FURIA and Bad News Bears advance to MDL Season 30 grand finals
After going 17-0 in the regular season and dropping only a single map in the playoffs, FURIA have advanced to the grand finals of MDL Season 30 with a 2-0 win over Singularity in the semifinals to put their overall record at 21-1. Their Brazilian counterparts in Luminosity were dropped by Bad News Bears on the opposite side of the bracket, with Mitch "mitch" Semago powering his side to a dominant reverse-sweep series victory.
FURIA and Singularity clashed on Inferno and Mirage, with the Brazilian roster edging out a 16-14 win on their opponent's pick of Inferno before decisively closing out the series with a 16-5 victory on Mirage.
Ian "motm" Hardy helped Singularity start off on the right track on Inferno, taking four uncontested rounds before FURIA got themselves on the board. The Brazilians rallied back for eight of the ensuing nine rounds to seize the lead from Singularity, with the American team winning the final two rounds of the half to trail 7-8 as the sides swapped.
Singularity stole away the lead with a trio of rounds at the start of the second half, but found themselves pushed back as FURIA won a trio of their own to regain their footing. Again, Singularity fought back to win three rounds for a 13-11 lead, but FURIA were unrelenting as they decidedly won a last-minute back-and-forth to narrowly edge out a 16-14 win and move the series to their own pick of Mirage.
Kaike "KSCERATO" Cerato stepped up for his team as the second map got underway, allowing for FURIA to take a 2-0 lead on the T side. Singularity put up a round of their own before FURIA extended their lead to 4-1, with the American side managing one additional round before FURIA cruised to an 11-2 scoreline.
Although Singularity managed to edge out two rounds at the end of the half to keep themselves from being completely crushed, they were unable to fully put a halt to FURIA's domination as the Brazilians gave up one last round after the sides swapped before closing out the map 16-5.
FURIASingularity| FURIA |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kaike 'KSCERATO' Cerato |
40 - 22 | +18 | 79.2 | 84.3% | 1.42 |
| Vinicius 'VINI' Figueiredo |
43 - 30 | +13 | 89.4 | 76.5% | 1.32 |
| Andrei 'arT' Piovezan |
35 - 37 | -2 | 82.2 | 70.6% | 1.18 |
| Yuri 'yuurih' Santos |
34 - 33 | +1 | 77.4 | 76.5% | 1.12 |
| Rinaldo 'ableJ' Moda Junior |
32 - 26 | +6 | 64.5 | 78.4% | 1.09 |
| Singularity |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Ryan 'ryann' Welsh |
39 - 36 | +3 | 78.8 | 68.6% | 1.04 |
| Ricky 'floppy' Kemery |
31 - 36 | -5 | 72.2 | 62.7% | 0.94 |
| Ian 'motm' Hardy |
35 - 42 | -7 | 75.0 | 66.7% | 0.89 |
| Josh 'oSee' Ohm |
21 - 38 | -17 | 49.9 | 60.8% | 0.68 |
| Cameron 'cam' Kern |
21 - 33 | -12 | 45.7 | 54.9% | 0.63 |
A few hours after the end of the match, motm announced that he was looking for a team on Twitter.
The second semifinal matchup saw Bad News Bears secure a reverse-sweep victory over Luminosity in commanding fashion, dropping Overpass before taking dominant wins on Dust2 and Inferno.
The situation initially looked grim for Peter "ptr" Gurney's side as a two round lead at the start of Overpass gave way to a streak of nine rounds straight from Luminosity, with the Brazilians mustering a 10-5 T-side lead. The Bears managed to tie up the match by winning six of the first seven rounds of the second half, but Luminosity got themselves back on the board by winning five straight to take their own map pick 16-11.
The first trio of rounds on Dust2 also went the way of Ricardo "boltz" Prass' side, but much like Luminosity on Overpass, Bad News Bears won a seven-round streak to steal away the lead. Luminosity tied up the match with four rounds of their own, but a nine-round streak into the second half by Bad News Bears allowed for mitch and co. to firmly close out the map 16-7.
Luminosity fared far worse on the deciding map of Inferno as they found themselves unable to string together any round victories, with mitch and ptr combining to power Bad News Bears to an 11-4 lead at the half. A four-round streak after the side swap allowed for Bad News Bears to immediately claim match point, with Luminosity managing to stave off the loss with a number of site retakes before dropping to an eco buy from Bad News Bears for a 16-9 scoreline.
LuminosityBad News Bears| Luminosity |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ricardo 'boltz' Prass |
61 - 53 | +8 | 89.4 | 77.3% | 1.18 |
| Gabriel 'NEKIZ' Schenato |
49 - 54 | -5 | 72.4 | 77.3% | 1.11 |
| Lucas 'steel' Lopes |
49 - 55 | -6 | 69.1 | 72.0% | 1.00 |
| Henrique 'HEN1' Teles |
45 - 48 | -3 | 63.5 | 69.3% | 0.95 |
| Lucas 'LUCAS1' Teles |
41 - 57 | -16 | 61.6 | 62.7% | 0.83 |
| Bad News Bears |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mitch 'mitch' Semago |
70 - 46 | +24 | 96.1 | 77.3% | 1.41 |
| Peter 'ptr' Gurney |
60 - 40 | +20 | 74.4 | 82.7% | 1.27 |
 Tyson 'TenZ' Ngo |
58 - 48 | +10 | 79.3 | 73.3% | 1.16 |
| Jeff 'RZU' Ngo |
50 - 60 | -10 | 81.0 | 77.3% | 1.02 |
| Josh 'shinobi' Abastado |
29 - 51 | -22 | 53.2 | 72.0% | 0.76 |
FURIA and Bad News Bears have advanced to the grand finals of MDL Season 30. As this is a training season, no promotion to ESL Pro League is on offer, with the winner grabbing a larger chunk of cash in addition to the MDL Season 30 champion title.
