAVi won the pistol and was starting to look dominant, but Danil ‘molodoy’ Golubenko had something else in store. He pulled a round out of the hat by shifting to the other site at the last minute, with intuition and aim closing it out to put FURIA back in the game.
FURIA took the lead by breaking NAVI at the last minute, and an AWP clutch by captain Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo to put the last nail in the coffin.
FURIA won the decider map 13-10, despite NAVI and w0nderful’s best efforts, to book a a spot in the IEM Beijing playoffs.
