Falcons beat FURIA in Furia Vs Falcons CS2 at the IEM Cologne final and closed the best-of-five without a third map. Nikola "NiKo" Kovač left Cologne with his first Major Championship, and Falcons turned a tense playoff run into a title by taking Mirage, Anubis and Inferno.
Mirage Started the Break
FURIA chose Mirage, but Falcons took it 13-8 and went ahead 1-0 before the series could settle. Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov set the pace on that map with 19 frags, a clean start that forced FURIA to spend the rest of the final chasing the series instead of shaping it.
The opening map gave Falcons control of the tempo. Once the first pick slipped away, FURIA had to recover on a map it had chosen, and that pressure carried straight into the second map.
Anubis Shut the Door
Anubis was the point where the final tilted beyond repair for FURIA. Falcons won it 13-8 and built a 2-0 lead, even though the map had been a must-win for FURIA after Mirage.
That was the complication in the final: the side that needed a response got the same scoreline twice. Falcons had already won Anubis in three straight matches before this series, and the map once again gave them a stable route to the finish.
NiKo, karrigan, and Cologne
NiKo and Finn "karrigan" Andersen came through a Major final that carried extra weight after Boston 2018, when both were on FaZe and the run ended in collapse against Cloud9. This time, they finished the job in Cologne, and Andersen summed up the pace of the playoffs earlier by saying, "I feel like we are playing MR15 at this playoffs so far,"
That title also delivered first Major Championship wins for m0NESY, Maksim "kyousuke" Lukin and René "TeSeS" Madsen. For Falcons, the final ended with a sweep, a trophy and a clean line through a map pool that never let FURIA back into the series.
