molodoy went 21-5 on Mirage as FURIA recovered from an 11-1 half on their own Inferno pick to reach the semi-finals.
Thirteen rounds to none. FURIA did not give Team Vitality a single round in the Mirage decider on Thursday, and it completed a 2-1 comeback in the Group A winners’ match at BLAST Rivals 2026 Season 2. The defending champions lost their own Inferno pick 5-13, took Vitality’s Dust2 13-10 and go straight to Saturday’s semi-finals in Hong Kong. Vitality, who had won their last three series against FURIA, play in Friday’s quarter-finals.
FURIA2-1
VitalityStatsInferno 5-13, Dust2 13-10, Mirage 13-0
A decider without a Vitality round
Danil “molodoy” Golubenko set the tone on Mirage. FURIA started on the CT side, and their AWPer finished the map 21-5 with 129.5 ADR and 100% KAST. With FURIA 9-0 up, he picked up four kills on the B site to shut down another Vitality attack.
Vitality had been the one team molodoy struggled against, and before the series it was the only opponent he had a negative K-D against. He finished it 41-34.
Mareks “YEKINDAR” Gaļinskis did the rest from mid, roaming forward round after round and catching Vitality’s players before they could set up. He went 16-6 with 122.3 ADR. FURIA led 12-0 at the break and won the second pistol round to close it out. On the other side, Dan “apEX” Madesclaire went 1-13 on the map and Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut 2-13.
Dust2 nearly slipped away
The comeback started on Vitality’s own pick, a map where FURIA had lost 13-4 and 13-5 in their last two meetings, both in September. FURIA won the pistol round on the CT side and led 9-3 at the break.
From 11-4, the second half turned. Vitality won five rounds in a row, and Robin “ropz” Kool was at the centre of it with an ace on the B site in the 18th round.
At 12-10, on a half buy with Tech-9s, FURIA hit B. FalleN took down mezii, and Kaike “KSCERATO” Cerato won the final duel against ZywOo to force the decider. KSCERATO led FURIA on Dust2 with 19-15, and he was FURIA’s top fragger in the series with 44 kills. ZywOo had 9 kills on the map and ended the series 23-34 with 47.2 ADR.
The half that looked like the story
For a map and a half, this looked like a different article. FURIA had won 11 of their 13 Inferno maps over the last three months, and Vitality led 11-1 at the half. William “mezii” Merriman went 24-7 and Shahar “flameZ” Shushan 20-12, holding B and banana almost on their own. Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo had 7 kills on the map.
apEX, in his second series since returning from paternity leave, had said in an interview with BLAST before the match that FURIA had tried to surprise Vitality in the past.
When the team tries to surprise you once, then you’re getting ready on most of the maps. […] So now we’re just ready on any map they’re going to pick.
The Vitality IGL ended the series 22-39.
FURIA’s reward is a day off. They play in Saturday’s semi-finals with at least $130,000 secured, and the win moves them past Vitality into second in the VRS on HLTV’s calculator, 11 points up. Vitality drop to third with a 24-point loss and take the longer route through Friday’s quarter-finals, their last event before both teams start the PGL Major Singapore in Stage 3 on 2 December.
