NIP and WildLotus complete PGL Astana EU CQ team list

24-3-2025 23:38

Snappi's men qualified at the fourth time of asking.

The final PGL Astana European open qualifier came to an end with Ninjas in Pyjamas and WildLotus securing spots at the closed portion of the event.

Zero Tenacity, Betera, and kONO were the biggest names to drop out of contention before the competition reached the qualifying matches, where Ninjas in Pyjamas met Hesta and WildLotus fought GhoulsW for two closed qualifier spots.

Ninjas in Pyjamas were made to work for the victory against the Russian side after they lost the first map 8-13 and found themselves 4-12 down on the CT side of Nuke, but showed enough mental resilience to come back to win the game.

After failing to make it through at any of the previous three PGL Astana open qualifiers, the result will serve as a big confidence boost for the team currently ranked at No. 161 in the Valve rankings.

PGL Astana 2025 Europe Open Qualifier 4Best of 3

Ninjas in Pyjamas

Matchpage

24th March 2025

Hesta

Anubis

Nuke

Ancient

In the second qualification match, Thomas "⁠birdfromsky⁠" Due-Frederiksen's WildLotus squad took down GhoulsW after a close three-map series, which was decided with a 13-11 victory on Anubis.

The squad played with Joey "⁠CRUC1AL⁠" Steusel and Johannes "⁠b0RUP⁠" Borup in place of their usual duo of Hristiyan "⁠REDSTAR⁠" Pironkov and Owen "⁠smooya⁠" Butterfield, but it was regular fixture Nicolas "⁠Keoz⁠" Dgus who topped the board with a 1.29 rating in the deciding match.

PGL Astana 2025 Europe Open Qualifier 4Best of 3

WildLotus

Matchpage

24th March 2025

GhoulsW

Inferno

Dust2

Anubis

This means the 32-team attendee list is now set, with the squads set to fight for just one spot at PGL Astana. The Kazakh event will begin on May 10 and feature a $1,250,000 prize pool.

The full PGL Astana European Closed Qualifier team list is as follows:

omg nip

2025-03-24 23:41

2 replies

Rare flag

2025-03-25 16:41

1 reply

are you actually from Bhutan? That is an unbelievable country

2025-03-26 13:01

Will be cool to see any of these in Astana. GL

2025-03-24 23:42

Unbelievable!!

2025-03-24 23:44

not deserved

2025-03-24 23:48

Bot Hesta 322

2025-03-24 23:50

32 teams competing for 1 spot is crazy

4 replies

Wtf only 1 spot? This closed qualifier is literaly a tournament. Bigger that blast Lisbon for a fucking spot

2025-03-25 00:59

either this or the same franchised teams rotating every tournament, no tier1 event wants to give away open qual spots so this is the best we can get

2025-03-25 08:29

"Give away" - three quarters of the teams in closed qualifier were invited based on VRS... Any team not invited directly to the event gets invited to CQ. Luckily for us Valve will force TOs to increase the number of spots in T1 events and hopefully we'll see more slots dedicated to CQ.

2025-03-25 08:45

59 total multi-game series going to played in this closed qualifier....

2025-03-25 21:56

How is this even an article?

2025-03-24 23:52

5 replies

meanwhile GOAT SEMPERFI gained 400 points from winning an OCE lan and theres no mention of it HLTV HATES APAC!!!

2025-03-25 00:00

3 replies

tbh nobody cares about semperfi

2025-03-25 00:26

Respect the DFRAG Invitational 2025 champions

2025-03-25 02:22

Respect TeamMoggerFi

2025-03-25 08:40

There has been an article about most, if not all of the Astana open qualifiers

2025-03-25 12:09

No TS/Navi academy? Did they not go through or conflict of interest?

2025-03-24 23:59

main teams already invited to the tournament. they cannot play

2025-03-25 00:17

greatest nip accomplishment

7 replies

Eh no, they played cq for bucharest but lost a rematch vs fnatic. This 32 teams fighting for 1 spot is evil PGL

2025-03-25 01:01

6 replies

lmao how is that evil?

2025-03-25 01:56

Imagine 32 hungry monkeys locked in a cage fighting for only 1 banana, pure evil. Funny tho

2025-03-25 02:26

thats how a qualifier works lol, what else are you gonna do? Why does it matter if its teams in closed qual or open qual anyway, there was way more than 32 in this open qual. I see people say this a lot but it just seems stupid to me, whats the alternative? Take spots from other regions or teams that qualified through doing much better this season than teams like NIP, why force them to go through the gauntlet too

2025-03-25 02:50

You are not understand buddy. I know the process is hard, no one is complaining about it, just having a laugh. Its all about the competitiveness the scene has become and that's is awesome. Just put it this way, 32 teams fighting for death, its going to be a bloodbath.

2025-03-25 02:57

idk ive seen a lot of people complain that there are too many teams in closed quals

2025-03-25 03:46

I think it's great, a lot of VRS points to get here. Even if you lose, you can improve your ranking for the future. Right now in SA there are teams treating the qualifier for Astana with great importance because even 10 points can determine if you have a chance to go to the MRQ or not. The spot for Astana right now is just something extra, the qualifier is the big deal thinking about points and a possible major spot.

2025-03-25 14:16