NAVI smash Spirit to keep them out of playoffs - PGL Masters Bucharest 2026
Oh, wow NAVI.
After an electric start, they seemed to be petering out quite heavily in Bucharest, and faced the unenviable task of Team Spirit in a 2-2 game - but they put in one of their best performances in the last 18 months to soar into playoffs. makazze finally reverted back to the demonic version of himself and put in two masterclasses on the two won maps, where NAVI absolutely demolished Spirit - 13-2 and 13-3, with a 10-13 loss sandwiched in between.
NAVI picked up 10 on the CT side of Cache, with makazze winning back to back clutches at the end of the half to put NAVI well out of sight. He had been consistently excellent throughout, but retaking 1v2 in the final round of the half tipped him over the edge.
It was a total blowout, and Spirit headed into Dust 2 in desperate need of a fight back, which in fairness, they found. NAVI were up 8-3 and seemed to have the game in the bag, but tN1R dragged his team back into the game with some huge rounds, and right at the end we saw some massive impact from magixx, too.
donk was suspiciously quiet - he was decent on Dust 2, but offered no resistance on Cache and had no luck on Anubis either.
makazze on the other hand was once more loud and proud, but it was iM who got the ball rolling with a mean double in the pistol round that led to a 6-0 start for NAVI. Spirit never really recovered in truth, and iM, makazze and Aleksib all got theirs and crushed Spirit in a must-win game.
Where does this leave Spirit so close to the Major? Some will say this event doesn't matter, and maybe it doesn't - but winning is a difficult habit to start and an easy one to break. This is a bad time to break it.
FURIA did not fall into such a trap, beating an uppity Liquid team 2-0 to secure their berth.
Liquid once more put on a good show, at least on map one, as they ran FURIA to the final round, but it was their former teammate YEKINDAR who put the nail in the coffin in those last two rounds with two hugely impactful doubles.
It was he who put the hurt on 'em in map two, too, winning a 2v4 with a double kill that led to time running out, then following that up with another double kill a round later to secure the lead early on, from which FURIA ran away with the game. He was a nuisance throughout - a double entry found FURIA the second pistol round after a 7-5 half, and another double to find 11 just three rounds later.
Liquid were in this game until the final half, where they sadly capitulated - but better teams than they have fallen to the bizarre world of FURIA, and we're at least encouraged by what we've seen.
Yesterday we mentioned that we thought Nemiga might actually just be good, and we're going to get a chance to see how they stack up in the playoffs.
They 2-0'd The MongolZ with a double OT win on Dust 2, thanks to an electric performance from syph0. He dropped 33, including a ridiculous 4k in a 2v4 to win a lost round and a couple of big rounds in overtime. He was everywhere, and this game would looked a lot different had he not had a crazy game.
Map one was far more simple, with Xant3r and KaiR0N- having stormers. KaiR0N- was the brawn, running into sites and just finding kills all over the place, while Xant3r was the brains, controlling the late game situations with ease.
Cache was far too simple for Nemiga, and while we're unsure on The MongolZ, this is the sort of result that makes you wonder.
