It’s been a while since I last talked about Furia. They exploded onto the scene earlier this year with a playoff appearance at DreamHack Masters Dallas, which they followed up with a second place at the ECS Finals. The last we really saw of them was at ESL One: Cologne 2019, where they bottomed out in an 0-2 loss to Na’Vi.
The question with Furia was always whether or not they could sustain the excellent start to the year they had, and if they could effectively transition from an upset team to a real contender. Their finish at Cologne would point to no, but the StarLadder Berlin Major will be the final test as to whether or not we’ll be seeing more of Furia over the rest of the year.
Record: 43/27
Team K/D: 1.05
Map Pool:
Player Ratings:
The holy trinity of “teams that were really good in the first half of 2019” are ENCE, Renegades, and Furia. Obviously, ENCE are the team that has aged the best since then, putting up strong results at every LAN this year. We haven’t talked about Renegades yet, although we definitely will. That leaves Furia, the little brother of the Brazilian scene, and a potent competitor. Or at least, they were earlier this year.
When I’ve talked about Furia, I’ve often talked about their quest for consistency. During their meteoric rise, one of their best assets was the element of surprise. They were a new team, playing an alternative style, that no one was prepared to play. As such, they caught several teams off guard. The question for them moving forward was whether they could expand their game and adapt to teams adapting to them.
The first time KSCERATO was on my radar was during MIBR’s search for a new fifth after Katowice. KSCERATO was one of the rumored replacements for Tarik, which led me to looking into him a little. What I found was impressive.
He seemed sort of Coldzera-esque, playing that slow game that cold likes to do. His aim was impressive, as was his game sense. When Furia asked for that enormous buy-out, I was surprised by the number, but not by their unwillingness to sell this young guy off.
Look no farther than his performance at Cologne this year. While his team’s performance wasn’t great, KSCERATO put up a 1.27 Rating on 5 maps, one of the best figures of the event.
Yuurih is the least consistent of Furia’s big three. Over the last six months he’s gone positive just 65% of the time, which isn’t great. His ceiling is high enough to justify his place on the team, but a bad tournament from him can sink Furia’s chances at making a deep run, especially at the StarLadder Berlin Major.
arT is one of the most relied upon players on Furia. He’s there main AWPer, and largely carries the opening fragging load for the team. While he is the player with the highest DPR on the team, that comes with the territory with usage this high. Not to mention the fact that he’s IGLing.
Once you get this low on the list of priorities on a team, it gets hard to discern a player’s impact on the team. While VINI’s stats aren’t great, I have a lot of trust in Furia’s system. These guys have been playing together for a while now, and if there were players that weren’t pulling their own weight, the team would have presumably made adjustments.
ableJ and VINI are pretty similar in terms of this team composition. Neither of them pop when looking at the scoreboard, but they both do all of the dirty work that a tier one team needs to get done. The big question is, can they afford to have both of them on the team? That’s sacrificing a lot of potential firepower.
Furia’s map pool is concerning. But before we get to the bad, let’s do the good news.
Their top three are encouraging. While their Vertigo win rate might not be sustainable, seeing as they don’t have great wins on it as of right now, their Nuke and Mirage are strong relative to the amount of plays they have. Their first pick in a best of three will be at least minimally advantages in most situations, which is going to be very important.
It’ll be important becausehe middle of their map pool is pretty terrible. They have a weak mid section and a catastrophically bad low end, which could lead to some pretty incredible collapses in best of threes against top level opponents.
The Furia guys have been playing together for a while now, and just recently locked down long term contracts. This is a team that, as far as I can tell, has no plans to make any serious changes in the future as well.
That kind of continuity and security can make a big difference in the minds of players. While yes, it can make them complacent, it can also give them a solid base that they can build a real contender around.
Furia’s biggest weakness is that they don’t have any stand out strengths. A team like Vitality probably has more holes in their roster construction, but they have ZywOo who makes up for it.
Furia don’t have a super star. In fact, Furia don’t even have a regular star. They’re essentially a version of ENCE with less firepower, which is not a great pitch.
The best way to sum Furia up is that they’re probably the gatekeeper team of the StarLadder Berlin Major. If you’re looking to make a deep playoff run, these are the guys you need to take care of.
Unfortunately for the Brazilians, gate keeper is about the best they’re going to get. They don’t have the depth, or the star power, or the tactics to make a deep run at the StarLadder Berlin Major. One of those things might be enough to make top eight, but even then it would be a stretch. Furia make for a mediocre uspet candidate, and I don’t like their chances here.
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