The first team through the Swiss stage are gone, beaten by a side that arrived as one of the outsiders and played the quarter-final as if they had nothing to fear.
Nemiga Gaming are in the semi-finals of PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 after a 2-0 win over FUT Esports on Thursday morning, 13-11 on Nuke and 13-9 on Dust2. FUT, who went through the Swiss stage 3-0 and were the first team to book a playoff place, are out in fifth to eighth place.
The bookmakers had Nemiga at around 3.25 against 1.31 for FUT, and close to nine in ten of HLTV’s users picked FUT. Nemiga’s in-game leader, Nikita “robo” Dushin, never treated it as a mismatch. He and Daniel “syph0” Ageyev had met FUT’s players many times on the way up, going back to their academy days, and robo said in the post-match interview that the familiarity took the edge off.
I mean, especially me and syph0 played versus them like 10 times already in our career […] So we are pretty used to how we play. We played many times against them, so no stress at all.
Nemiga2-0
FUTStatsNuke 13-11, Dust2 13-9
| Nemiga | K-D | +/- | ADR | KAST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 syph0 | 30-25 | +5 | 74.3 | 76.1% |
| khaN | 32-28 | +4 | 71.5 | 73.9% |
 Xant3r | 31-28 | +3 | 68.2 | 69.6% |
| robo | 27-31 | -4 | 65.6 | 60.9% |
| KaiR0N- | 29-36 | -7 | 78.0 | 67.4% |
| FUT | K-D | +/- | ADR | KAST |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 SunPayus | 32-28 | +4 | 68.8 | 76.1% |
 dziugss | 36-33 | +3 | 85.7 | 71.7% |
 dem0n | 27-30 | -3 | 64.3 | 63.0% |
 xfl0ud | 24-27 | -3 | 61.5 | 87.0% |
 Krabeni | 26-32 | -6 | 72.6 | 69.6% |
A 4v2 that FUT could not finish
Nuke was Nemiga’s own pick, and for a half it looked like the wrong one. They won the opening pistol round and then let the next one run out on the clock without a plant, and FUT never looked back. Džiugas “dziugss” Steponavičius shut the A site with dem0n beside him, at one point had 14 kills for three deaths, and FUT led 9-3 at the break. “We had very sloppy start, couldn’t find our game,” he said afterwards.
The CT side changed the mood. Nemiga won the second pistol and the three rounds after it, syph0 closing one of them in a clutch, and although FUT pulled away again to 11-8, Nemiga’s defence now held its ground. The round that turned the map came next: FUT, on the T side and against an anti-force, had a 4v2 against two Five-SeveNs. A team in that spot wins the map about 96% of the time. FUT walked into a stack at A without clearing the corners, and Kirill “Xant3r” Kononov finished the 1v2.
Nemiga did not drop another round. KaiR0N-, quiet for most of the map, found a double to bring up 12-11, and syph0 closed it out on the last. Xant3r, the A anchor who had been tested again and again in the second half, ended the map 22-16 with 90.7 ADR. dziugss still finished Nuke 24-18 with 112.6 ADR, the best on the server, but FUT won only two rounds on their T side.
khaN wins the AWP duel on Dust2
On FUT’s own Dust2 pick, Nemiga took the pistol, went 3-0 up and reached the break at 6-6, with Beksultan “khaN” Ospan on the AWP making the difference that Nemiga had lacked on Nuke. He kept taking forward positions, picking fights at B, in mid and at A, and finished the map 17-11 with 86.4 ADR, ahead of Álvaro “SunPayus” García in the battle of the two AWPers.
SunPayus, so good in the Swiss stage, had his first quiet map of the event on Nuke (13-17, 52.9 ADR) and only got going on Dust2 (19-11). The series still almost turned on one round. Nemiga won the second pistol and led 8-6, then had SunPayus and xfl0ud both down to eight HP in the next round and lost it anyway. Nemiga called their last timeout, and FUT levelled at 9-9.
khaN went in first on a B rush with a rifle at 9-9, Nemiga won it and the three rounds after it, and FUT’s in-game leader Krabeni came close to taking it out on his monitor. robo, who had struggled on Nuke, went 17-15 with 85.0 ADR on Dust2.
There was no single star behind the win. khaN topped the scoreboard at 32-28, and all five Nemiga players finished between 65.6 and 78.0 ADR. The analysts on PGL’s desk pointed to the work behind that baseline: Nemiga have played more than 100 online maps in the past three months, mostly in tier two, and their default game held up when FUT’s aggression did not.
Vitality or NAVI next
Nemiga play their semi-final on against the winner of Vitality and NAVI (still being played at the time of writing). robo has already picked his opponent. “Vitality, too good, but it will be very interesting to play against them,” he said.
There is more than a trophy at stake. The semi-final place brings at least $87,500 including the club share, and Nemiga’s Major place was already settled. HLTV’s VRS invite forecast now gives them a 94.1% chance of a BLAST Bounty 2027 Season 1 invite and 80.0% for PGL Łódź 2027, for a team that came to Bucharest through the European closed qualifier. It is the furthest the organisation has gone at a tier-one event, a day after reaching its first playoffs.
For FUT, the week ends sooner than it promised to. They leave with $50,000 including the club share and three series wins, among them the 2-1 that ended Vitality’s ten-series streak on Monday, and HLTV’s forecast still puts them at 84.2% for ESL Pro League Season 25. But a side that looked like a title contender lost a 9-3 lead on Nuke, and the series with it
