Budapest Rising: The Storylines That Make CS2 the Greatest CS2 Major Yet
The playoffs of Counter Strikes pinnacle event, the Budapest Major, are about to kick off. And what an event it’s been. We’ve seen the full spectrum of Counter-Strike chaos: FlyQuest soaring through Stage 1 with a flawless 3-0, only to plummet out of Stage 2 without taking a single map; Imperial and B8 fighting their ways to the finals days of stage 3; and heavyweight names like Aurora, Astralis, and Team Liquid bowing out earlier than their fans would have hoped.
Through all that, we’ve come to a stacked playoff bracket featuring 7 of the 8 top teams in the world, with the one exception standing in being the Faze Clan riding their Faze BS all the way to the playoffs yet again. For what feels like the first time in history, any team in this bracket can easily take the title, and each team’s run would be pure cinema.
And that’s what we’re here to break down.
Spirit
We might as well begin with the Prince of Darkness himself and the crew of demons he leads into every server. Donk and sh1ro have shown that they can drag Spirit to victory single handedly. And on paper, this roster should’ve been terrifying: the additions of tN1R and Zweih earlier this year gave Spirit a lineup that looked capable of creating their own era of CS2.
After winning IEM Cologne and BLAST Bounty back-to-back with Zont1x, Spirit made a bold move and replaced the Russian rifler with tN1R from Heroic. If Donk kept up his otherworldly form and tN1R delivered anything close to what he showed on Heroic, Spirit looked poised to become the next Vitality.
But reality didn’t match the prophecy. Event after event, Spirit stalled. Early exits at EPL, IEM Chengdu, and BLAST Rivals left fans wondering if the pieces would ever click, or if Donk and sh1ro were destined to shoulder the entire burden forever.
Now, though, Donk enters Budapest playing at his highest level since his jaw-dropping debut at IEM Katowice last year. He’s pushing to break his own record, and with that comes the biggest storyline of all:
Who becomes the number one player of 2025? Donk or ZywOo?
The players will insist they don’t think about the race, and maybe that’s true… or maybe it’s just the answer you give when microphones are pointed at your face. But the fans care. God, do they care.
Is ZywOo still the GOAT? Or is the era of Donk already upon us?
Statistically, Donk has the edge. His ceiling is unreal, and the server bends to his will in a way we’ve rarely seen. But ZywOo has the deep runs, the big trophies, and Vitality’s season-long dominance. Should the award go to the player with the highest peaks? Or the one with the most medals and deep runs.
And that’s what makes the Budapest Major the ultimate battleground. This is the final, biggest event of the year. A deep run from either player could decide everything. An early exit? That could hand the crown to the rival. And if both teams fare well in the quarter finals, they’re set to meet in the semis.
Will Spirit finally be able to best Vitality? Will Donk solidify himself as the best player in the world for the second year in a row? Or will Donk have to sit on the sidelines as he sees his Awping counterpart lift yet another trophy?
Falcons
If you ask anyone in Counter-Strike who the greatest player is to never win a Major, the answer comes instantly: NiKo. For years, he was widely regarded as the best rifler the game had ever seen, at least until Donk arrived and rewrote the meaning of firepower. And yet, despite joining superteam after superteam, despite countless deep runs, NiKo’s Major dream has always been one round, one moment, one miracle too far.
He’s lived through every kind of heartbreak. The most brutal, of course, came in Boston 2018 - the greatest upset and most cinematic ending in Major history. FaZe, the unstoppable juggernaut, against Cloud9, a team most analysts thought would be lucky just to make playoffs. Then Stewie2K held B on that immortal anti-eco, and the world watched FaZe’s Major slip away in real time. The clip became legend; NiKo’s defeat became lore.
Then came the Astralis era. For three Majors straight, one team ruled CS with absolute authority, shutting the door on every contender, including NiKo. When that dynasty finally fell, NiKo switched things up, leaving FaZe to join his cousin huNter- on G2. And immediately, they reached another Major grand final. NiKo was unbelievable, playing some of the best CS of his life.
But it didn’t matter.
Because that time, it was s1mple’s coronation.
This has been the story of NiKo's career: he climbs the mountain, only to find someone else already standing on the peak. ZywOo claiming a his Major in France. B1ad3's NAVI proving they can dominate even without s1mple. Donk emerging and stealing the “best rifler alive” crown. For fifteen Majors, NiKo has chased the confetti, but it’s never fallen for him.
Then came Falcons. After all the near-misses, he joined zonic, the winningest coach in Major history. If anyone could guide him to the promised land, it was the man with five Major titles. And with a little luck (and about $10 million), Falcons assembled one of the most electrifying young cores in the game: m0NESY, the prodigy; Kyosuke, the supposed “next Donk.”
Kyosuke hasn’t fully reached that impossibly high expectation, but when he pops off, he proves he can go toe-to-toe with the very best. And that’s the thing about Falcons: their ceiling is absurd. No team in the playoffs has a higher high. But their problem is consistency. More often than not, you get one superstar showing up. Sometimes two. Rarely three. Almost never all five.
And that’s the question heading into playoffs:
Will Falcons finally show up as a full team?
Or will NiKo’s Major curse continue?
If even three players fire on the stage, NiKo might finally lift that elusive trophy and rewrite the ending to his story. But if Falcons stumble at any point - any round, any map, any moment - the Major will once again slip out of NiKo’s grasp.
And at this point, nobody in Counter-Strike knows that pain better than him.
Vitality
The greatest roster since Astralis. A winning streak that may stand untouched for decades. Seven titles in a row. Thirty straight match wins. Thirty-seven consecutive BO3/BO5 victories. At this point, there’s no real debate - Vitality are the undisputed team of the year.
What they’ve accomplished borders on impossible. In an era defined by hyper-competitiveness, roster volatility, and MR12’s rise, the idea of a team dominating an entire season felt like a relic from a bygone age. And yet Vitality didn’t just dominate - they steamrolled the first half of 2025.
All of this after replacing a superstar in Spinx.
With mechanical phenom Ropz filling the gap, Vitality turned into a machine. Once they worked through their early-season growing pains, they never looked back. Every event they touched turned to gold. Every opponent bent under the pressure. And even after the player break, when the streak finally broke, Vitality have still never placed outside the top four.
They added another title to the cabinet in the fall and came desperately close to adding two more. A slugfest versus a red-hot G2 at BLAST Open London, followed by a shocking 0-3 collapse against FURIA, stopped them from matching Astralis’ fabled ten-trophy year. But even so, Vitality’s era has already etched itself into Counter-Strike history.
Those two losses, though… they opened a door.
Because now the question isn’t just “How great is Vitality?”
It’s “How close is FURIA?”
FURIA have beaten Vitality convincingly. They’ve won four trophies this year, three of them back-to-back-to-back, and they entered Budapest looking like they were reaching an entirely new peak. If Vitality crumble here, even slightly, are we suddenly talking about FURIA as the best team of 2025 instead?
Vitality are capable of shutting that conversation down. They’ve proven they can reach a level no one else in CS2 has matched. But can they summon that form one more time on the biggest stage of the year?
Is the Vitality era already over?
Or are they about to solidify themselves as the first roster since Astralis worthy of the “dynasty” label?
We’re about to find out.
The MongolZ
2025 has delivered its fair share of shockers, but right up there with Vitality’s dominance is the meteoric rise of The MongolZ. One of the youngest rosters among the world’s elite - coming from a region the Counter-Strike scene historically overlooked - they’ve forced everyone to rethink what Asian CS is capable of.
How could a roster this good emerge from such a small country with an underdeveloped competitive ecosystem? It shouldn’t have been possible. But 2025 has been a year defined by things that shouldn’t have been possible.
This is a group of friends who grew up grinding together, dreaming the same dream, and somehow climbing all the way to the top as a unit. And the beauty of their story isn’t just the results, it’s the bond. The shared journey. The fact that when they broke through, they broke through together.
And then everything changed.
After reaching a Major grand final, after winning the Esports World Cup, after beating Vitality twice after the most impressive winning streak of all time…they lost their best player.
The shock was immediate. Rumors swirled.
How do you replace a star rifler like that?
Do they switch to English and try to import firepower from Europe?
Does Mongolia even have the depth to find another top-tier player?
Apparently, yes. It does.
Enter Controlez - originally a stand-in, possibly a long-term solution, definitely a monster. Alongside Mzinho, he has stepped up with highlight reels and absurd numbers that nobody expected this quickly. Whether he’s a temporary piece or the next pillar of the roster is still uncertain.
What is certain is that Controlez and Mzinho are giving The MongolZ a real shot.
The question now is whether the rest of the lineup can rise to the moment. If Controlez and Mzinho keep swinging, and if 910 shows up under the stage lights, The MongolZ could be headed for a Cinderella run that rivals Cloud9’s miracle in 2018.
Can they claim the first Major title for an APAC team in over 20 years - and do it in a year where, just three weeks ago, nobody thought they had even a sliver of a chance?
Or will the bright lights finally catch up to them?
FURIA
Between blockbuster roster moves like tN1R to Spirit or Kyosuke to Falcons, YEKINDAR and Molodoy joining FURIA didn’t capture attention because fans expected greatness.
They captured attention because everyone was confused.
For eight long years, KSCERATO and yuurih spiraled inside a Brazilian scene that constantly reshuffled around them. Dozens of players cycled through - promising riflers like skullz and chelo, veteran AWPers like HEN1 and saffee - yet nothing ever truly stuck. FURIA always felt one piece short. Sometimes two. Sometimes even three.
And making matters worse, inflated buyouts across Brazil made grabbing real firepower nearly impossible. Grabbing stars like insani or dumau didn’t make financial sense. But if Fallen is anything, he’s a problem-solver. Alongside the FURIA staff, he took a step back, evaluated what his team actually needed, and went searching for the two players who could finally complete the core that had been waiting nearly a decade to blossom.
What they saw in Molodoy and YEKINDAR… we may never fully understand.
A teenager from a country many fans couldn’t even point to on a map.
An entry star at the lowest point of his career, coming off the hardest season he’d ever played.
But somehow, the gamble worked.
FURIA switched to English. Fallen put down the AWP. The entire identity of the roster shifted.
And within twelve months, they didn’t just become competitive, they became the best team in the world.
Their rise wasn’t instant. At PGL Astana, Molodoy’s home crowd, they reached semifinals, followed by some inconsistent runs and a few playoff showings. They snagged a Tier 1 trophy at an event absent of Vitality and Spirit, and many thought that was going to be the high for this unlikely rag-tag team.
But after a reverse sweep at Thunderpick, a 3-0 over Vitality, and toppling Falcons despite m0NESY putting up an MVP level performance, the doubts evaporated.
And now?
FURIA enter the Budapest Major as the undisputed favorites. They dominated Stage 3. They look sharper, faster, and more confident than at any previous event. This team isn’t a dark horse anymore, they’re the team everyone else is terrified of meeting on stage.
So, will Fallen lead another miracle run like it’s 2016?
Will KSCERATO and yuurih finally claim the payoff for eight years of patience, loyalty, and grind?
Will Molodoy’s Cinderella rise continue all the way to a Major trophy?
Or, after all this momentum, will the honeymoon end one step short of immortality?
NAVI
Under the guidance of one of the greatest coaches in Counter Strike, 2024 NaVi were able to assert themselves as the best team of the year. Despite losing the GOAT of CSGO in s1mple, after picking up three unproven entities in w0nderful, iM, and jL, Blad3 and AlexisB were able to whip everyone into shape.
The results? Four championship trophies - Copenhagen Major, Esports World Cup, EPL, and IEM Rio - and three runners-up finishes at BLAST Spring Final, IEM Cologne, and BLAST Fall Final. They were just a handful of maps away from matching the level of dominance Vitality would show a year later.
And then 2025 arrived.
From the outside, it looked like the vibes evaporated. The motivation dipped. The cohesion that made NAVI terrifying simply…vanished. After too many disappointing results, jL, arguably their most impactful player, left the team. Once again, B1ad3 and Aleksib faced the same nightmare: rebuild the system after losing a star.
They picked up Makazze, talented but nowhere near jL’s output, and naturally the results suffered. NAVI tumbled down the rankings. To rebuild confidence, they dipped into smaller events - StarLadder StarSeries, where they swept through Tier 2 competition and took down NiP in the grand final. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was progress.
Then came Thunderpick.
NAVI looked revitalized. Confident. Structured. Dangerous. They reached the grand final and went up 2-0 in a best-of-five. They needed one map to lift the trophy.
But, as mentioned earlier, that isn’t how the story ended.
They were reverse swept.
By FURIA.
In one of the most brutal collapses of the year.
And now NAVI arrive in Budapest with everything on the line.
This Major isn’t just another event - it’s their last stand to prove that the 2024 season wasn’t a fluke, that B1ad3’s system still works, that Aleksib can still lead a team to the mountaintop, and that NAVI remains a championship-caliber organization.
But fate has a twisted sense of humor.
To keep their legacy alive, they must defeat the best team in the world, the very team that crushed their dreams with that reverse sweep.
For NAVI, the Budapest Major is more than a tournament.
It’s redemption or collapse.
Legacy or irrelevance.
One last chance to say: “We still got it.”
MOUZ
The hometown heroes have arrived. After spending the entire first half of 2025 living in Vitality’s shadow, watching trophy after trophy slip into someone else’s hands, MOUZ enter the final, and biggest, event of the year with more to prove than any roster in Budapest.
Not only are they playing in front of a roaring home crowd, led by local superstar torzsi, but for a team that spent months sitting comfortably at second place, their trophy cabinet is shockingly empty. And the road here hasn’t exactly been smooth.
When MOUZ suddenly dropped their IGL, suihy, the community was stunned. This was the same academy core - xertion, torzsi, jimi, suihy - that dominated the youth scene and transitioned into a top-tier lineup. After years of development, years of synergy, years of building the identity of the org…suihy was simply gone. Teamless. And after a rough showing at BLAST Bounty, MOUZ didn’t even hesitate; with another event just days away, they pulled Spinx straight off Vitality’s bench.
Nobody knew what was happening behind the scenes. Was this planned? Panic? A long-term move? A gamble?
But slowly, the pieces started fitting together.
Brollan adapted to life as an IGL.
Torzsi rediscovered his peak AWP form.
Spinx looked reborn, more like the monster he was back on ENCE than the role-player he became in Vitality’s system.
MOUZ climbed.
But Vitality climbed higher.
While MOUZ elevated from a top-6 team to a clear top-2, Vitality’s acquisition of ropz turned them into an unstoppable force. Every time MOUZ reached a grand final, Vitality met them there, and sent them home empty-handed.
Then the player break hit.
And something shifted.
When competition resumed, MOUZ finally broke the curse. They beat Vitality. They showed they could overcome their greatest roadblock. The moment was symbolic: the first crack in the dynasty’s armor.
But claiming the #1 spot would require more than a single victory.
Because the moment Vitality slipped, the sharks arrived.
Falcons surged.
Spirit revived.
FURIA exploded into dominance.
Suddenly, MOUZ weren’t just chasing Vitality, they were surrounded by contenders, each more dangerous than the last.
And now, in Budapest, everything converges.
Will MOUZ channel the power of the home crowd and finally lift a Tier 1 trophy?
Will they reach the grand final only to meet Vitality yet again, risking another heartbreak, this time on home soil?
Will they fall early to the new superpower of FURIA?
Or does Faze Clan have some more bullshit up their sleeve?
Faze Clan
0.4 seconds away from being eliminated, and now they’re here. In the playoffs. Would we expect anything less from the most entertaining team in Counter Strike history?
Love them or hate them, FaZe at a Major is never boring. This is the team that has:
Thrown away a Major on match point against an NA squad on NA soil,
Bombed out 0-3 in spectacular fashion,
And lifted a Major trophy, delivering a long-awaited crowning moment to one of CS’s greatest IGLs.
The legendary core of Twistzz, broky, ropz, rain, and karrigan dominated the twilight of CS:GO and the birth of CS2. But after a string of frustrating runner-up finishes, uncertainty struck: Twistzz found himself in contract limbo. Not willing to risk his future, he chose stability - accepting Team Liquid’s offer and returning to North America.
The year and a half that followed was rough for both teams, painful for Liquid, disappointing for FaZe. After experimenting with replacements (including another American rifler), it became obvious: there is no replacing Twistzz. FaZe brought him home.
But the reunion wasn’t clean. Twistzz returned in place of rain, not the rookie, jCobbb, and fans didn’t hold back. Every mistake jCobbb made was magnified. Meanwhile, broky’s form continued to fall short of what was needed.
Heading into Budapest, no one knew which version of FaZe would show up.
The Faze that collapses?
Or the FaZe that claws their way to a Grand Final?
At first, it looked like collapse. Struggling against tier-two Brazilian squads outside the top 40, they came within 0.4 seconds of elimination. One missed bullet. One mistimed crouch. One heartbeat. And they’d be gone.
But they survived. Then survived again. And again.
Now they’re here - in the playoffs - with Twistzz the Magician back on the Major stage.
Will FaZe ride the chaos all the way to another miracle run?
Or will their bag of tricks finally run empty?
One thing is certain: when FaZe is involved, the show is unmissable.
And That’s Why We Love It
The Budapest Major isn’t just another tournament - it’s a collision of arcs, identities, and legacies that no scriptwriter could have crafted better.
You have:
MOUZ, the hometown heroes desperate to finally step out of Vitality’s shadow and lift a trophy worthy of their talent.
FaZe Clan, the unkillable chaos-engine fueled by heart-stopping moments and miracle margins.
Vitality, the record shattering Titan, fighting to regain their throne.
Spirit, Falcons, NaVi and FURIA - hungry newcomers and resurrected giants all converging on one bracket.
Every team has something to prove. Every match feels like a chapter. Every storyline is layered with years of history, roster moves, heartbreaks, rebuilds, and redemption arcs.
This is what makes Counter-Strike the greatest competitive scene in esports:
The narratives write themselves.
The stakes are always real.
The rivalries span eras, rosters, and entire versions of the game.
The moments - the clutches, the collapses, the miracles - aren’t manufactured. They simply happen.