FURIA continues building momentum for Budapest Major with IEM Chengdu 2025 win
The last of the five international tournaments in the Intel Extreme Masters series' calendar this year, IEM Chengdu 2025, concluded on November 9. It easily outperformed last year's inaugural edition by livestreaming viewership as FURIA clinched one of the most competitive LAN events in its history.
The IEM Chengdu 2025 brought together 16 sides, split into two groups of eight. The pre-tournament chatter was all about the schedule clash with another Counter-Strike 2 competition, the PGL Masters Bucharest 2025, which saw the China event starting a day after the finals of the Romanian one.
Given the IEM series' standing on the annual CS2 calendar, most of the sides ranked in the top ten on the Valve Regional Standings (VRS) decided to skip the Romanian affair. Only Astralis, HEROIC, 3DMAX and paiN Gaming signed up for both, and, as a result, the eventual line-up for Chengdu consisted of some of the world's best teams.
After a week of intense action, FURIA dominated Team Vitality 3:0 in the Grand Final to clinch one of its biggest trophies. It was the Brazilian favorites' first-ever IEM LAN crown, finally ending an eight-year title drought for a majority Brazilian squad in this coveted series.
Victory at this Counter-Strike 2 tournament was also proof of FURIA's growing stature as a Major contender. Despite claiming a couple of wins recently at the FISSURE Playground #2 and the Thunderpick World Championship 2025 and going deep at the ESL Pro League Season 22 (where it lost to Team Vitality), there were question marks over the side's ability to cope when the lights were brightest and all the top-ranked sides were in contention.
Luckily for Gabriel "FalleN" Toledo & Co, they had a resounding answer for these naysayers. The IEM Chengdu 2025 featured almost all the teams in the top ten of the Valve Regional Standings, and FURIA notched 2:0 wins over top names like The MongolZ and Team Falcons before securing that emphatic victory over Team Vitality to finally earn its world-beating credentials.
FalleN himself clinched one of his most prominent wins in competitive Counter-Strike for a few years. He will be hoping that this is the start of another run of results that could take Brazilian CS to the top of the global scene, just like he did all those years ago with SK Gaming and Luminosity Gaming.
The summit clash was the tournament's most popular match by a distance, reaching 772,985 Peak Viewers (PV), with FURIA part of three of the top five entries on this list. The nearly 775,000 PV this series did was around 111.3% higher than the 2024 iteration, which marked IEM's first Counter-Strike event in China in four years.
Among CS2 events with a prize pool of at least $1 million this year, the IEM Chengdu 2025 finished as the eighth most popular entry. The top name is the BLAST.tv Austin Major 2025, which also made history as officially the most-watched tournament of all time in the legendary shooter's lengthy competitive history.
The IEM Chengdu also ended among the most popular Counter-Strike competitions to be held in China. The leader of this table is the recent Perfect World Shanghai Major 2024, which marked the game's first Chinese Major as the franchise made its first few crucial steps forward in this massive market.
FURIA's win not only solidified the team as a new major player ahead of the year's last Major in Budapest, but also gave a huge fillip to Brazilian esports. For a long time, the insane level of support from fans has not been repaid enough with title-winning performances from its top sides, but all that could change with this defining win.
It will be interesting to see how Fallen & Co, alongside other Brazilian squads, perform in the season-ending CS2 events, which also include the BLAST Rivals Fall 2025. Esports Charts will keep readers updated on all the results and viewership trends emerging from these competitions.
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