Falcons dominate paiN to reach FPG2 semis

kyxsan's troops continued their flawless run in the arena.

Falcons are through to the semi-finals of FISSURE Playground 2 after sweeping paiN in the Belgrade Arena, dominating on the Brazilians' pick of Inferno (13-4) and shutting them down on Ancient (13-6) to set up a brawl against FURIA for a spot in the final.

Date	Matches
FISSURE Playground 2
20/09/2025	FURIA 18:00 Falcons	Match

With Damjan "⁠kyxsan⁠" Stoilkovski also stepping up, Falcons looked unstoppable throughout the series, with Nikola "⁠NiKo⁠" Kovač, Ilya "⁠m0NESY⁠" Osipov, and Maxim "⁠kyousuke⁠" Lukin all having their moments in the sun and the latter looking more comfortable on Inferno with his new roles.

"We definitely knew teams were going to try to exploit our Inferno," NiKo said in a post-match interview on broadcast. "This was the reason why we switched positions, just to try to see if it would work, and so far it does. We feel more comfortable, Maxim [kyousuke] feels more comfortable on B. He doesn't really have to think about what's happening on the map, where he needs to be at, he just needs to position himself and kill people if they come.

"And for myself, I feel like I was decreasing my level slowly on Inferno CT side, so it's a good change for me as well. But again, it's very early stages and we haven't really played against the best teams on Inferno, so we still have a lot to prove on this map. But it's looking good and I'm happy that we're able to punish teams that are trying to exploit our Inferno."

Falcons were in control of the series from start to finish, immediately making up for losing the pistol on Inferno thanks to NiKo down three with a Five-SeveN to win the force-buy.

The Bosnian remained a terror in the early stages of the half, downing paiN members in Middle while kyousuke and kyxsan maintained a stranglehold of Banana. It was m0NESY who took over as the show-stopper once he had the AWP in hand, though, going 4:0 in openers and stomping out paiN's executes en route to a 8-4 half.

Insult to injury followed as kyxsan and NiKo hit a few blinders to pull back a 2v5 in the second pistol round, and Falcons wasted no time in closing out from there with m0NESY adding a triple kill in a 3v5 to clean sweep the second half.

The pain train continued on Ancient with kyousuke's sharp aim downing three to win a 2v4 pistol round, with paiN's force-buy reply offering them little solace as NiKo cracked open Middle with a double in the next. A quick kyousuke 1v2 had Falcons up 7-2 before multi-kills from Lucas "⁠nqz⁠" Soares, including a 4k shutdown of Donut, finally offered paiN some footing heading into the second half.

However, Falcons' imperial march towards victory resumed immediately after the swap, a triple from m0NESY securing the pistol and multi-kills by kyousuke giving paiN no chance to gain any further ground. A blind double by Franco "⁠dgt⁠" Garcia in Middle led to the Brazilians' sole round on the T side, and a run into an A stack in a 5v4 ultimately spelled their doom as Falcons closed out.

More highlights from Falcons vs. paiN:

• m0NESY's lightning-fast flick combines with kyxsan 2k to win the round

• biguzera 3k on a half-buy stops the rot for paiN

• kyousuke domes dav1deuS to win 1v2

• nqz AWP 4k shuts down Falcons' Donut push