Nemiga upsets Vitality for a PGL Masters Bucharest 2026 finals berth

It’s been one hell of a day at PGL Masters Bucharest, and we still can’t believe our eyes.

Nemiga, who came into this event as the world’s #23-ranked team, has taken down Vitality in the semi-finals. The crazy part is, it was relatively comfortable, as comfortable as beating Vitality gets anyway. The Belarusian team SWEPT Vitality, and while yeah, apEX isn’t there, Vitality still looked pretty good in groups.

But Nemiga simply didn’t care, it seems.

robo and co. played with complete confidence, and you could tell. They controlled most of map one, setting the pace on their T-side. They built a 7-1 lead, and it took Vitality several retakes just to get a foothold. Then, Nemiga won the pistol round in the second half, and it was basically map over. Vitality won round three, but Nemiga responded right away and eventually closed out 13-8. A big part of their success here came from robo having an amazing game, going toe-to-toe with ZywOo ratings-wise, and outfragging him handily.

That said, the rest of Vitality were exceptionally poor.

That trend continued onto Dust II as well, but instead of ZywOo, mezii stepped up. The Englishman had a star performance, but everyone else was genuinely bad. ZywOo even had a sub-1.00 rating.

Not to take credit away from Nemiga, though — they played brilliantly. Even if the stats don’t look great for Vitality, they’re still a hard-to-beat team, and this was a close game. But Nemiga executed relentlessly in the second half, playing yet another really, really good T-side.

With the level they’ve been displaying, don’t be surprised if they show up tomorrow and upset FURIA, especially as FURIA isn’t the most convincing team either.

Though we should watch ourselves, because we’ve been quite critical of FURIA at times this year, especially for looking pretty disappointing. But despite that, they’re in another Grand Final, and they beat a top team in MOUZ. Map one didn’t start perfectly; MOUZ took the lead early, but FURIA salvaged a tied half before playing a beautiful CT-side that shut MOUZ out entirely.

MOUZ did get map two back, thanks to Spinx’s exceptional map, but it was a false dawn.

FURIA took control back as soon as Cache began. Their T-side got everything it wanted for five straight rounds, with everyone but YEKINDAR having an outstanding half. Though we have to especially single out molodoy for this map, because he’s truly returned to form. molodoy changed the whole dynamic of the game, finding three uncontested openers on T-side, while being a turret on CT. If he can keep this form going consistently, FURIA can win any event against anyone.

The final will be a different kind of challenge for them, though; Nemiga is a fearless and well-oiled machine, the kind that will test this FURIA side.

Hopefully, there will be fireworks when the game kicks off on October 31st at 12:00 CET.