Nongshim bests NRG to secure grand final spot

Nongshim RedForce Nongshim RedForce Korea Rank #1 Xross Jeonghwan (정환) Rb Goo Sang-min (구상민) Francis Kim Mu-bin (김무빈) Dambi Lee Hyuk-kyu (이혁규) Ivy Park Sung-hyeon (박성현) defeated NRG NRG North America Rank #1 keiko Georgio Sanassy brawk Brock Somerhalder mada Adam Pampuch skuba Logan Jenkins Ethan Ethan Arnold 2-0 to book their tickets to the grand final of Masters Santiago and continue their undefeated streak in 2026.

The Pacific first seed took a clean 13-9 win on Bind and scrapped a close 13-11 on Abyss. While Dambi paved the way for his team on Neon previously in the tournament, Francis was the hero of the day, putting up a 44/27/11 KDA, 174 ADR, and a 1.49 rating on Yoru.

With NRG banning their usual pick of Corrode, Nongshim opted to select Bind, a map they were undefeated on in Pacific but hadn't debuted yet in Santiago. Nongshim took the first pistol in characteristically aggressive fashion, with Dambi running through the A Teleporter and three members following up behind him.

From there, Francis dominated with the Operator, finding a 1v2 to convert the bonus and instant first picks in the rounds following to bring Nongshim up 4-2. The latter stages of the half saw big plays made by both sides, with brawk and Ethan pulling off 1v2s to bring it to 5-5 and Rb and Dambi finding 4Ks to take it to 7-5.

NRG won the second pistol but struggled to answer back to Nongshim's fragging in the buy rounds; Nongshim stormed ahead to an 11-7 with Francis continuing to perform. Dambi closed out the final round with a Judge and ultimate 4K to close out the map 13-9.

Francis collects four clean kills to take Nongshim up to 11.

Dambi fends off the retake as the time burns down.

After suffering their only map loss of the tournament thus far to G2 Esports on Abyss, Nongshim made one adjustment, keeping Dambi on Waylay but moving Ivy from Astra to Cypher.

That adjustment made all the difference. Ivy's lurks through Mid on caused major headaches for NRG's defense as the Cypher enabled overwhelming A splits and intelligent midround calls, collecting 12 of his 19 kills in the half and spurring Nongshim on to a 9-3 lead.

Over on Nongshim's defense, a flanking 4K from Francis made it feel all but over as Nongshim got up to 12-7.

Francis rips NRG apart with the perfect flank.

Down but not out, however, NRG dug their heels in, forcing both of Nongshim's timeouts as they began to find purchase in their site hits. An unlikely skuba 1v3 took NRG up to 10 rounds, and then 11. The champions only fell at the final hurdle, as Nongshim pulled off a three-man flank into a chaotic B retake to take the win 13-11.

Nongshim now stands one best-of-five match away from completing their journey from competing in Premier to winning a Masters at their first international event. NRG, down to the lower final, will face the winner of Paper Rex versus G2 Esports for the right to challenge Nongshim for the trophy.

dambi is the poster for what the true unlock of the agent (neon) is, as neon will be played as META now, and will only be a matter of time before more and more people use neon to the max, theres always more to be found in the game, dambi and NS used primarly yuru to setup dambi, it wasnt all him, what neon can do for dambi is what neon Can do when used properly, these are pro players that get paid 1000s of dollars to get the most out of there agents and i promise you, more and more people will now see this and use it as a example, as what happend with youru before people thought he was busted, so no youre very wrong, i wouldnt say they'd nerf it already, (they need a stable meta for atleast a little while) so youll see more players abuse neon during stage 1 im sure, dambi wont be the only person that is able to use neon like he has, and thats stupid to think so, riot nerf according to the top pro play and players (most of the time) Youru does not need a nerf yuru is already pretty nerfed, senti buff will only work if people stop playing double or triple dualist so i dont think that will happen, so even if you buff senti youll still only see senti on like a abyss or haven (i donno about fracture really so cant speak on that, that map is complete dogshit btw)