FURIA overcame BetBoom 3-2 in the Grand Final of the Thunderpick World Championship 2026 to deliver Gabriel ‘FalleN’ Toledo his first trophy in his final year of competition.
BetBoom upset Team Falcons in the Semi-Finals and were 2-1 up in the series, but Furia ultimately captured a titanic Map 4 of Mirage, before easing to victory on Cache.
FalleN gets retirement year trophy as FURIA look to recapture 2025 flame
The trophy was the first trophy for FURIA since BLAST Rivals Hong Kong in November 2025, and the team’s only trophy since FalleN announced at IEM Rio that he would retire at the end of the year.
The Brazilian organization has played eight Tier 1 tournaments since the announcement in April, giving the international roster one of the busiest schedules in Counter-Strike as they hoped to secure a trophy for FalleN in his retirement year.
That trophy finally arrived in Malta as Furia successfully defended their Thunderpick World Championship title, a trophy they secured last year after a 3-2 reverse-sweep against NAVI.
In 2025, that tournament victory signified that FURIA were in championship form, coming shortly after their FISSURE Playgrounds 2 victory, and preceding S-Tier tournament wins at IEM Chengdu 2025 and BLAST Rivals Hong Kong 2025.
FURIA will be hoping that it will ignite their season this time around as well, coming just in time to build momentum for the run-in to the PGL Singapore Major, a region where two of their trophies came last year.
FURIA’s next tournament will be at PGL Masters Bucharest 2026, starting on October 24. The FURIA roster will be hoping that Mareks ‘YEKINDAR’ Gaļinskis will make a full recovery from illness before the start of the event, as the Latvian was visibly unwell at times during TWC, struggling to speak even in his winner’s interview after the tournament victory.
Team Falcons fail again in Malta
While FalleN bathed in well-deserved adulation, Falcons were left licking their wounds after losing to BetBoom in the Semis and Aurora in the third-place decider.
The IEM Cologne 2026 Major champions were heavy favorites for the event. With the absence of Spirit, Vitality, and other top teams, the event was seen as a test for Team Falcons’ actual status in the scene, a test they abjectly failed.
The roster failed to show any signs of progress as a team at the event. Although Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen did allay some fears over his individual form, the larger issues remain of a roster which has lots of firepower but lacks cohesion.
Maksim ‘kyousuke’ Lukin especially showed that he has not yet learned the lessons of Tier 1 Counter-Strike, making poorly considered pushes and not playing with his teammates.
There’s lots to still think about for Falcons, who wished to dominate the CS scene after their IEM Cologne 2026 Major victory, but who in reality have failed to even come Top 3 at an event which many considered a Tier 1.5 event.
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Darragh is an Esports Journalist for Insider Gaming specialising in Counter-Strike. He loves to explore how esports teams work, or why they very often do not.
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