Esports
FURIA Retain Thunderpick World Championship 2026, Edge BetBoom 3-2 in a Five-Map Final
Source: Anarchyte / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)
FURIA are back-to-back Thunderpick World Champions. The Brazilian squad beat BetBoom 3-2 in a five-map grand final in Malta to close out the thunderpick world championship 2026 — and it took every round they had. After dropping the opener in overtime, FURIA clawed the series back map by map until the trophy was theirs for the second year running.
Thunderpick World Championship 2026 Final: How FURIA Won It
The final was a rematch with history. FURIA had already beaten BetBoom earlier in the event, and BetBoom came into the grand final looking like a team that had figured something out. They took Ancient 16-19 in overtime to open the series, and for a moment the repeat looked in real danger. Then FURIA answered the only way they know how: a 13-6 demolition on Cache that reset the series' momentum, followed by two more map wins to close it 3-2.
The tournament ran October 14-18 in Malta with eight teams and a $1 million prize pool, and FURIA's path through it was anything but smooth. Our day-one coverage had the bracket looking stacked from the start, and the final delivered on that promise — five maps, an overtime, and a decider that could have gone either way. For FURIA, ranked fourth in the world, this is their first trophy of 2026 after a difficult opening stretch to the season. For BetBoom, sitting 14th, it's a final that will sting: they were one map from the biggest win in org history.
The Thunderpick World Championship has quietly become one of the most reliable stops on the CS2 calendar, and this edition reinforced why. Eight teams, a $1 million prize pool, and a Malta LAN that produced upsets from the opening day — FURIA had already beaten BetBoom once earlier in the event, which made the grand final a rematch rather than a fresh matchup, and BetBoom clearly spent the week studying that loss. Their Ancient pick in the final was a direct answer to the earlier defeat, and for one map it worked perfectly.
Molodoy's Breakout Tournament
If one player defined this tournament, it's Danil "Molodoy" Golubenko. The 21-year-old Kazakh AWPer joined FURIA in April 2025, and the Thunderpick final was his coming-out party on the biggest stage of his career. His opening picks swung rounds that had no business being winnable, and BetBoom never found an answer for him across all five maps.
The timing is almost poetic: Molodoy was recently named a Global Ambassador for the 2026 International Year of Volunteers, and he celebrated the honor by putting together the best series of his young career. FURIA built this roster around young firepower, and in Malta it finally paid off with the org's fourth consecutive series win at a major event.
What's Next: PGL Masters Bucharest
There's no rest for champions. FURIA head straight to the PGL Masters Bucharest, starting October 24, where they open the Swiss stage against DENDELE. The bad news: their only previous meeting ended in a 1-2 defeat for FURIA. The good news: they're arriving as back-to-back Thunderpick champions with a trophy in their hands and an AWPer in the form of his life.
The Thunderpick repeat gives FURIA's season a genuine landmark — not a prediction about what's next, but proof that the roster works when it matters. Bucharest will show how far that momentum carries. Elsewhere in tournament CS2, the PUBG Mobile Global Open is running its own $500K season in Lahore, but this week belonged to Malta, to five maps, and to FURIA.
