MOUZ’s in-game leader, 0-5 in IEM grand finals so far, closed Ancient with a 1v3 and gets another shot at the trophy against The MongolZ.
MOUZ are in the grand final of IEM Beijing 2026 after a 2-0 win over BetBoom in Saturday’s second semi-final, 13-7 on Ancient and 13-8 on Mirage. They have won all eight maps they have played in Beijing, and Dorian “xertioN” Berman was the best player on the server with 40-20 and 111.0 ADR.
MOUZ2-0
BetBoomStatsAncient 13-7, Mirage 13-8
PR
S1renFour rounds down, then a timeout
BetBoom went back to Ancient, the map they had lost 6-13 to MOUZ in the group stage on Tuesday, and for a few minutes the second attempt looked better. They won the pistol on the T side, then stormed out of mid in the first gun round and caught MOUZ completely off guard. At 0-4, coach sycrone called a timeout. MOUZ won seven of the next eight rounds and led 7-5 at the half.
xertioN gave the credit to the coach in his post-match interview on ESL’s broadcast.
I mean, sycrone is really good at putting us back on track, I would say. So overall just, yeah, I think that he had the right words for us.
From there the map belonged to the in-game leader. xertioN went 21-11 with 119.8 ADR on Ancient, often turning up where BetBoom had not looked, and MOUZ won the second pistol to go 10-5 up. BetBoom took two rounds back on nerve: Magnojez stuck a defuse without a kit, and S1ren won the next round in a clutch.
Ádám “torzsi” Torzsás stopped the run by winning a clutch against Magnojez for 11-7, and xertioN finished the map himself. Left alone against three, he repositioned into A main, caught Boombl4 arriving late and then beat d1Ledez for 13-7.
PR finds his pistol
Mirage was MOUZ’s own pick and their strongest map, 18-3 with this roster before Saturday. They won the T pistol and the first three rounds, but BetBoom’s CT side settled into the game and S1ren’s triple on the B site made it 6-6 at the half.
Pistol rounds had been MOUZ’s weak spot all week. By the end of Ancient they had won only four of 14 in Beijing. Oldřich “PR” Nový changed that on Mirage. With a USP on the B site he took four of the five kills, and MOUZ had the second pistol of the map as well.
PR finished Mirage 18-9 and the series 35-20, second only to his captain. In the second buy round of the half torzsi took three kills and PR two, and BetBoom’s economy never recovered. Boombl4 named that round as the turning point.
“I think like the crucial one, this was the second buy round. If we have it, so the game will be really crazy,” the BetBoom captain said.
xertioN added another highlight at 11-7 with a quick 180 on the CT side, and torzsi closed out the series at 13-8.
BetBoom’s carriers go quiet
BetBoom had reached the semi-final by beating FURIA on Friday, with zorte going 62-36. Against MOUZ the AWPer finished 17-27 with 45.5 ADR, d1Ledez went 18-34, and S1ren (30-28) was the only BetBoom player with more kills than deaths.
Kirill “Boombl4” Mikhailov did not hide from it.
Today we’re in not the best individual form, I think.
On Ancient, he felt BetBoom’s T side was good enough, “but on [CT] side, we didn’t show up, you know.”
A sixth IEM final for xertioN
ESL’s own graphic during his interview put xertioN at 0-5 in IEM grand finals in his career, and this is his fourth final as MOUZ’s in-game leader. He lost another big final in October, when Vitality beat MOUZ 3-0 in the EPL Season 24 final. MOUZ themselves wrote on X that they are “one step closer to our first IEM trophy”.
xertioN did not hide the ambition either.
They made the final here in IEM Beijing, but we are looking forward to lift our first IEM trophy.
The grand final against The MongolZ is a Bo5 on . The MongolZ beat NAVI 2-0 in the first semi-final on Saturday, and both finalists are guaranteed at least $210,000. BetBoom play NAVI for third place at , worth $160,000 to the winner and $120,000 to the loser.
The win also protects MOUZ’s place at the top of the VRS. HLTV’s VRS calculator had them gaining 17 points with a win, against a 26-point loss with a defeat, and they stay first either way. Both teams start the PGL Major Singapore in Stage 3 later this month. We follow the final on our IEM Beijing 2026 page.
