Team Falcons suffered their first true failure under the leadership of Finn ‘karrigan’ Andersen, suffering a damaging 1-3 Grand Final defeat to Legacy at the CS Asia Championships 2026.
The loss served to deflate expectations of Falcons going into the IEM Cologne 2026 Major, with T-sides especially looking severely undercooked at this early stage of the roster.
Legacy retain the CS Asia Championships with win over Falcons
Despite the relatively new nature of the Falcons lineup, the roster came into the event as the clear favourites owing to their combination of ranking, star power, and form after a PGL Astana Grand Finals berth.
Legacy, however, also had a strong form to draw from, finishing third at IEM Atlanta, in an albeit weaker field besides Vitality and eventual champions NAVI.
Legacy had defeated NAVI in the group stages then, but could not muster a challenge for Falcons in the Group Stage of CAC, losing 13-7, 13-9 in a relatively simple series for Team Falcons.
Legacy instantly showed a superior face in the Grand Final, just falling short on Nuke due to an excellent Maksim ‘kyousuke’ Lukin performance that saved Falcons from danger.
On Ancient, Legacy raced to a 9-3 CT half, restricting Falcons to only three T-sides rounds, before Falcons won six of the first seven rounds of their own CT half.
A Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač blunder gave Legacy their 11th round, before strong impact from event MVP Bruno ‘latto’ Rebelatto delivered Legacy Ancient.
On Mirage, Legacy kept up their momentum as Eduardo ‘dumau’ Wolkmer did what he does best, delivering strong entries on the T-side before Falcons once again fell flat on the T-side, giving Legacy a 13-6 victory on the map.
On Dust 2, the story was no different as Legacy raced to a 6-0 CT-side start, ultimately only giving up three rounds on the half before easily converting the map 13-6 and retaining the CS Asia Championships after their 2025 victory.
As for Falcons, the roster managed only eight T-sided rounds in the final three maps against Legacy, decisively showing that the T-side system karrigan is attempting to embed is not ready to challenge for big titles.
While the roster is still early in its time together, commentators and analysts had hopes that the roster would be ready to challenge Vitality for the IEM Cologne 2026 Major, due to the latent firepower in the roster; however, after defeat to Legacy at Shanghai, fans may have to accept a more reasonable timeframe.
Running themes of Falcons’ failure
The loss is not only damaging in and of itself, but also damaging for how it reinforces several patterns that have emerged in Falcons’ failures over the last 18 months.
The Grand Final defeat is not only the seventh Grand Final defeat in a row for the organization, but the eighth in a row for 21-year-old AWPer Ilya ‘m0NESY’ Osipov after he lost his last Grand Final with G2, ironically against Falcons at PGL Bucharest.
The Russian has, at times, underperformed in Grand Finals, though he was certainly not the primary issue individually in Falcons’ failure against Legacy.
Instead, the main culprit is once again Nikola ‘NiKo’ Kovač, who has consistently underperformed when the lights have shone brightest for Falcons.
In the three map losses of the Grand Final, NiKo delivered a 0.93 hLTV rating on Ancient, a 0.54 rating on Mirage, and a 0.74 rating on Dust 2.
In the end, that left far too much emphasis on their young star Maksim ‘kyousuke’ Lukin, who delivered a whopping 1.41 rating in the Grand Final to no avail.
NiKo’s Grand Final issue cannot be ignored anymore, representing a huge deflation from his usual level, with pressure visible in certain moments, like the Ancient flank fumble that turned the series indelibly in Legacy’s favour.
Counter-Strike broadcast analyst Alex ‘Mauisnake’ Ellenberg also believes that karrigan’s individual level also cannot be ignored any longer.
karrigan delivered only a 0.59 rating over the course of the Grand Final, giving up 14 opening kills in return for only three, for an overall 29/59/23 KDA record.
Debates over karrigan’s ability to frag have existed for a decade, with the Danish IGL’s performance usually correlating to his ability to focus on his own game, rather than micromanaging the team.
In the early days of this roster, it can be argued that karrigan is suffering from implementing his system, but it can be equally argued that the level being shown is unsustainable at the top level of Counter-Strike, even with Falcons outstanding firepower elsewhere.
Worst of all, karrigan is on his own Grand Finals loss streak, which includes CAC, PGL Astana, HLC Belgrade Pro, the StarLadder Budapest Major, and the Perfect World Shanghai Major Grand Finals.
For the first time since joining, the failure to beat Legacy in the CAC 2026 Grand Final has put the roster under real scrutiny.
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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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