PGL add more qualifiers to 2025 events; move Buenos Aires event to Cluj-Napoca

10-12-2024 11:14

PGL will also introduce eight-team playoffs and commit to making payments within two weeks of an event's conclusion.

PGL has announced updates for the 2025-2026 season. Notably, the tournament initially set to take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, has moved to Cluj-Napoca, Romania. The event will now take place on February 14-23, and the playoffs will be held at the BT Arena.

Schedule

PGL's events for 2025 are now:

PGL Cluj Napoca 2025: February 14-23
PGL Bucharest 2025: April 5-13
PGL Astana 2025: May 10-18
PGL Belgrade 2025: October 25-November 2

* PGL will also run Perfect World's international broadcast for CS Asia Championship on October 1-13, 2025.

PGL's events for 2026 will be:

PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026: February 12-22
PGL Bucharest 2026: April 2-12
PGL Astana 2026: May 7-17
PGL TBD (location announcement soon): August 6-16
PGL TBD (location announcement soon): October 1-11
PGL Belgrade 2026: October 22-November 1

Qualifiers

Community feedback made PGL rethink its invite policy, and the tournament organizer has now introduced Open Qualifiers to all of its events after Cluj-Napoca. They will be hosted on the Esportal platform, which the Romanian TO recently acquired.

PGL acquires Esportal assets

Open Qualifiers

SA/NA/EU:

Four Open Qualifiers.
The top two teams from each qualifier progress to the Closed Qualifiers.

Asia:

Four Open Qualifiers.
The top 4 teams from each qualifier progress to the Closed Qualifiers.

* If teams invited to the Closed Qualifiers based on VRS decline their invitations and no other teams are eligible for an invite, additional slots will be opened in the Open Qualifiers.

Closed Qualifiers

SA/NA/EU:

32 teams.
8 teams from Open Qualifiers.
24 teams invited based on VRS rankings.

Asia:

16 teams from Open Qualifiers.
16 teams invited based on VRS rankings.

CQ Round 1

32 teams divided into four groups of 8 teams.
Each group plays a Double Elimination bracket with a Best-of-3 format.
The 1st-place team from each group advances to Round 2.

CQ Round 2

4 teams compete in a Single Elimination bracket.
Matches are Best-of-3, with a Best-of-5 Grand Final.
The winner advances to the Main Event.

Invites

With the addition of qualifiers, invitations to the main tournament will be distributed as follows:

12 invites based on VRS
1 team from SA Closed Qualifiers
1 team from NA Closed Qualifiers
1 team from EU Closed Qualifiers
1 team from Asia Closed Qualifiers

Playoffs

PGL has also announced that its events will have eight-team playoffs and third-place decider matches, straying from other organizers' progressive brackets.

PGL's playoff schedule will be:

Friday: Four quarterfinals
Saturday: One showmatch and two semifinals
Sunday: Third-place decider and final (Bo5)

Prize pool and payments

PGL will also continue its commitment to paying teams out in a timely manner, stating that payouts will be made within two weeks of an event's conclusion as long as invoices are submitted promptly.

The $1,250,000 prize pool distribution for each tournament will be the following:

1. $400,000 (32.0%)
2. $187,500 (15.0%)
3. $150,000 (12.0%)
4. $87,500 (7.0%)
5-8. $62,500 (5.0% each)
9-11. $31,250 (2.5% each)
12-14. $18,750 (1.5% each)
15-16. $12,500 (1.0% each)

On top of the prize money, PGL will provide hospitality packages to teams attending their events, offering:

Eight roundtrip flight tickets for team members.
Accommodation for 8 people per team in a minimum 4-star hotel.
A hospitality package to cover food, beverages, and snacks throughout their stay.
A practice room equipped for six people, available during their stay.

Noo, I was really looking for an event on Buenos Aires. But I guess I can understand why, nobody wanted to come.

2024-12-10 11:15

7 replies

With that logic: who wants to go to Astana?? No, the last thing we as SA fans should do is simply "understand" and move on as if it's totally fine and understandable that PGL gave up on hosting its event in Buenos Aires. If they actually straight up gave up on doing it and had no motive of higher order to desisting, it is NOT fine. They had an important compromise with the city and with the CS community, and they didn't deliver on that point. And it's not like it should be fine that no one hosts events on SA 'cause "nobody wants to come anyway". No! CS should be nurtured as a global esport and every region should get its fair share of attention from TOs, ranging from Europe to NA, SA, Asia and Africa

2024-12-10 13:19

3 replies

Cs is a bussiness not your local charity. They want to make money. If events aren't profitable there's no point in making them. Despite that, this likely has to do with some permits and logistics or something like that because it's a pretty late shift (and to the country of their headquarters to make things easier).

2024-12-10 13:32

2 replies

Yes, I assume they probably had a reasonable justification for relocating the event. Anyhow, it's a shame. And CS not being a charity has nothing to do with what I said lol, what are you saying? Any event I SA would be very rentable for PGL, just as other have been for other TOs in the past. There are economic opportunities that should be explored in all regions that would benefit everyone, from fans, to TOs, to players, to general workers of the industry.

2024-12-10 13:38

1 reply

"No! CS should be nurtured as a global esport and every region should get its fair share of attention from TOs, ranging from Europe to NA, SA, Asia and Africa" If you can't make money there's no point. That's why #87. People attending doesn't mean event will automatically beprofitable. You may get asked more than expected to run the event in the location. You may have more truble than anticipated obtaining the technical equipment or it might even be the goverment asking for extra $ to authorize the event there...

2024-12-10 18:40

Why wouldn't people want to go to the goated Ciudad de la furia? <3

2024-12-10 13:55

ME VERÁS CAEEEEEEEEEEERR

2024-12-10 23:49

+69 for this reply, it was worth getting you out of your lurk Now, it's time to "ocultar te y disaparecer" again XD

2024-12-11 01:47

mongolz home crowd in Ulaanbaatar when

116

6 replies

I wonder, how good is the internet connection over there?

2024-12-10 11:21

4 replies

China, Japan.... - 60ping Indonesia, Taiwan.... - 80ping EU - 180ping America - 200ping

2024-12-10 11:32

bad.

2024-12-10 11:54

Cannot be worse than Turkish internet

2024-12-10 11:55

LAN

2024-12-10 12:33

Its Astana, dont you see XD

Good guy PGL, shame no Buenos-Aires event

Ay, I remember some Romanians were sad that PGL Bucharest was just a studio event. Good for them

2024-12-10 11:16

2024-12-10 11:18

We are happy

2024-12-10 11:22

my prayers got answered

2024-12-10 15:40

Cluj napoca major ???

naah its just an s-tier event

8-team playoffs W 3rd-place decider L BO5 final W

2024-12-10 11:17

3rd place decired W better than useless showmatch

110

3rd place decider needed in these prize money based ranking world

3rd place decider is good especially how close it is in prizepool with 2nd place. Now the better team which got unlucky seeding in the semis doesnt need to finish in the same spot as a team that fluked its way to semis

nah third place decider is a w

2024-12-10 13:06

1 team from eu qualifier lol

15 replies

+8/9 from VRS standings

2024-12-10 11:43

14 replies

doesnt matter how much from vrs. eu should have more sports from qualifier than other regions imo

2024-12-10 11:46

13 replies

why do you think they have qualifier spots in the first place lmao

2024-12-10 12:35

Just look at the major results lmao. Eu teams losing against na/sa/asia left and right.

2024-12-10 12:50

11 replies

one event doesnt mean much. look at how many teams in top3 from eu and others. also eu still dominating in the major.

2024-12-10 13:29

10 replies

Just because tier 1 eu teams dominate doesn't mean eu tier 2 mickey mouse teams need to be invited everywhere.

2024-12-10 13:39

9 replies

top10-top30 teams: eu - 11/12 hltv/vrs eu tier2 teams still dominate over any region. invites should be like: eu-3 na-1 sa-1 asia-1

2024-12-10 13:54

8 replies

Yup. We clearly saw just how much better EU T2 teams are at the Major, right? Incredible performances from the likes of Fnatic, C9 and VP. The reality is that the main reason the top 10-30 mostly consists of EU teams is due to the limited number of tournaments and lack of coverage by HLTV.

2024-12-10 19:57

yup. t2 eu still better than any other region. incredible performances from the likes of complxity, flyquest, rare atom, imperial, right? top 8-top16 teams at the major still 50% is from eu. any qualifier should be 50% from eu at least.

2024-12-10 21:12

coL, FlyQuest, RA, and Imperial performed just as well (poorly) as Tier 2 EU teams, which is exactly my point — they're on the same level and therefore shouldn't get more spots. Yes, the top 8-16 spots are dominated by Tier 1 EU teams, and I’m not arguing against that. However, as #90 mentioned, there’s no reason to invite more weak Tier 2 EU teams just because of that.

2024-12-10 21:19

5 replies

its a 16 team event. in the lower part of the list roughly 50% of the teams should be from eu according to the results and ranking. there are no reason to invite 3 times more weak na/sa/asia teams than eu teams.

2024-12-10 21:28

Brother, there's like 12 VRS invites. The highest ranked team that wouldn't receive an invitation is fucking SAW which couldn't even make the Major and then the aforementioned T2 teams like VP which are on the same level as the Americas/Asian teams.

2024-12-10 21:37

also teams like big, 3dmax, gl and so on. im telling you once again there are much more t2 eu teams than from any other region, so the invite should reflect this.

2024-12-11 09:21

Noone cares how many there are. What matters is that they're on the same level as T2 American and Asian teams

2024-12-11 09:56

lmao so now because mongolz are on the same level as the best eu teams Asia should get the same number of invites to the top events as eu right?

2024-12-11 10:10

TOs listening to actual community feedback??? nowaywayway

Seems like it. After all most of tier 1 orgs are located in EU/CIS or rosters are EU mixes.

Good that they listened to the community and brought in Open Quals

bo5 grand final is here LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHERE IS THE EVENT IN BARCELONA? SHIT ORGANITATION

Astana two times wow. Sad no Almaty

So the whole OCE is going to play against the chinese teams and the mongolian teams at 200 ping 🤣🤣

2024-12-10 11:20

Would be easy to get around if there were, for example, an 8 team OCE online qual where 1/2 teams go to the LAN regional qualifier, along with a top 4 from asia. Something like that. Online stage -> regional LAN stage -> Qualified for actual event.

2024-12-11 08:37

LET'S GOOO ROMANIA

you have noo idea how long I've been waiting for this

2024-12-10 11:23

Same

2024-12-10 11:27

yeah bro same, was planning to go to the Budapest major, but now i have an event even closer to home

not a major but i feel you, plus the one in. bucharest does not have spectators

2024-12-10 11:56

ME TOO, SEE YALL AT CLUJ

2024-12-10 17:27

does any of you know if these are going to be with spectators or only lan???

From PGL: "The tournament, originally scheduled to take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina, will be relocated to Cluj-Napoca, Romania. It will take place between February 14 and 23, 2025; the playoffs will have a live audience inside BT ARENA. The tickets will be on sale soon." Source: press.pglesports.com/365501-pgl-cs2-2025..

2024-12-10 11:26

bless

Only Bucharest is Lan studio (no spectators) the rest are lan with spectators

By the way where's PGL/IEM Finland??? Espoo/Helsinki/Tampere. Still waiting the announcement.

2024-12-10 11:25

Elisa still alive no

2024-12-10 12:54

Very good change, but I thought you couldnt do NA and SA spots anymore? I thought it had to be americas Im pretty sure I saw them update this somewhere, same goes for OCE now having to play for "asian" spots and cant have strictly their own

2024-12-10 11:29

From the current Valve rulebook on GitHub (last updated a month ago): "3.1.2 Open Qualifiers. For Open Qualifiers, Licensee can use any criteria that in good faith are reasonable and transparent, and do not specifically target individual Rosters or Teams. Acceptable criteria include demographics and region (e.g. "Female Rosters based in Canada")." Source: github.com/ValveSoftware/counter-strike_.. You may be thinking of the VRS regions, which are combined: "For Tier 1 events, the invites have to be based on the global VRS or a sub-list thereof that is officially provided by Valve (Europe, Americas, Asia)." (3.1.1b, same source)

2024-12-10 11:45

Thanks, I knew you could have open quals for both but I thought that closed qual spots would kind of work the same as invites would (cause its what decided the spots to the event itself and not just who can try to qualify to the event) so I thought that closed quals had to be combined, kind of like how the RMR works with both NA and SA quals but combining them when it comes to qualifying for the actual major. Im still uncertain on it but it seems I was wrong

2024-12-10 11:48

Such a good decision to finally have more events with 8 team playoffs again. Didn't like the majors by PGL, but now they seem to make the right decisions - hope they can make some great events.

3rd place decider matches are of the most depressing matches in all the sports. Two demotivated teams are forced to play for a place they don't care about. With rare exceptions.

2024-12-10 11:30

"Place they don't care about" Teams will care about them due to winning it giving more points in the vrs

2024-12-10 11:37

and money, 60k difference between 3 and 4 can motivate players

2024-12-10 11:53

4 Quarter in 1 day a lot that but with MR12 its maybe will be fine

2024-12-10 11:31

ffs removing a new location to go back to Romania again at least do it in a different location - there are so many EU countries that don't get any events or rarely get anything.

2024-12-10 11:41

Yes but recent past events in Romania had no crowd, this is the first one that will have one. If you ask me, they should remove pgl bucharest since it has no crowd and move it to another country

2024-12-10 11:44

When is the last CS event with crowd that took place in Romania? I will tell you, Dreamhack Bucharest 2016. So yes we deserve this.

For Counter Strike ... but in eSports Romania still hold the tournament with the highest prize pool in Esports . Bucharest Dota International 2021 - $40,018,195 no other esports tournament manage to get a higher prize pool not even the following Dota internationals . Okay Esports World Cup had prize pool of 60 milions this year but that was for multiple competitions like : Apex Legends, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, EA Sports FC 24, Fortnite, Free Fire, Honor of Kings, League of Legends, Mobile Legends: Bang Bang, Overwatch 2, PUBG Battlegrounds, PUBG MOBILE, Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege, RENNSPORT, Rocket League, StarCraft II, Street Fighter 6, Teamfight Tactics and TEKKEN 8 so this was not even close

2024-12-10 16:52

Yes, it's true, the TI was an very important event, but here we are talking about CS. If Valve decided to have TI in Bucharest, why they didn't do the same with CS? Ofc they hate CS and they don't care where the majors take place

2024-12-10 20:05

yes because romania has had so many events in the past decade ain't no way

2024-12-10 12:09

Why Romania again?

Why not? The last Tier 1 Event with crowd in Romania was Dreamhack 2016 held in Bucharest. We deserve these.

2024-12-10 13:41

Lessgoo

2024-12-10 11:47

Clooj let s goo

2024-12-10 12:03

- Buenos Aires + Cluj >RIP - Barcelona, - Sao Paulo potentially (locations now unconfirmed) -1, was looking forward to Barcelona in 2 years + Open Qualifiers +1 >32 team Closed Qualifiers +1 that is actually huge, bigger pool of teams in the non-EU regions than even the Major KEKW >8 Team Playoffs +1 +1 +1 >Congested schedule Surely they can find a way to get all 4 Quarterfinals off without a hitch? Same with a Showmatch and Semis? >3rd place decider +1 >BO5 Grand Finals +1 with MR12 >Prize pool, Hospitality +1 I rate 8/10, good changes, announce replacements for SA events and hopefully confirm Barcelona soon. Do something funny in Bucharest Studios to make it worthwhile!

2024-12-10 12:08

Oh yeah someone tell PGL the entirety of the Americas are 70 teams and a lot of those are conflicts of interest for Female and Academy squads as well as multiple double iterations of squads. And that Asia has 24 ranked teams currently (plus a second iteration of Chinggis Warriors) Boutta have a LOT of nobodies playing in these Closed Qualifiers, gonna be awesome.

2024-12-10 12:30

Cluj is a better city than Bucharest for tourists.

2015 Major gave me terrible memories, no audience

What, no mid January event in Winterpeg? lol

2024-12-10 12:18

PGL run out of money casting the dead viewership major?

let’s be serious running an event in argentina will probably be cheaper than in any european country

2024-12-10 12:21

For PGL no, they are Romanian

2024-12-10 12:22

this doesn’t mean they don’t pay for renting venues and the rest of stuff

2024-12-10 12:23

No idea what would be the exact difference but should be expensiver moving out of your country. Well didnt like they choose small arena on Argentina anyway. Hope they dont change 2026 event

2024-12-10 12:25

By the looks of it Buenos Aires 2025, Buenos Aires 2026 and Sao Paulo 2026 are all either replaced by Cluj or unconfirmed now. SA really got shafted here.

2024-12-10 12:32

Idk dude, I paid like 180 USD for the Oasis tickets and in Brazil or Chile they were below a 100 USD, our prices are so messed up.

2024-12-10 14:24

Huuuuuge L tbh

4 quarters in one day and then one bo3 3rd place decider + one bo5 final is quite the schedule. Let's see if a live crowd can be hyped for that long...

2024-12-10 12:26

32 team open qualifiers and only 1 team makes it? Thats brutal. Am i reading this right?

That's the closed qualifiers. Include the open qualifiers, and it could be hundreds of teams fighting for one spot xD

Thats alot of teams from all regions that can get valve points from matches so a really good thing imo.

2024-12-10 20:00

romania really romania'd an event from Buenos Aires...

Huge L , why that even happened what the fuck? Any information on the reason?

2024-12-10 12:42

Mega W, missed the kennyS autograph all the way back at the Cluj major, need the m0nesy one now

So unfair

Kennys will come back from retirement and get mvp like in 2015

2024-12-10 12:57

So much better!

2024-12-10 13:24

My guess is the asia vrs closed invite gonna be a bunch of aussie teams because SOMEONE only want to cover aussie matches. How will the servers work? Are they gonna do that guam thing or ignore aussie teams or instead just make it a thinly veiled aussie qualifier?

2024-12-10 13:25

Pro CS is really starting to take off. I should go pro.

2024-12-10 13:35

hmu if you need a bad teammate

2024-12-10 19:47

I rememeber when I was a little kid grinding 1.6 and in school the question what do you want to be when you grow up I answered pro gamer :D Today it's pretty lucrative to be in tier 1, traveling and attending all these events and being a star making a bag.

2024-12-10 21:33

I'd have prefered not to hype for buenos aires event

2024-12-10 13:46

Fuck, i'd love an Buenos Aires event

2024-12-10 14:04

Cluj is back!

hospitality package W BLAST could never

2024-12-10 15:08

only Javier Milei could afford tickets in Buenos Aires

2024-12-10 15:25

brooooo the cluj event is in our student vacation(between semesters) when everyone is home :((

2024-12-10 15:28

Redpill me on Bucharest vs. Belgrade. Which one is more fun to visit and has better food and bar culture?

2024-12-10 16:22

why are there 32 spots in the closed qualifier with only 1 spot? I feel like the qualifiers are gonna take too long for no reason and 32 teams from asia in one qualifier? how many organisations are even left in asia

2024-12-10 16:36

i think 8 spots for closed qualifiers is enough for asia, NA and SA and maybe 12-16 for EU

2024-12-10 16:38

Pgl is doing an amazing thing these CQ will be ranked events that have teams get valve points and all these matches will help a ton of tier 2/3 teams get on the board at all where points could be scarce

2024-12-10 20:01

good for asia scene overall then but bad for the mongolz lol

2024-12-11 10:42

yeeey CS back to cluj napoca lets go

2024-12-10 16:39

lmao, when they announced Buenos Aires I asked why host lans in shitholes and got my message deleted. Now PGL says same thing basically and they get a dedicated post nice

2024-12-10 16:59

surprised they didn't add an event in moscow

2024-12-10 17:38

Super happy to see 4 quarter finals back. It's such a shame to me when the biggest events like Katowice and Cologne don't have 4. Especially now with MR12, I think it really makes sense. With that being said 4 in one day does sound a little crazy. But I guess doing two on Thursday isn't worth it considering the likely drop in attendance and having to pay an extra day for the venue. So fair play to PGL for trying to make it happen. Also, the more I look at the prize pool and level of accommodation PGL will be providing, the less I understand how these events make any money, lol.

PGL Lisbon 2026 thanks

2024-12-10 17:40

You had the chance to host a big event in one of the most beautiful countries in the entire world and you decided to move that event to Cluj-Napoca??? Lmao PGL really are mentally challenged.

2024-12-10 18:47