Falcons steamroll FURIA to win the Major

Falcons blew away FURIA in three in the easiest of their playoff wins to claim the Major trophy in Cologne.

NiKo finally has his Major - and m0NESY and kyousuke have what is likely the first but not the last of their careers. karrigan, of course, has his second, and TeSeS has redemption for Rio.

FURIA put up a bit of a defence, but not much of one in truth, and never really looked like winning any map in the series.

Every single map was 13-8, and realistically that tells the story as much as any other. Falcons were too good, too quick, too clever. FURIA were shooting shadows.

Map one turned on a dime as m0NESY and kyousuke both hit doubles on the deagle in round 15 just as FURIA looked to be getting into the game. molodoy was having a stormer, and yet it felt immaterial, as he could not stop the rising tide.

Falcons’ warm-up of beating the best team of all time and the best player in the world made FURIA feel like taking off the training weights.

Mirage was summed up by NiKo waltzing into B to turn a 3v5 into a 3v2 in the final round of the game, and Falcons had their precious lead.

Anubis felt like a whole bunch of close rounds that just tipped in Falcons’ favour; but that was no coincidence. m0NESY won a 1v2 with the AK on the A site, there was a round where Falcons walked into A dry with a force buy and let kyousuke destroy KSCERATO in heaven, a retake on the same site where FURIA fell short by under a second… small margins, little details, but all in Falcons’ favour.

m0NESY left Earth on map two. A 22-10 scoreline tells some of that story, but his impact was somehow even greater. He barely even touched the AWP, instead becoming the best rifler in the server, scything through a paper defence time and time again.

There was inevitability in the air ahead of Inferno, and when Falcons moved into an early lead it felt even more over. FURIA forced their way back in - credit to them, they never gave up - but it never felt easy. Every round was a struggle.

molodoy again was superb for FURIA, but to no end. Falcons kept finding their way into bombsites as NiKo took over, fittingly.

m0NESY sat back and bottomfragged, quite horrendously, on Inferno, but it did not matter. Falcons were just outmicroing FURIA.

This was not a classic map. It wasn’t a classic series. It wasn’t full of crazy highlights or ludicrous plays, just a world class team against a team who were just a rung below.

It will be remembered for only one thing; the day Falcons won the Major.