Eternal Fire won Stake Ranked Episode 5 in Barcelona, Spain, beating Fnatic 3-2 in the best-of-five grand final on October 30, 2026, after losing the first two maps. Eight teams played StarLadder's event for $100,000, and both finalists arrived chasing ranking points before the November 2 cut-off for invitations to the next Major.
Eternal Fire's run
EF played with Samet "jottAAA" Köklü, Iulian "regali" Harjău, Vladyslav "Kvem" Korol, Caner "soulfly" Kesici and their in-game leader, Gareth "MisteM" Ries, who makes the calls during rounds. Their coach was Sezgin "Fabre" Kalaycı. HLTV calls them an international squad, and it was put together this year: jottAAA arrived on loan from Aurora in February, regali and MisteM in April, Kvem in July and soulfly, also from Aurora, in August. Fabre, who had coached EF from November 2022 to April 2025, came back from Aurora on September 11.
EF reached the main event through the closed qualifier in September, winning three series there, the last two against Nuclear TigeRES and K27. On the Valve Regional Standings (VRS), the ranking Valve uses to hand out invitations, EF were 33rd on the October 5 list and Fnatic 35th. That made the finalists the two lowest-ranked teams in the field. The other six ranged from Astralis in 10th to Team Nemesis in 29th.
The bracket was double elimination: losing a series in the upper bracket sends a team to the lower bracket, and losing one there knocks it out. Every series was best of three, first to two maps, except the final, a best of five played to three map wins.
| Round | Opponent | Result | Maps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upper quarter-final | MIBR | 1-2 | Ancient 13-10, Mirage 10-13, Anubis 10-13 |
| Lower round 1 | Nemesis | 2-1 | Dust II 13-8, Cache 11-13, Ancient 13-10 |
| Lower quarter-final | BIG | 2-0 | Ancient 13-9, Inferno 13-4 |
| Lower semi-final | Astralis | 2-1 | Dust II 10-13, Ancient 13-7, Cache 13-8 |
| Lower final | MIBR | 2-0 | Ancient 13-7, Inferno 13-8 |
| Grand final | Fnatic | 3-2 | Anubis 8-13, Ancient 2-13, Cache 13-9, Dust II 13-11, Mirage 13-8 |
The loss to MIBR on October 27 left EF one defeat from going home. They beat Nemesis, who were playing with two stand-ins, and then BIG and Astralis on October 29, coming back against Astralis after losing their own pick, Dust II. The lower final against MIBR was scheduled three hours before the grand final on October 30. EF played 18 maps over the four days, more than any other team, and four series in the last two.
It was EF's second title in a row. On October 23, a week before this final, they had won DraculaN Season 7, beating SINNERS 2-1 in that grand final after losing to them in the upper bracket.
The grand final
Fnatic were not in the original field. They lost to Nemesis in the last round of the same qualifier and got in when B8 withdrew on October 3, citing scheduling conflicts. In Barcelona they won all six of their upper-bracket maps, against Astralis, BIG and MIBR. Against BIG they trailed 3-9 at half-time on Inferno before winning 13-11, and in the upper final Volodymyr "mazay" Iorhachov had 41 kills to 24 deaths and a 1.90 rating against MIBR.
In the veto, where the teams take turns removing and picking maps, Fnatic removed Nuke and EF removed Inferno. Fnatic picked Anubis and Cache, EF picked Ancient and Dust II, and Mirage was left as the decider, the fifth map, played only if the series reaches 2-2.
| Map | Picked by | Fnatic | EF |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anubis | Fnatic | 13 | 8 |
| Ancient | EF | 13 | 2 |
| Cache | Fnatic | 9 | 13 |
| Dust II | EF | 11 | 13 |
| Mirage | Decider | 8 | 13 |
Fnatic started the first two maps on the counter-terrorist (CT) side, the defenders, and won the first half of each 10-2. Anubis ended 13-8, with Artem "cairne" Mushynskyi at 18 kills to 10 deaths. Ancient, EF's own pick, ended 13-2, and Dmytro "jambo" Semera went 21-3 on it for a 2.59 rating.
Cache, Fnatic's second pick, turned the series. Fnatic led 7-5 after their half on the terrorist (T) side, the attackers, but won only two rounds on CT as EF took the second half 8-2 and the map 13-9. jottAAA had 20 kills to 13 deaths on the map. On Dust II, EF led 7-5 at half-time and split the second half 6-6 to win it 13-11.
Mirage was settled in its first half, which EF won 9-3 on CT, and Fnatic's 5-4 after the switch left them at 8-13. That made it a reverse sweep: three map wins in a row after losing the first two.
HLTV singled out jottAAA, who finished the series with a 1.21 rating and 78 kills to 67 deaths, and was EF's best-rated player on each of the last three maps. jambo was still the best on the server over the five maps, at 1.25, with 81 kills, the most of anyone. "I can't really put my feelings into words. It truly feels like a dream," EF's CEO, Furkan Güven, said on X, as quoted by HLTV.
Standout players
The ratings here are HLTV's Rating 3.0, which the guide to CS2 stats explains, and each one covers a single series. jambo was rated 1.48 against Astralis, 1.66 against BIG and 1.41 against MIBR before his 1.25 in the final, and he had 181 kills to 118 deaths over Fnatic's 11 maps.
Kvem led EF with 297 kills to 256 deaths across their 18 maps. His best series was the lower final against MIBR, at 1.80, and his lowest the grand final, at 0.91. regali had the team's best kill-death difference, 285 to 213. MIBR's Felipe "insani" Yuji was rated 1.22 and 1.46 in his two series against EF, and Astralis's Victor "Staehr" Staehr had 1.66 in the 2-1 win over magic.
Final standings
| Place | Team | Prize |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Eternal Fire | $25,000 |
| 2nd | Fnatic | $17,500 |
| 3rd | MIBR | $13,500 |
| 4th | Astralis | $11,000 |
| 5th–6th | IC Esports, BIG | $9,000 each |
| 7th–8th | magic, Team Nemesis | $7,500 each |
MIBR beat EF and IC before losing to Fnatic in the upper final and to EF in the lower final. Astralis, with Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard standing in from the second day, lost their opener to Fnatic, knocked out magic and IC, and then went out to EF. BIG's 5th–6th place ended their hopes of a Major invite, HLTV wrote. Ancient was played in 13 of the 14 series; only IC's 2-0 over Nemesis went without it.
What's next
Valve's standings of November 2 decide the invitations to the PGL Major Singapore 2026. After the final, HLTV counted five teams still in the race for the last three European places. EF were inside the cut-off with no more events lined up. Fnatic were outside it, and their chances now depend on results at other events.
Sources
- Stake Ranked Episode 5 — Liquipedia
- Eternal Fire, team page and roster history — Liquipedia
- fnatic vs. Eternal Fire, grand final match page — HLTV.org
- Eternal Fire inch closer to shock Major qualification with Stake Ranked trophy — HLTV.org
- Live updates from the race for PGL Major Singapore — HLTV.org
- Eternal Fire, Nemesis qualify for Stake Ranked 5 — HLTV.org
- Global standings as of October 5, 2026 — Valve on GitHub
- PGL Major Singapore 2026 introduces 3rd place decider match; VRS ranking set for November 2 — PGL News
