Thorin and Pimp rank HLTV’s world No. 1 no higher than third for Singapore, and Thorin calls their two trophies among the season’s least valuable S-tier wins.
Duncan “Thorin” Shields and Jacob “Pimp” Winneche spent the opening half hour of Thursday’s Counter-Points episode on Last Free Nation asking what FURIA‘s two titles in a row are worth, and neither of them arrived at a Major. Thorin puts Team Vitality and Team Spirit first and second for the PGL Major Singapore, MOUZ third and FURIA “fourth or fifth”. Pimp has them third or fourth and calls them “a dark horse”.
Thorin said the back-to-back wins had made the Major more interesting, but that was as far as he would go:
The difference is FURIA ain’t winning the Major, mate. If I had to go in order, look, Vitality and Spirit instantly get one and two. That’s just obvious. No matter what you think of Spirit, they just show them the capability to do it. […] I’ll probably put MOUZ actually after that. I’ll probably put them third. I think they probably earned that too, if you look at how many times they’ve gone deep. But after that, FURIA can go in. They can go in fourth or fifth or something.
He placed them “with the likes of FUT, Aurora, just behind MOUZ”, and added that FURIA could probably beat both of those teams on the right day.
“Two of the least valuable S-tier trophies this season”
Thorin’s case is about who FURIA beat, not how often. “You need to beat someone big. And at the moment, when you’re looking up, the only big teams they’re basically beating is, like, the MOUZes of the world,” he said, before going further: “Those two trophies are two of the least valuable S-tier trophies this season.”
Both were won in a studio. The Thunderpick World Championship was played at BLAST Arena Studios in Malta, where FURIA beat BetBoom Team 2-0, Legacy 2-1 and Aurora Gaming 2-0 before edging BetBoom 3-2 in the final. PGL Masters Bucharest was played in PGL’s studio, and FURIA’s Swiss stage there is the part Thorin leans on: “If you go and look, in the Swiss, they lost to both Spirit and NAVI.” They went 3-2 through the Swiss, beat BetBoom 2-0 and MOUZ 2-1 in the playoffs, and then Nemiga Gaming 3-2 in the final.
FURIA3-2
BetBoomDust2 13-6, Ancient 16-19, Nuke 9-13, Mirage 13-11, Cache 13-6FURIA3-2
NemigaAncient 2-13, Dust2 13-5, Cache 13-2, Mirage 11-13, Nuke 13-6Nemiga were 21st in HLTV’s ranking on the day of the Bucharest final and BetBoom 14th when they met FURIA in Malta. The semi-final win over MOUZ is the one result Thorin accepts: “Aside from, I think, the match that they beat MOUZ on at PGL, they would have been favoured for most of the other games.”
Five maps against BetBoom, five against Nemiga
Pimp made the same point from the scorelines. “They can win tournaments right now where everyone seems to struggle a little bit, where they go into a best of five grand final, check notes, against BetBoom, they need five maps to beat BetBoom,” he said. In Malta FURIA were 1-2 down and 2-10 behind on Mirage before winning the map 13-11. In Bucharest they lost Ancient 2-13 and Mirage 11-13 around three one-sided wins, and Pimp accepted that FURIA were “a little bit more convincing” in that final.
The Dane’s conclusion:
But still, you need five maps against BetBoom and Nemiga. You’re not going to beat Vitality in a best of five grand final playing like that. You’re not going to beat Falcons if they magically find a way to get into the grand final.
Vitality are his pick to win in Singapore, “most definitely”, and he argued the full lineup is “still a different beast” after “getting to two semi-finals with a stand-in”. FURIA, he said, would be the underdog against Vitality, Spirit and Team Falcons in a match where both teams play their best.
He also warned against the hype on Reddit and HLTV’s forums: “You’re basically falling for the same trap that everyone fell for at Budapest as well. We’re like, they’re going to win the Major. They’re the main favourites to win the Major. They’ll win it all.” Thorin said FURIA had earned favourite status before the StarLadder Budapest Major last December, and they lost the quarter-final there 2-1 to NAVI.
NAVI as FURIA’s equal
NAVI are where the two disagree with the rankings most. Pimp said his gut feeling is that “FURIA and NAVI have an equal chance of winning the Major. It’s not high, but it’s an equal chance”, and that the level NAVI showed in beating FURIA and Spirit in Bucharest “was higher than some of the level of Counter-Strike FURIA delivered winning a trophy”.
His reason is the veto. NAVI, he said, “are the only team right now in the world who has a true …] seven map pool”, which lets them remove an opponent’s best map in any series. NAVI swept FURIA in the Bucharest Swiss, 13-10 on Ancient and 13-5 on FURIA’s Dust2 pick, and FURIA needed two overtime maps to beat them 2-1 in Beijing on Tuesday. Since then NAVI have [knocked out the Major champions Falcons.
FalleN: “one of the best career moves he’s ever made”
Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo has said all season that he retires at the end of it, and both hosts think he still has the level. Pimp said he is “not a liability in FURIA” and that opponents never build game plans around him:
I think, individually speaking, him moving from the AWP to the rifle is one of the best career moves he’s ever made, because that gave him another year where he was actually […] not a liability.
Pimp added that FalleN “is actually staying within FURIA right now because he’s playing good enough to be there”. Thorin, who said people see him as a FalleN hater, went the other way: “He looks like he could easily still play for two more years, mate”, and he said he wishes the 35-year-old would not retire. FalleN was voted player of the match in the Thunderpick final, 78-76 across five maps, and went 65-57 against Nemiga.
Friday’s answer
The episode does not touch FURIA’s first defeat in China. The MongolZ beat them 2-1 in the Group A upper final on Wednesday, taking FURIA’s own Cache pick, and FalleN finished that series 32-53. FURIA now open the IEM Beijing playoffs against BetBoom on , with MOUZ waiting in Saturday’s semi-final. NAVI play PARIVISION in the other quarter-final, so the two teams Pimp rates as equals could meet in Sunday’s Bo5 final.
FURIA arrived in Beijing as HLTV’s new world No. 1 on 944 points, but Valve’s VRS of 2 November has them third on 1,912, behind MOUZ and Vitality. Vitality and Spirit are not in Beijing, so a third trophy would come without the two teams at the top of both hosts’ lists. Pimp said a win in China would still make him “alter my expectations”. After Beijing only BLAST Rivals Fall remains before the Major starts on 24 November.
