FURIA, Nemiga advance to PGL Masters Bucharest grand final

YMCA member Austin Manengu works the keyboard as he plays a game of Fortnite during the unveiling of the new gaming lab at the Maplewood Family YMCA in Rochester Thursday, June 20, 2024. YMCA of Greater Rochester in partnership with Metro Sports & Entertainment Group will open two gaming labs for youth and teens this year. FURIA and Nemiga Gaming will meet in Saturday's grand final after they won their respective semifinal matches at the PGL Masters Bucharest event Friday in Romania. FURIA defeated MOUZ 2-1, while Nemiga blanked Team Vitality 2-0, ensuring the grand final would consist of two teams that needed to go all five rounds in the Swiss-system group stage to qualify for the playoffs. MOUZ and Vitality will square off for third place Saturday before the main event. The $1.25 million Counter Strike 2 event began with 16 teams in a Swiss-system format. The eight teams that reached three wins before taking three losses advanced to the single-elimination playoffs. All matches are best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final on Saturday. The winning team will take home $450,000, with half going to the team and half to the players. On Friday, FURIA prevailed 13-6 on Dust II, fell to MOUZ 13-9 on Mirage and bounced back to take Cache 13-9. Kazakhstan's Danil "molodoy" Golubenko paced FURIA with 56 kills against just 37 deaths. Nemiga edged Vitality 13-8 on Cache and 13-11 on Dust II. Russia's Nikita "robo" Dushin led Nemiga with 46 kills versus just 27 deaths. PGL Masters Bucharest prize pool with total prize money, player prize money and team share: 1. $450,000 ($225,000, $225,000) 2. $200,000 ($100,000, $100,000) 3. $137,500 ($68,750, $68,750) 4. $87,500 ($43,750, $43,750) 5-8. $50,000 ($25,000, $25,000) -- BetBoom Team, Aurora Gaming, Natus Vincere, FUT Esports 9-11. $31,250 ($15,625, $15,625) -- Team Liquid, Team Spirit, The MongolZ 12-14. $18,750 ($9,375, $9,375) -- TYLOO, Legacy, DENDELE CS 15-16. $12,500 ($6,250, $6,250) -- 9z Team, G2 Esports --Field Level Media