CS2 Budapest Major 2025: Playoff and grand final recap – aboba.ru

Finally, after weeks of brutal qualifiers and three stacked Swiss stages, the CS2 Budapest Major moved on to the last phase with the playoffs and grand finals. This, the final Major of the year, served as the final testing ground on which teams deserve to be the best in CS2’s most competitive year.

Legacy squads vs breakout talent, titans vs redemption arcs with nothing to lose. The drama was high, and the stakes even higher, as all the teams went all-out for the glory of lifting the Budapest Major trophy.

Spirit continued its momentum into the opening series of the Budapest Major quarter-finals. Spirit smothered Falcons on its own map pick on Nuke, dominating them with monstrous CT side, winning 13-4 without letting its opponents score in the second half.

Zweih was the team’s unlikely hero, earning a 21-9 record during the map and an ace to close out the first half.

Map two finally saw some action from the second-best team in the world. Falcons raced to a head start largely thanks to NiKo and was two rounds away from closing the map before Spirit started encroaching on its lead. Then, on Falcons’ match point, Zweih beautifully held off against the whole team to score yet another ace on his own. 

That play mentally broke the Falcons because they weren’t able to win one round in overtime, losing 16-12. Time and time again, we’ve seen the Falcons consistently make the playoffs and even the grand finals multiple times, but they just don’t have that extra edge to lift a trophy.

In perhaps the most lopsided quarter-final, Team Vitality made quick work of The MongolZ in a 2-0 sweep. The MongolZ losing its best fragger in Senzu hurt its chances going into the major, yet the team was still able to make it to the playoffs with its stand-in controlez.

It didn’t matter that MongolZ was the number one team in the world earlier this year, as they went against Vitality in championship form. Zywoo came out swinging with a 2.18 rating across the series, that’s 46 kills and 18 deaths.

The first half of the map in Mirage was a classic Vitality vs MongolZ game, where both sides would explode at any moment. Vitality’s mezii started strong with four headshots in the pistol round, and the team ended the half with a fairly even 6-5. 

Once the sides were switched, Vitality was a whole different beast and won five rounds in a row to close the game 13-5.

On Dust 2, it was even worse as they won the game 13-4, not allowing the young squad from Mongolia to score in the second half again. This time, it was ropz who broke his back for the team to shut down the squad. Mzinho tried his best to keep the spark alive, but unfortunately, this is where they exited the major.

An all-European clash between FaZe Clan and MOUZ proved to be a one-sided affair on the scoreboard. FaZe dominated the T side with a 9-3 lead on offense, IGL Karrigan’s experience shone through in this tactical map. In one round, FaZe pulled out a wild Tec-9 rush that sent the crowd into a frenzy.

MOUZ fought back in the second half, turning the deficit into an 11-9 advantage thanks to a clutch from Spinx. But in the next round, Broky quickly sniped two of their opponents and closed off the game 13-11.

If Nuke was an entertaining match, Inferno was a landslide. FaZe absolutely locked MOUZ out of the map, winning 13-2 and humiliating Torszi on home soil in Hungary. Frozen dropped a 2.17 rating on the server to top it off.

The last quarter-final was a thriller that delivered a major upset. Natus Vincere, a team that had middling results all year, took down the tournament’s top seed, FURIA, who entered as the tournament favourites.

On NAVI’s map pick in Mirage, w0nderful set the tone with four headshot kills. FURIA’s yuurih snapped back with a clutch of his own on the fifth round, but they didn’t have much left to give and lost 13-5.

Map two, Inferno, was a gut-wrenching rollercoaster, a must-watch game filled with multiple highlights from both teams. NAVI had a great CT side and led the map 10-3. This energised FURIA and tied the map 10-10. In round 21, veteran Fallen pulled a hype clutch to retake the site against three of NAVI’s attackers.

That hero play completely swung the momentum and brought the map to overtime. Rookie molodoy was hitting quad kills on the AWP, KSECRATO was cleaning house with the FAMAS. FURIA pushed through overtime and won the map 16-13.

With all the momentum on FURIA’s side after Inferno, many fans expected FURIA to eliminate NAVI. But just like the map they’re playing on, NAVI ran over the squad like an unstoppable train.

Everyone on NAVI contributed to the map, especially makazze with his precise entry frags. This was a one-sided affair, and NAVI sent the favourites packing with a 13-3 map win.

The first semi-final pitted Vitality against Spirit, and the first map is absolutely the best match of the whole major.

Team Spirit had an incredible start, leading 11-4 at halftime, then 12-6 on the T side. Then, Ropz showed off his uncanny ability to find sneaky angles and defend A-site with quick peeks. From here, Vitality took the map to overtime.

Again, Team Spirit takes the lead 15-13, but Zywoo finds four kills with the AWP from mid for another overtime. This time Spirit crumbled under the pressure and finally lost the map 19-17. While ropz and donk led the map in rating, it was mezii who found clutch under clutch to save the team.

Donk was visibly tilted after this match, which didn’t help his mental game heading into Dust 2. The half was ended on an even 6-6 break, but Spirit couldn’t handle Vitality’s T side to win the map and the series 13-8.

The second semi-final saw FaZe Clan and NAVI face off in an unlikely matchup that few would have predicted at the start of the event. With FaZe starting from Stage 1 and NAVI from Stage 2, this was a battle of redemption for these teams.

The series started with a 13-5 win for NAVI in Ancient. Both teams abandoned their tactics and acted as if it were a deathmatch with nothing on the line, throwing bodies into the mid and constantly trying to outaim each other. Makazze thrived in this chaotic match and ended with a career-high 2.54 rating.

On Nuke, FaZe once again showed off its mastery over the map, but NAVI came so close to taking them down in its comfort zone. W0nderful and iM defended with their lives and shut down FaZe’s normally strong T side on the map. Frozen and Twistzz found their groove in the second half, winning them the map 13-11.

On Inferno, FaZe took its momentum and blitzed to a 9-3 lead off the back of aggressive plays from jcobbb. NAVI fought back and started to close the gap, but it all fell in FaZe’s half-buy in the 20th round. 

Armed with pistols and util, FaZe stormed A-site, leaving Twistzz and the lone survivor in a 1v4. With nothing to lose, he pulled out the Deagle and scored three clean headshots, which allowed them to close the series 13-8 in the next round.

History beckoned in Budapest as Team Vitality entered the CS2 Major grand final one win away from becoming the first back-to-back Major champions since Astralis’s reign in 2019. Standing in its way was FaZe Clan on a miraculous underdog run, a squad that was literally 0.4 seconds from elimination in the opening stage, only to surge through the bracket and reach the finale against all odds.

It’s the battle of the IGLs in Nuke, and Karrigan proved that he has a deeper playbook than apEX in Nuke. FaZe’s T-side was immaculate and unpredictable, earning them an early 8-5 lead over the reigning Major champions.

Karrigan was not only leading the team, but he also topped the leaderboards with a 1.56 rating.

His triple kill with the MP9 was the final nail in Vitality’s contest, earning them their first win of the series.

On Dust 2, Vitality shook off the bad start and showed that this championship is business as usual, dominating FaZe in the aim-centric map. FlameZ erupted the pistol round with four Glock kills and Zywoo handled the rest of the map.

In the second half, Vitality’s defence was impenetrable. It started with Zywoo’s crispy quad headshots on Long defence. From there, they won the rest of the four rounds without giving FaZe one.

The third map, Inferno (picked by FaZe), delivered a more back-and-forth contest. Both teams traded punches in the opening rounds, FaZe took an early lead, but ropz shut down their execution from pit on A-site.

The defining round came right before halftime, when mezii sneakily held his position and trigger finger as FaZe poured into the site. There, he was poised to take yet another clutch to end the half.

To its credit, FaZe did not fold. They won the pistol and the first few gun rounds, and Karrigan himself even clutched with just a Tec-9. On the last round, Vitality faked a banana takeover and was lucky enough to spray down FroZen behind the smoke. They took their numbers advantage to A to end this great match.

Unfortunately, the Major ended in map 4 in the most anti-climactic way possible. Vitality slammed the door on FaZe, winning a back-to-back Major 13-2 in Overpass.

Overpass is known as CT-sided map, but that didn’t stop Vitality from winning 11 rounds in a row on T-side. Ropz, the same person who won a Major with Karrigan and FaZe, was a nightmare to his former teammates, earning a 2.89 rating in the map. 

Even apEX was opening up sites with a triple kill from monster. The stomp was so bad that FaZe and the crowd were beyond ecstatic with its first win in the last round of the half. 

When sides switched, FaZe scored another win in the pistol, but failed to convert its buy round against Vitality’s pistols. The last fight was between Frozen with an AK, who lost to apEX on his USP. With the final duel done, Vitality earns its second Major of 2025.

Vitality’s back-to-back Major solidified that we are in the middle of an era of one of the most dominant teams in CS2, which is even more impressive given how competitive the esport has become. Zywoo more than deserves his MVP award, but it was Mezii who kept the team afloat with all the successful clutches.

It’s incredible how time and time again the Major flips the script and invalidates everything that happened before. This is why Counter-Strike 2 remains the greatest esports spectacle of all time.