FUT and BetBoom Reach Bucharest Playoffs as G2 and 9z Go Out

FUT Esports and BetBoom became the first two teams to reach the playoffs of PGL Masters Bucharest on Monday, October 26, and G2 Esports and 9z became the first two to be eliminated. FUT beat Team Vitality in the 2-0 pool, BetBoom swept Natus Vincere 2-0, G2 lost an elimination series to DENDELE, and 9z lost to TYLOO, according to match reports published by HLTV that day.

It was the third day of the Swiss stage, and it was the day the field began to thin. Eight series produced two qualified teams, two eliminated ones and a set of Tuesday pairings in which three more teams can book playoff places.

Results and schedule from HLTV reports published October 26, 2026. Round 3 outcomes are counted from the eight series played that day.

The format behind the headlines

PGL Masters Bucharest opens with a Swiss stage in which sixteen teams are paired by record, every match is a best-of-three, and three wins advance a team while three losses send it home. Eight teams reach the playoffs.

The pools shrink as the rounds go on. Round 4, on Tuesday, pairs the six 2-1 teams against each other and the six 1-2 teams against each other, and a final round covers whichever teams finish Round 4 at 2-2. Insider Gaming's guide has the group stage ending on October 28.

Because teams are paired by record, the stage sorts itself into pools: after Round 2 on Sunday there were four teams at 2-0, eight at 1-1 and four at 0-2. Monday's Round 3 paired teams within those pools, so the day's winners and losers moved to new records. A win by a 2-0 team was a playoff place, and a loss by a 0-2 team was elimination.

Who qualified and who left

Read together, the results leave the sixteen-team field in four groups, following HLTV's pools for Tuesday. FUT and BetBoom are through at 3-0, and G2 and 9z are out at 0-3. Six teams sit at 2-1: Vitality, Natus Vincere, Aurora, MOUZ, Spirit and Liquid. Six sit at 1-2: DENDELE, Nemiga, The MongolZ, Legacy, FURIA and TYLOO. That means twelve teams are still playing for the six playoff places that remain, and the 2-1 and 1-2 pools each hold six of them.

FUT and BetBoom take the first two places

FUT Esports beat Team Vitality in a series between two unbeaten teams, and HLTV's headline for the result said FUT sailed into the playoffs over Vitality. FUT had beaten TYLOO on Saturday and Liquid on Sunday, 2-0 each time, so Monday made it three wins from three series.

BetBoom also finished the day unbeaten. HLTV reported that BetBoom beat Natus Vincere 2-0, taking Dust2 13-10 and Nuke 13-9. On Dust2, NAVI started fast and led 6-3 before BetBoom cut the gap to two rounds by halftime, and S1ren's 1v3 later brought BetBoom to map point. On Nuke, NAVI's defense gave it an 8-4 lead at halftime, after it had started the map 1-4 down, and BetBoom took control after the break. zorte finished the series at 36-25 with a 1.25 rating, and w0nderful led NAVI with 40-29 and a 1.42 rating.

HLTV noted that BetBoom came into Bucharest from their previous event, where they beat Falcons and lost the final to FURIA. Their three wins in Bucharest have come against Spirit, Nemiga and NAVI. BetBoom was ranked ninth in the world by HLTV on Monday and NAVI eleventh.

G2 and 9z are the first eliminations

G2 Esports left Bucharest without a win. They lost 0-2 to Natus Vincere on Saturday, 0-2 to Aurora on Sunday and then 1-2 to DENDELE on Monday, HLTV reported, calling the exit a surprise early elimination. DENDELE won Nuke, G2 won Ancient 16-14 in overtime after trailing 12-6, and DENDELE took the decider on Inferno 13-5. doc led the series with a 59-44 kill-death record and a 1.57 rating.

HLTV added that G2 had won only one series across their last two events, a win over ShindeN at ESL Pro League Season 24. HLTV ranked DENDELE 49th in the world on Monday.

Three of the day's winners came through closed qualifiers. Insider Gaming's guide lists Nemiga, Liquid, DENDELE and TYLOO as the winners of the European, North American, South American and Asian qualifiers, and Liquid's 2-0 win over Legacy was one of those three results. DENDELE, the South American qualifier, has now beaten G2, ranked tenth by HLTV, and TYLOO, the Asian qualifier, is alive at 1-2.

9z were eliminated by TYLOO, who won 2-1 without their usual AWPer. TYLOO announced on Monday, according to HLTV, that Dongkai "Jee" Ji was ruled out for the rest of the event with chickenpox, and head coach WeiJie "zhokiNg" Zhong would play in his place, starting with the 9z series. In the match, 9z won Inferno 13-11 after leading 11-6 at one stage. TYLOO answered with Nuke 13-5 and Mirage 13-7, and on Mirage they won eleven rounds in a row after trailing 6-1. Moseyuh finished 51-33 with a 1.42 rating and Zero 54-39 with 1.39.

HLTV reported that the win earned TYLOO 69 Valve points, the regional-standings points that feed the invitation race.

The pools below the top

MOUZ and Liquid won their 1-1 series in two maps. MOUZ beat The MongolZ 2-0, and PR led MOUZ with a 45-24 record and a 1.53 rating. Liquid beat Legacy 2-0, taking Ancient 13-10 after Legacy opened 1-8 down and Inferno 13-8. malbsMd finished at 34-29 with a 1.30 rating for Liquid, and HLTV described the win as a confident one.

Spirit's series with FURIA went to a third map. Spirit took Nuke 13-7, FURIA took Ancient 13-8 after leading 9-3 at the break, and Spirit won the Mirage decider 13-11 after trailing 11-9, winning four straight rounds. donk led the series with 59-41 and a 1.46 rating. Spirit had lost their opener to BetBoom and are now in the 2-1 pool.

Aurora beat Nemiga to join Spirit, MOUZ and Liquid at 2-1, according to HLTV's Round 4 pools. It was Aurora's second straight win: they lost their opener to The MongolZ, then swept G2 on Sunday. Nemiga, who had swept Legacy in their opener and then lost to BetBoom and Aurora, drop into the 1-2 pool, where a third loss would end their event. NAVI, who beat G2 and FURIA before losing to BetBoom, are at 2-1 and still need one more win to reach the playoffs.

The Major race behind the results

Insider Gaming's guide of October 22 called Bucharest the final Tier 1 event before the Valve Regional Standings deadline for the PGL Singapore 2026 Major. HLTV tied several of Monday's results to that race. It reported that The MongolZ, ranked 16th by HLTV on Monday, would have moved to 12th in the Valve Regional Standings with a win over MOUZ, and described their place in Stage 2 of the Major as fairly safe. It said their next target was a first notable playoff run since Bounty Season 2 in July.

TYLOO's win moved their estimated chance of a Major invitation from 52% to 91%, in HLTV's calculation, and that same calculation had DENDELE at 96.9% after the G2 series. The estimates are HLTV's own projections rather than anything Valve has published.

What happens on Tuesday

HLTV published the Round 4 matchups on Monday evening. Tuesday, October 27, has six best-of-three series, and the arithmetic is straightforward: the three 2-1 winners go through, the three 1-2 losers go out, and the six teams left at 2-2 play a final round for the last three playoff places. In the 2-1 pool, whose winners reach the playoffs, Liquid face Aurora, Spirit face MOUZ and Vitality face Natus Vincere. In the 1-2 pool, whose losers are eliminated, Nemiga face DENDELE, The MongolZ face Legacy and FURIA face TYLOO. HLTV listed the series for 12:00, 15:00 and 18:00 in each pool, without giving a time zone.

Liquid, who beat Legacy, and Aurora, who beat Nemiga, open the pool, and HLTV described them as the first teams to fight for a playoff berth. Spirit meet MOUZ for the eighth time this year, HLTV reported, with MOUZ ahead 3-1 in matches since the summer break. And Vitality face NAVI with Justinas "jL" Lekavicius, who left NAVI in July, playing for Vitality as a stand-in; HLTV said he will play five matches for Vitality before the November 2 regional standings update. Both Vitality and NAVI come into the series at 2-1 after losing to an unbeaten team on Monday, Vitality to FUT and NAVI to BetBoom.

HLTV's world ranking on Monday had Spirit first, Vitality second, FURIA third, MOUZ fourth and Aurora fifth. The playoffs begin on October 29 and run through October 31, according to Insider Gaming's guide.

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