NAVI picked a map they had lost three times running and won it 13-10, then took FURIA’s Dust2 13-5 after a 9-3 first half on defence. b1t finished the series 35-20 a day after going 40-45 against G2, and NAVI are one win from the playoffs at PGL Masters Bucharest.
When NAVI named Ancient as their map, the analysis desk at PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 was puzzled. NAVI had played it three times in recent months and lost all three, 9-13 to The MongolZ, 2-13 to Legacy and 6-13 to G2. FURIA, who win half of their Ancient maps, could have picked it themselves.
FURIA’s answer was Dust2, the map where they had beaten NAVI 13-4 at IEM Rio and 13-6 at IEM Kraków this year, against a team that had played it just once in three months, in Saturday’s triple-overtime win over G2. On paper, the third-ranked team in the world had two comfortable maps lined up. On the server, FURIA were 1-7 down at the start of both.
NAVI2-0
FURIAStatsAncient 13-10, Dust2 13-5
makazze
yuurih
Homework on Ancient
The pick made sense once the map started. NAVI’s plan ran through mid, where makazze kept opening rounds for his team on the T side, and through fast calls from Aleksib that sent NAVI to A one round and straight to B the next. They led 7-1 and went into the break 8-4 up. It could have been 9-3: in the last round of the half, KSCERATO took three kills to win a two-against-three after iM turned to look at Cave and left the smoke he was meant to watch.
FURIA then did what FURIA do. They won the second pistol round, took five in a row, and attacked NAVI’s B site again and again, with YEKINDAR finding a four-kill round with a MAC-10 and slipping behind the defence in another. From 8-4 down, FURIA led 10-9.
NAVI won the last four rounds. A missed AWP shot from molodoy let w0nderful tie it at 10, three teammates rotated in time to save w0nderful’s site in the next round, and NAVI closed it out with the same aggressive mid setup they had tried a few rounds earlier. It was their first Ancient win in more than three months.
b1t, a day later
The difference on Ancient came from the B site. With FURIA aiming nearly every attack there, NAVI needed someone to slow them down, and b1t kept getting the first kill. He won five of his six opening duels on the map and finished it 22-14 with 106.3 ADR. Without those opening kills, NAVI would have had a hard time holding B at all.
It carried straight into Dust2. In the pistol round, b1t and w0nderful pushed through tunnels with Dual Berettas and killed all five FURIA players between them, three for b1t.
A day earlier, b1t had ended NAVI’s 2-0 over G2 on 40 kills and 45 deaths. Against FURIA, he finished on 35 and 20, with the highest ADR in the series and a KAST of 90.2%, the best on the server.
Aleksib holds long
Dust2 was where FURIA expected to do damage, and it was over almost before it started. NAVI began on defence, won the first six rounds and reached the half 9-3. Aleksib, more often the player NAVI tuck into the passive spots, held long doors and was 11-3 before the half. He ended the map 17-8 with 89.2 ADR, the best numbers on Dust2.
FURIA won the second pistol round and the conversion after it, then had little left. Of their T rounds, two long executes brought two wins and one fake towards B brought another. Almost everything else was a slow default towards Catwalk, and NAVI picked those apart. FURIA never sped the game up.
FalleN’s first farewell stop
Bucharest is the first of four events on what FURIA have named FalleN’s final tour, and the first bad night of it belonged to their captain. FalleN finished the series 15-33, 6-18 on Ancient, and FURIA’s run of five straight series wins, which included the Thunderpick World Championship title a week ago, is over.
In an interview PGL aired between the two maps, FalleN said the Thunderpick title had felt special and should give the team confidence, and that after so many wins, only winning really satisfies them. He also said he wants to end his career the way he has played for 23 years, giving everything and trying to stay a step ahead of his opponents.
FURIA now sit on one win and one loss along with Liquid, The MongolZ, Spirit, Nemiga, MOUZ, Aurora and Legacy. In HLTV’s running version of Valve’s Regional Standings, the defeat costs them 26 points and drops them from third to fourth.
A playoff spot, and a clash with Lisbon
The other side of the ledger is much bigger. The win is worth 85 points to NAVI and lifts them from 23rd to 14th, nine places in one evening. Before Saturday’s win over G2, they were 33rd. Their Major place in Singapore, a real question a month ago, now looks settled.
NAVI join FUT, Vitality and BetBoom on two wins, and one more on Monday puts them in the quarter-finals. A 3-0 would be their first through a Swiss stage since Stage 2 of the Budapest Major. It would also decide the calendar question raised in this morning’s preview: iM said the playoffs in Bucharest come first and Lisbon only if that fails, and the playoffs here run from 29 to 31 October, the same days as the Lisbon event, which ends on 1 November.
