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. Team Vitality certainly aren’t going down without a fight in Portugal.
Facing elimination for the fourth straight match, Vitality again survived at the BLAST Open Fall 2026 in Porto. But what they did Friday was a whole new level of survival.
Facing FURIA in the playoff quarterfinals, Vitality dropped the first map but won the next two to take the match. In the other quarterfinal, Team Falcons had more drama-free experience, sweeping G2 Esports 2-0.
In the semifinals on Saturday, Group A winner Team Spirit will oppose Team Falcons, and Group B winner MOUZ will take their turn at trying to send Vitality home.
The $1.1 million Counter-Strike 2 event began with 16 teams divided into two groups for the double-elimination opening stage. The group winners advanced to the playoff semifinals, the group runners-up moved on to the quarterfinals as high seeds and the two third-place teams headed to the playoff quarterfinals as low seeds. The remaining teams were eliminated.
The single-elimination playoffs in Porto include best-of-three matches in the quarterfinals and semifinals. The grand final on Sunday will be best-of-five.
The championship team will receive $250,000 ($150,000 for the players, $100,000 for the club) plus three BLAST Frequent Flyer Tokens.
After losing 13-6 on Nuke, Vitality won 13-11 on Cache and 13-4 on Dust II to advance. Estonia’s Robin “ropz” Kool led the winners with 44 kills while Mathieu “ZywOo” Herbaut of France added 39 kills in the tightly contested match. Latvia’s Mareks “YEKINDAR” Galinskis had 41 kills to pace FURIA, but he also sustained a match-high 47 deaths.
In the other quarterfinal, Falcons quickly took care of G2 with a 13-6 win on Inferno and 13-9 victory on Dust II. The top three kills totals all belonged to Falcons players — Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Nikola “NiKo” Kovac with 37 kills and Russians Maksim “kyousuke” Lukin and Ilya “m0NESY” Osipov with 36 and 32, respectively.
BLAST Open Fall prize pool, with money winnings (player prize, team share) and BLAST Frequent Flyer Tokens
1. $250,000 ($150,000, $100,000), 3 BFFT
2. $160,000 ($60,000, $100,000), 1 BFFT
3-4. $115,000 ($40,000, $75,000), 1 BFFT
5-6. $75,000 ($20,000, $55,000), 1 BFFT — G2 Esports, FURIA
7-8. $50,000 ($10,000, $40,000) — Aurora Gaming, FUT Esports
9-12. $32,500 ($7,500, $25,000) — M80, Natus Vincere, IC Esports, Legacy
13-16. $20,000 ($5,000, $15,000) — DENDELE CS, paiN Gaming, Lynn Vision Gaming, 9z Team
–Field Level Media
