PGL Cluj-Napoca teams announced

28-1-2025 10:43

The MongolZ, FaZe, EF, and MOUZ are among the invited teams for the event in February.

FaZe are among the teams that accepted the Cluj-Napoca invite

PGL has announced the sixteen invited teams to PGL Cluj-Napoca from Valve's Global Standings. The $1,250,000 event's group stage will take place at the PGL Studio in Bucharest, starting February 14, before moving to the BT Arena on February 21-23 for the playoffs.

The tournament will feature two top 5 teams in Valve's global ranking, The MongolZ and FaZe, along with MOUZ, Eternal Fire, and Falcons from the top 10.

Brazilian fans will get representation from three teams, FURIA, paiN, and MIBR, while North American fans will be able to follow Complexity and Wildcard.

The likes of Astralis, Virtus.pro, 3DMAX, BIG, SAW and Australia's top side, FlyQuest, round of the roster.

Several of these teams have already kicked off their season at BLAST Bounty Season 1, most excitingly Eternal Fire, who went on to reach the best-of-five grand final where they failed to keep up with Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets and Spirit.

Fans wanting to see all of these teams before they travel to Romania will have the chance to at IEM Katowice, starting January 29, where all 16 have been seeded either into the first stage or the group stage.

The full team list is:

NO NAVI, NO PARTY

2025-01-28 10:44

233

24 replies

Feel sorry for Im's fans

2025-01-28 10:53

119

22 replies

Romanians would have created a great atmosphere for iM, now I don't want to go to the event anymore, I will try to sell my ticket.

2025-01-28 10:56

107

20 replies

brazil moment

2025-01-28 11:03

219

11 replies

Eu people were picking on brazzilians and now this xddd

2025-01-28 11:07

6 replies

brazillians have been seeing their players on stages for over a decade, romanians havent seen a romanian player on their home soil on a stage ever

2025-01-28 11:41

5 replies

Holy shet you mean romania is like other ~200 country people who also havent seen their country player on their home soil stage? Mind blowing stuff

2025-01-28 12:52

don't remember russians mass selling epicenter finals tickets because navi got eliminated

2025-01-28 13:12

3 replies

Maybe because there were 2 other teams with russians in the final?

2025-01-28 13:43

2 replies

famous russian teams mouz and vitality

2025-01-28 13:45

1 reply

My bad, my memory mixed EPICENTER and Blast Moscow. Edit: But the thing is, as I now checked, that finals and semi-finals were played on the same day, so still no reason to sell tickets.

2025-01-28 13:58

not really as you also miss g2, vita and spirit. Going to a supposedly t1 tourney and not seeing ur top national player and top3 players of the past year playing is kinda weak

2025-01-28 11:10

but people keep telling me that mongolz and eternal fire are tier 1 so it's fine right?

2025-01-28 16:16

they are tier1 but not elite

2025-01-28 16:40

they are, but you are not their fan unless you are from, the same region, like I enjoy seeing them play but I wouldn't spend money to go see them in person or get their autograph or

2025-01-28 17:20

Well well well

2025-01-28 11:08

There is also that dude from Flyquest.

2025-01-28 11:12

There is 0 chance of them making playoffs so the fans won't even see him

2025-01-28 11:15

We'll see. I trust in dexter to have another good tournament after they got destroyed by Spirit last week.

2025-01-28 11:16

they could def make top 8

2025-01-28 11:40

You still got regali though

2025-01-28 15:55

it will be difficult to reach the playoffs

2025-01-28 15:59

:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD BANDWAGON ATMOSPHERE

2025-01-28 19:16

russian spirit fan xDDDD

2025-01-28 16:57

at least we got regali

2025-01-28 13:02

No NAVI, G2, Vitality and Spirit? Officially tier 2 tournament

2025-01-28 10:45

171

25 replies

Spirit NaVi Vitality G2 Liquid GamerLegion Declined the invites

2025-01-28 10:47

110

16 replies

I know Btw, why is GamerLegion acting like they are tier 1? LOL

2025-01-28 10:49

7 replies

GL Tier 1

2025-01-28 10:51

They have the GOAT REZ, put some respekt on his name

2025-01-28 11:14

IEM 2000BC BABYLON MVP

2025-01-28 12:50

hibernation time

2025-01-28 12:14

Because they are tier 1? Or do you think that only top 5 or top 10 are tier one? I would say that top 30 is tier 1.

2025-02-09 20:12

Tier 1 are teams who wins trophies or at least contend for it by reaching Finals

2025-02-09 21:03

Tier 1 CS Is the teams who compete in the top tournaments. Not only the ones who teach the finals. Tier two cs is the lesser tournaments.

2025-02-10 02:01

boss teams.

2025-01-28 10:57

why tho

4 replies

I mean the prize pool is huge

2025-01-28 11:09

vacation to dubai

Kato is a must, EPL and Cluj are very close. Teams 1 to 4 chose EPL over Cluj

2025-01-28 14:01

too many tournaments. not much preparation-time. not playing a tier 1 tournament wouldnt be that bad for the team´s ranking, while booming out at the tournament after the first few games caused by lack of prep would certainly be followed by dropping in the ranking.

Source?

2025-01-28 12:26

I can understand established team skipping events but G2 and Liquid are retarded

2025-01-28 13:04

People are complaining but I really dont mind, we cant have every single tournament have the same teams, it still has a ton of great teams but the this also makes the majors and colognes etc, more important cause thats where all the best teams are, no one is skipping those

2025-01-28 11:06

as a navi fan i am dissapointed but you are right, it is probably better for overall of the game

2025-01-28 13:20

yeah I understand that, especially for those that already bought tickets but personally im happy we still have some good teams while also having space for more T2 teams to get lan experience and if theyre good enough arena matches as well. Imo its still an exciting tournament with teams to root for, would be sick with a mongolz vs EF final but either way I still think its a big benefit to the scene overall and navi will have very many tournaments to play this year anyway

2025-01-28 14:14

Will probably go to PGL Bucharest that is two months later, so fans don't shouldn't despair that IM wont come

2025-01-28 17:40

PGL Bucharest has no crowd... it is a studio event

2025-01-28 19:20

That's the reality now. Top teams will be skipping top events more this year.

2025-01-28 11:17

navi especially will skip events, as they had a bit too many last year

2025-01-28 12:15

Bad scheduling from PGL though icl. Most of the tournaments are a day or week before IEM. I dont think a team like Navi will play a single PGL this year, because rather play for IGS instead of prize money

2025-01-28 12:48

ez Mongolz , mzinho is back

ez for faze

EZ for FaZe?

nice tier 2 event

tier 2's dont exist anymore technically. all that matters is that if its ranked or not. more point=more tourneys

2025-01-28 11:42

? there is literally tier2 events in valve rulebook

2025-01-28 12:18

Who care if its ranked

2025-01-29 03:18

Valve does have a tier 2 definition for events that allows them to filter the VRS invites and invite teams starting at a lower VRS rank. This event is defined as tier 1 though.

2025-01-28 15:03

Faze tier 2?

#172

2025-01-28 15:04

super stacked but arguably the 4 best teams are missing

It will be a good event and I'm excited about the team lineup. Missing the biggest teams is maybe going to be a problem for PGL as far as the perception of their events goes, but I think we will see more teams skipping events as time goes on and the viewers will eventually get used to it.

2025-01-28 15:09

tier 1,5

navi could've accepted so iM can lift a trophy in his home country. bummer

Sad honestly, I know a lot of people would have cheered their hearts out for him and for navi. Praying FlyQuest make quarters to see Regali on stage. Gonna be tough tho.

2025-01-28 12:04

It's a Mongolz tournament to lose.

Mongolz winning that

2025-01-28 10:46

It will be interesting to see the new Mouz under Brollan as IGL

i dont think we will see much of them

another event for eternal fire to place 2nd

2025-01-28 10:48

should they change name to eternal two?

2025-01-28 12:08

more like eternal failure

2025-01-28 13:24

This is actually the biggest chance to win something for once, if EF avoids Mongolz

2025-01-28 12:45

no navi g2 vita or spirit, gg mongolz congrats!

Our Fnatic is listed on the missing persons list.

Ez for Brazil

free win for big

2025-01-28 10:50

Top teams skipping this event why ? 1.25 milli on the line.

2025-01-28 10:52

To prepare for the ESL Pro League, apparently.

9 replies

Skip tier 2 event to prepare for tier 2 event seems legit

2025-01-28 10:54

8 replies

I get it with NaVi and Spirit cause they have chances at Intel Grand Slam , but no excuse for G2 and Vitality ... specially after Blast failure

2025-01-28 10:58

???? Navi literally got eliminated in semis just like G2. And it wasn't even close match like G2.

do you know what is IEM grand slam ? what has this to do with what you are saying ?

are you really expecting something rational from donk fans?

2025-01-28 13:26

flair doesn't check out

2025-01-28 14:47

well they are the most obnoxious, loud and petty after all and at some point everyone will just ignore them (eventually)

2025-01-28 16:44

"especially after Blast failure" liquipedia.net/counterstrike/Intel/Grand.. And I indeed know what is IGS. "No excuse for vitality" lmao.

2025-01-28 15:12

Both events are tier 1. But, being so close together, some teams chose to skip this one.

2025-01-28 11:13

There's gonna be a lot of tournaments this year so you have to skip one or two to avoid burning yourself out

2025-01-28 12:19

This is so stupid... After 10 years of no cs events in Romania, we get an event where we are missing iM or Ana and the best teams in the world. This is such a disappointment... At least we got regali <3

This is stupid from Navi. You don't play only for the tournament but also for the people, it's like screwing us over

2025-01-29 11:08

WHY NAVI?

Grand Slam chance

2025-01-28 11:00

Yeah but they had enough time to prepare for Cluj also

2025-01-28 11:02

This is exactly what was needed. Top teams will soon find out how important PGL tournaments are in terms of ranking and why skipping them is not a good idea...

2025-01-28 10:55

Vitality got almost no point from Blast , if they fail in katowice too and missing another even with prize pool higher than Katowice they may miss important tournaments in summer because of the ranking ...

Vitality actually lost points in blast because they lost to EF. i doubt they will miss anything though. they still a top6 team and most tier1 events are 16-team

2025-01-28 11:25

need to be EU top 6 to get the invite straight into the last group stage of the major and their difference to Falcons/EF (7th/8th) isn't that big. probably won't happen, but the margin for error might be smaller than people imagine

2025-01-28 13:34

we will be cheering for pain

Which system for matchups will apply for the Opening Round of the Swiss Stage? 1-9, 2-10, 3-11 etc. like at Majors or 1-16, 2-15, 3-14 etc.? Seeds: TheMongolZ #1 FaZe #2 MOUZ #3 Falcons #4 FURIA #5 paiN #6 3DMAX #7 MIBR #8 Eternal Fire #9 Complexity #10 SAW #11 BIG #12 FlyQuest #13 Astralis #14 Virtus.pro #15 Wildcard #16 Each opening round matchup based on Major style seeding: TheMongolZ - Eternal Fire FaZe - Complexity MOUZ - SAW Falcons - BIG FURIA - FlyQuest paiN - Astralis 3DMAX - Virtus.pro MIBR - Wildcard Or High seeds against low seeds: TheMongolZ - Wildcard FaZe - Virtus.pro MOUZ - Astralis Falcons - FlyQuest FURIA - BIG paiN - SAW 3DMAX - Complexity MIBR - Eternal Fire Also which ranking is used for seeding? Same as invites, which was January 1? Or a different date?

I think high seeds against low seeds since all the matches are bo3.

2025-01-28 11:57

VRS point farm

2025-01-28 10:59

Must be very frustrating for iM not to play in front of home crowd. Specially after all his achievements.

Exactly

They will probably attend PGL Bucharest in April though

2025-01-28 11:22

PGL Bucharest = studio only event

thats a studio event tho...

2025-01-28 11:50

EZ for Mongolz

Maybe Eternal Fire can finaly win in a final

tier 2 tournament LMFAO

Nice to see other teams

Wildcard got invited, LFG. Also excited to see CoL accept their invitation (as expected).

Weak ass tournament, fluke cuz no top1. Team spirit , the real tester of fraudelent t1 teams

mickey mouse tourney

Ez for Faze

Falcons first "big" trophy lift

why only tier 2 teams?

2025-01-28 11:18

mongolz tier 0

This will happen more in the future, but also for ESL tournaments. For instance, Faze is not playing at EPL. Teams will choose and pick what they feel suits them the best, it might be that teams skipping PGL will end up regretting it at some point if they fall down in the rankings when it would've been easier to go there and have a good placement. That's why I believe it will balance out at some point. Regards

2025-01-28 11:23

Yeah i don't understand it too. Later in the year Blast rivals colides with Iem melbourne, while Pgl astana collides with Iem dallas, so most teams will anyway skip on of those colliding events, which will grand them more time to bootcamp

2025-01-28 11:31

I understand why the top teams skipped, they can rest, perhaps they want to see how not going to a tournament is like. But what makes me scratch my head is why Liquid and GamerLegion declined the invite. Liquid is outside the top 8, they need these VRS points for easier seeding in tournaments as well as not get overtaken by any other anerican team so they get that stage 3 invite. GamerLegion on the other hand is in the midst of this huge dogpile of teams fighting to stay in the top 20, and were the only team outside the top 10 to decline the invite.

2025-01-28 11:45

I agree it doesn't make any sense for GL, and I think that's a bad move for them, they really need to perform at EPL/Kato. Same for Liquid, if they fail Kato and EPL they're in deep shit in terms of VRS, time to start playing I guess. Regards

2025-01-28 11:48

I presume GL didn't go for it because they are banking on the fact, they'll be playing BLAST Rising and want to go to the BLAST Open instead. Nothing else would really make too much sense for them. Liquid might be content with bootcamping since they'll get the invite for IEM Dallas anyway and to instead focus on EPL and BLAST Open first. From a prize money perspective, I'd have taken PGL over BLAST for the immediate rankings boost but org probably looked at the frequent flyer programme and said "we want some of that"

2025-01-28 12:43

I doubt it's going to happen for ESL's top LANs. EPL I can understand FaZe not going since it's not really their type of event.

2025-01-28 23:15

Not for Kato or Cologne probably, those have always been S-tier. The rest of the IEM circuit is kinda whatever though, for example IEM chengdu towards the end of the year would be in China when PGL is hosting an EU tournament at the same time basically, I feel many people would rather skip Chengdu there. Regards

2025-01-28 23:34

Saw?

2025-01-28 11:27

tier2 tournament

2025-01-28 11:29

no g2, no navi or spirit fuck this shit

2025-01-28 11:30

guess im cheering for falcons then

2025-01-28 11:32

cheer for flyquest man. for regali

For those curious, the tournament invited were based off the VRS of January 6th, so here are the teams that declined the invite: G2 Spirit Navi Vitality Liquid GamerLegion Had 1 more team declined the invite, Imperial FE were next in line.

Damn, I would have wanted to see the girls compete. Does it sound bad if I say I hope some team will have a last minute visa issue so that the girls would come?

Would be fun, luckily we get to see them at Kato. If they do well we'll see them in other tournaments, especially if they manage to hold their mid 20s spot, i dont doubt we see more declinations when we get to the mid-season after EPL as teams start to feel travel exhaustion and prepare for the jetlag of going to places like Dallas, Houston, Doha, and Monterrey. Some of these teams might try to play in 3 of these events, i cant imaging how it must feel. Imperial will get their chance, these girls are good.

2025-01-28 11:51

no BB team :(

It's officially over for PGL. Blast and ESL won.

romgolia

2025-01-28 11:44

EZ MONGOLZ VRS POINT GRAB EZ MVP FOR SENZU AND ALL MONGOLZ GET EVP'S

2025-01-28 11:43

Fair enough. The schedule is so tight this year, and teams will have more options to choose tournaments they want to play. Spirit, G2, Navi may choose to prioritize Intel Grand Slam. Other teams need more points to keep up with ranking for invites. Second half of March and April will be so busy. Don't forget major qualify for Austin happens in mid of April, only one day after PGL Bucharest, and 4 days later is IEM Melbourne. Teams now have to choose carefully, otherwise they don't have time to bootcamp though.

2025-01-28 11:46

Yeah pgl tournaments ain't it. Respect to faze for choosing an arena event over epl

Make more sense as the prize is bigger, innit

2025-01-28 22:27

Since almost the whole tier1 declined invites and you have to go with these tier2 teams I really can't understand why not to make qualifiers with some more teams invited and at least have some stronger teams based on current form, maybe some underdog runs as well. Right now it looks like another boring tournament with unjustifiably high prize money

I agree with everything except for the prize money thing. How can you even argue that??? For once in history someone decided to increase the money to an already high cost industry, you should be happy about that

2025-01-28 13:38

Spirit and Navi decline because they have a chance to win the Intel Grand Slam. From the other teams I don't understand why they declined this event.

2025-01-28 17:42

No BB :-(

2025-01-28 12:02

No top 4 teams make it way more interesting

2025-01-28 12:03

Sadge

FaZe still had mathematical chance to win Grand Slam if they would win Katowice and next ESL event. They announced they will skip EPL and yet they go to PGL event before that... It's either very poor planning or they don't believe in themselves at all.

Apparently Spirit, NaVi, Vtality, G2 and Liquid Declined for EPL, which is kinda ehh fair for igm for some but vrs points here better than EPL (?)

2025-01-28 12:06

2025-01-28 17:41

vamooos furiaa guyss

faze will choke this ffs

2025-01-28 12:11

No G2,Spirit,Navi,Vitality,Liquid NT PGL, see you next time Good luck with the event tho

2025-01-28 12:28

Navi made iM dirty

2025-01-28 12:34

So ez for Mongolz

2025-01-28 12:35

Tier 2 event ResidentSleeper

2025-01-28 12:47

Do you guys think Niko would sign my G2 shirt?

2025-01-28 12:57

No Team Betas. NIce

2025-01-28 12:59

Ah the good ole, Faze confidence event.

2025-01-28 13:05

ez mongolz i love this

Top 4 Landodgers.

2025-01-28 13:23

ez 4 faze

Look those teams, tier 2 event

2025-01-28 13:33

WTF is this?

2025-01-28 13:49

Damn... This would've been a great tournament for Liquid to get some more experience & reps under their belt. I understand not all top teams can go to every event but considering this is a 1.25m event & massive for the the valve rankings..

2025-01-28 13:51

I understand navi g2 vitality or spirit would skip but Liquid and GamerLegion have no excuse.

2025-01-28 13:52

lol, why is liquid skipping a 1 mil prize? lmao

2025-01-28 14:20

#FaZeLiGeUp

2025-01-28 14:09

What? Navi, G2, Spirit, Vitality all skip it?

2025-01-28 14:32

NO SPIRIT, VITALITY, G2=T2 EVENT

2025-01-28 14:34

no donk no m0nesy no zywoo...

2025-01-28 14:37

PGL Cluj-Napoca: The Championship Missing Top Teams? So NAVI, Vitality, and G2 are headed to Rio (IEM Rio) in November 2024 for a tournament with a $250,000 prize pool, skipping the chance to compete in Europe at the PGL Cluj-Napoca, which boasts a $1,250,000 prize pool. This decision is surprising, especially considering there doesn’t seem to be another major tournament scheduled after Katowice, and PGL Cluj-Napoca offers significantly more prize money than Katowice itself. The scheduling choices feel unusual—could there be other factors influencing them? Adding to the intrigue, this marks a special moment for Romanian fans, as IM becomes the first Romanian player in a top-tier team to potentially play in his home country. For context, here are the prize distributions: IEM Rio: 1st: $42,000, 2nd: $20,000, 3-4th: $20,000 each, 5-6th: $10,000 each, 7-8th: $6,000 each, 9-12th: $5,000 each, 13-16th: $4,000 each. PGL Cluj-Napoca: 1st: $400,000, 2nd: $187,500, 3rd: $150,000, 4th: $87,500, 5-8th: $62,500 each, 9-11th: $31,250 each, 12-14th: $18,750 each, 15-16th: $12,500 each. Feel free to post this on main forum if you find it ... interesting.

2025-01-28 14:58

mongolz pain eternal fire top teams for this tourna ? :

2025-01-28 15:22

NaVi declined invite = empty arena all of my friends were hyped about it because of iM, now noone cares

2025-01-28 16:01

2025-01-28 16:36

hope I'm wrong. I'm not going anymore, waited with buying until NaVi confirmed invite, but really hope people still fill the arena, would be really cool

2025-01-28 17:06

Is romania ez place to visit at least?

2025-01-28 17:15

Yeah, Cluj is really nice

2025-01-29 11:06

alright... LOL

2025-01-28 16:33

thats a big money being left on the table by the top 3 teams, and notably liquid as well, cant wait to see the valve rankings after this one

2025-01-28 16:51

What’s the point to skip 1.250.000$ event just to play annoying EPL? It looks strange

2025-01-28 17:04

EPL win is a notch for Intel Grand Slam, Navi is hella focused on these now as they could be on the way to win one.

2025-01-28 23:19

Navi should have participated. I actually feel really bad for the Romanians.

2025-01-28 17:10

Sad, I wanted to see king iM and my goats Twistzz and ropz. At least FaZe will be there:D

2025-01-28 17:32

Broky farming another Mickey Mouse mvp per year

2025-01-28 19:10

pretty underwhelming, but as a hungarian living in cluj, i migh still go out to see torzsi (hopefully mouz make it to the playoffs)

2025-01-28 19:33

with those new volvo rules we will be seeing the same 20 teams recycled for atleast 3 months each, and they were supposed to "open the scene" fucking lol

2025-01-28 20:01