Spirit, NAVI and G2 among PGL Astana invites

10-3-2025 10:08

World No.1 Spirit will attend their first PGL event of the year after skipping Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest.

Spirit headline the invite list for PGL Astana

PGL has unveiled the invite list for its event in Astana, Kazakhstan, scheduled for May 10-18. The tier-one ranked event will have a $1.25 million prize pool, split 50-50 between teams and organizations.

Headlining the 12-team invite list are world No.1 Spirit and world No.3 Natus Vincere. Both teams will travel to Kazakhstan after skipping PGL's tournaments in Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest.

PGL announce new prize pool split for Bucharest 2025

But the biggest surprise is the inclusion of G2, Eternal Fire, The MongolZ, FURIA and GamerLegion - five teams that will also be at IEM Dallas. Many had expected teams to choose between the two events as they are only one day apart.

PGL Astana adds to an already busy period for Eternal Fire, with trips to Copenhagen (and potentially Lisbon), Bucharest, and Melbourne before these two back-to-back events. Last month, Engin "⁠MAJ3R⁠" Küpeli admitted that he was "afraid" of burnout because of the grueling schedule.

Cluj-Napoca champions MOUZ, Vitality, FaZe and Liquid are among the teams that have declined Astana invitations, which were determined using the March 3 invitational ranking.

The last four spots at PGL Astana will be filled by regional qualifiers in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia. The team list for the event currently looks as follows:

EU Qualifier

SA Qualifier

NA Qualifier

Asia Qualifier

PGL > ESL

2025-03-10 10:09

138

2 replies

no Vitality? free win for Spirit

2025-03-10 10:12

PGL audio guy begs to differ

2025-03-10 14:56

eternal fire 13-16th

1 reply

yeah but they got a legit excuse. burn out. whats the other teams excuse?

2025-03-10 23:55

going to be insane event, see u there 😎

epic

2025-03-10 10:10

pgl Astana > iem katowice

2025-03-10 10:11

cool

faze dodging all events with big teams or what

3 replies

no chance against real teams

2025-03-10 10:22

Frozen baiting his way to CCT, nothing wrong with that

2025-03-10 10:25

they play IEM Dallas which starts 1 day after Astana so they dont skip

2025-03-10 10:58

mouz, vita, faze, liquid- 0 brain

EF are insane, why take so many invites?

2025-03-10 10:13

10 replies

if they go to final it ends the 18th, and they are the 19th in Dallas, when the event ends, 1week later its Austin major... they clearly gonna burn out

2025-03-10 10:18

4 replies

EF are gonna get a direct invite for Stage 2/3 of the Major, since they're gonna be in Top 10 EU VRS, so they wont play "one week after Dallas" i think they'll maybe play 2 weeks after Dallas xdd

2025-03-10 10:38

even 2weeks of "rest" before the major aint rest at all, plus stress, jetlag... its a tough month

2025-03-10 14:38

They don't event need to go to final 3rd place decidier is at that event

2025-03-10 10:39

PGL Astana ends may 18th the quarters will be on may 16th semis on may 17th grand final/3rd place decider on may 18th 3rd place decider will also be played may 18th, before the grand final but even if they reach quarters (may 16th), they'll still need to play them, then pack their stuff, go to the airport, get on a plane, trip from Astana-Dallas by plane is ~20 hours, arrive at Dallas, settle down, rest for a bit and just like that its already the 18th.. like they'll have no time. this is basically G2, Eternal Fire, The MongolZ, FURIA and GamerLegion saying "hey, we're only here for the prize pool to help with our VRS ranking, and we're gonna fucking throw on purpose because we need to go to Dallas"

2025-03-10 11:31

Damn they really play every fucking single tournament, what the hell :D

2025-03-10 10:42

im starting to think that they participate in so many tournaments to make money bro

2025-03-10 13:26

they want some VRS points and playing all games xd

2025-03-10 13:44

They don't have anything better to do?

2025-03-10 13:55

Teams should sometimes relax to avoid burnout

2025-03-10 14:04

Ez tyloo

There are few teams that attend pgl Astana and iem Dallas, how are they gonna manage the travel if they make it to the pgl finals?

its not just a few, there are 5 teams, especially teams like mongolz and g2 who can easily make playoff and they need to be in 3 days on other part of the world

2025-03-10 10:21

I dont think it's 3, on event page Astana ends on 18th and Dallas starts on 19th. And I don't think there are many flights available, seems very strange to me

2025-03-10 10:23

They will throw

2025-03-10 10:28

afisha.yandex.ru/moscow/sport/pgl-astana.. The ticket seller says show starts at 10 AM on Sunday so the finalists will have the time to travel I think, even though they will probably have to come and play straight from the airport in case their match is on Monday (which I believe they could negotiate with the TO in Dallas as well).

2025-03-10 10:41

Good team list for a CIS event imo.

2025-03-10 10:19

Great, same teams again... VRS sucks

6 replies

What's the point of traveling to see tier2 CS anyway?

2025-03-10 10:29

How is it VRS’ fault? It’s the teams that are declining their invites.

#28

2025-03-10 10:44

So you would rather have Blast always inviting Astralis, ESL inviting EG, and ESWC inviting saudi orgs above better teams. And then give these teams points for attending? This is the only fair way. I agree there needs to be a better way for tier 2 teams to break into 1.5 and above, for example with more lower tier tournaments that give points. But the current bad version of VRS and the circuit is so much better than the 2022-23 partner league hell. VRS is still quite new and I agree it needs improvements, but «vrs sucks» is such an npc take

2025-03-10 11:00

Somehow EF, 3DMAX, SAW made it from tier 2 to tier 1.5 and get invites for an every event. Nothing wrong with the system besides huge drop between T2 and T3. But Z10 makes even more cash than t1, so no problems for them kekw

2025-03-10 11:38

I'm just mad and envy because my fave teams won't get a chance or are not having so many invites as others...

2025-03-10 13:15

vrs sucks

Damn, the prices are unreasonably high. VIP ticket at BLAST Moscow 2019 was 5600 RUB, here it's 30k+ RUB for a single day only.

2025-03-10 10:27

Post covid

regular tickets for Epicenter 2017 cost like 500 rub a day as i remember (maybe 1000 max) LMAO 30k rub to watch some cs on the big screen is insane.

2025-03-10 14:46

Whoever win this tournament will not count and matter because excellency vitality allowed a team win this

2025-03-10 10:30

again no faze, looks like they will skip like every 2nd tournament this year

But they'll be in Dallas, how Navi and G2 will attend Dallas which starts the day next PGL final??

2025-03-10 10:47

I think its a good decision to skip a few tournaments this year and idk how they will fly and be able to play that fast from astana kazakhstan to dallas I checked it, it takes ~30-40 hours lol

2025-03-10 10:51

Navi won't play Dallas G2 idk, they could exchange their tickets I guess if they bow out early

2025-03-10 11:01

Somewhere Richard Lewis malding over his conspiracy theory that ESL control everything in esport and none of a top teams will ever attend PGL event because they all evil and shortsighted.

2025-03-10 10:34

9 replies

I thought it made sense TBH, especially since iM talked about signed contracts and whatnot, but I guess in the end it probably was all about club prize pool for orgs

2025-03-10 11:08

8 replies

I doubt iM talk or ever knew about "super secret evil contract" between orgs and TO(ESL) and probably he talked about his contract with a Navi where it's Org decision when and where team plays

2025-03-10 11:25

But iM almost worded it like all tournaments they'll be attending this whole season or year has been determined beforehand, that's freaking crazy

2025-03-10 11:33

5 replies

that's just good planning

2025-03-10 14:03

I think you're missing the point

2025-03-10 15:14

I'm not. people are acting like there's some big hidden deal in this ESL thing when everything has been done in the clear: they promised revenue share to orgs that sign their publicly available contract and accept their publicly available terms. the best orgs have seemingly planned ahead which tournaments to go and which to skip based on that commitment with very little (if any) input from the players.

2025-03-10 15:46

So you're telling me orgs somehow foresaw PGL taking a step back and also adding org prize pool just like ESL and BLAST and decided that they would attend Astana from the very beginning? The answer is no, if all tournaments were decided beforehand, with a damn contract at that, then they definitely would have skipped this PGL Astana

2025-03-10 16:10

Spirit and Navi had already declined the invite to Dallas, so seems like Astana was in their plans all along. Liquid and Vitality will not go to Astana, so no difference there (though Liquid will go to PGL Bucharest, that does not clash with any ESL/Blast tournament) Furia, G2 and Gamerlegion are the ones that seemingly boycotted Cluj-Napoca and will now go to both Astana and Dallas. Furia was a last minute decline there, so their planning is already very suspected. and just a look at this G2 roster is enough to suspect their planning.

2025-03-10 21:31

It never made sense from a logical stand point. Looking how Liquid and Furia were also on board. I've been saying for a minute that it was all money talks and after the new prize pool distribution, Spirit woukd attend Astana (surprised about Navi since they're fighting for the intel grand slam).

2025-03-10 12:03

VRS sucks... But PGL must invite 12 team from VRS? Can't they invite like only 10 and have more invites from closed quali? Invite 8 from VRS global, more from quali and have wildcard? Idk, but mix the invites format a little to have something more diverse?

2025-03-10 10:36

So: EF G2 MongolZ GL Furia will play at PGL Astana that ends on 18th and on IEM Dallas that starts next day Looks like they dont believe in making semifinals in Astana :D

I mean, I understand Furia, they'll bomb out early

2025-03-10 11:42

I said that NaVi will show up!

2025-03-10 11:04

Nice to see Navi, Spirit and G2 attending this one.

2025-03-10 11:18

What lack of vrs points does to a mf(navi)

2025-03-10 11:19

how are those 5 teams managing the trip to Dallas after this? seems so much work if u ask me

2025-03-10 11:21

theyre all planning to be group stage exits, duh

2025-03-10 11:26

as a BIG fan, I ask, how tf is BIG invited?

Because few top teams rejected the invite ... they cant be in both events in same time .. Dallas and Astana

2025-03-10 11:50

Do we respect the EF grind? Hell yes, we do. But Jesus Christ, someone tell them that they DON'T need to play EVERY single tournament. They've either gone crazy or it's some conspiracy to prove how bad the new system yes

2025-03-10 12:12

first time home crowd advantage for EF

2025-03-10 12:18

I doubt they will have one, many kz ppl support spirit/navi

2025-03-10 12:42

all my kazakh friends watch EF though

2025-03-10 12:53

That's most likely cause they are entertaining, rather than Turkish. From my personal experience Turkish ppl love other Turkic ppl more than Kazakh people do so. So I wouldn't expect same support as Kazakh team would get in Turkey. I also expect to see many Russians here cause no more tournaments there. So I wouldn't expect any crazy hospitality for EF here. But we'll will probably see such for spirit/Na'Vi/vp

2025-03-10 13:03

funnily it can be considered a home crowd for spirit, navi, vp, ef, mongolz lol

2025-03-10 15:02

cheering for mongolz cause at least they look like us xd

2025-03-10 20:03

my point lol

2025-03-10 20:22

BUG still inviting lol

2025-03-10 12:28

G2 spirit final

2025-03-10 12:30

Pity goatwoo ain't coming :(

2025-03-10 12:41

navi spirit final

2025-03-10 13:00

LESSGOO

2025-03-10 13:17

enjoy!

2025-03-10 14:57

(Probably) 4 Brazilian teams out of 16, I'm not even sure how to feel about it

2025-03-10 13:51

You should feel good, that's an example of the VRS working as intended.

2025-03-17 18:43

ef decided that the best way to deal with a burnout is keep attending all the events? at least they get a 2 week break between melbourne and astana ig

2025-03-10 14:06

2025-03-10 15:04

WTF are Liquid doing???? They need VRS points badly to make sure they get further in the major than FURIA, why the fuck are they declining Astana after already skipping cluj??

2025-03-10 15:25