PGL Astana 2025 North America Closed Qualifier

Wildcard announce Stewie2k addition for PGL Astana qualifier

26-3-2025 23:10

The American veteran will represent Wildcard in their upcoming tournament.

Stewie2k will return to the server after ten months of inactivity

Wildcard have confirmed the addition of Jake "⁠Stewie2K⁠" Yip for the PGL Astana North American closed qualifier. The organization's announcement did not reveal any information on the length of Stewie2K's stint in the team or who he is replacing.

The change could return the team to a North American majority if Stewie2K replaces Aran "⁠Sonic⁠" Groesbeek, Tim "⁠susp⁠" Ångström, or Love "⁠phzy⁠" Smidebrant.

Valve's rules require teams with split-region majorities to get invited from the strongest region possible. That means a European invite would come before a North American one if Wildcard failed to stay in the top five of the Americas ranking, which is set to award a direct Stage 2 invite for the Major.

Given this is Wildcard's last event before the Major invite cut-off date on April 7, the swap would allow Wildcard to attend the North American MRQ and avoid the European tournament.

The Astana qualifier will mark Stewie2K's return to the server after his IEM Dallas stand-in stint with G2, where he helped the team claim an unlikely title despite averaging a 0.85 rating.

Wildcard have been placed in Group A and will begin their run against Daaku on Wednesday.

Date	Matches
PGL Astana 2025 North America Closed Qualifier
28/03/2025	Wildcard 00:10 Daaku	Match

Welcome back Smoke Criminal

2025-03-26 23:10

234

1 reply

welcome back, paycheck criminal

2025-03-27 01:26

YOOOOOOOOOO

2025-03-26 23:11

Lets gooooo Rip sonic

2025-03-26 23:14

2 replies

</3

2025-03-27 08:57

Bravado era is back

2025-03-27 15:31

YESSSS HE'S BACK

Lmao, wildcard don't want to have to play EU MRQ in case they lose their top 5 Americas spot

4 replies

no sh*t, who wants to go through that hell

2025-03-26 23:16

130

right, especially since its online thats like 50x worse

2025-03-27 00:43

Rule loophole here is kinda fucking dumb imo as this might fuck over M80 but I don't blame Wildcard for trying to stay in Americas

2025-03-27 09:19

South American teams could still factor into the equation, but if Wildcard wind up losing the 5th place spot in the Americas VRS, M80 is currently the closest team to taking the spot from them. In other words, it may not matter to M80 because they may be the team kicking Wildcard out of the invite spot.

2025-03-27 14:00

worst announcement ever

SMOKE CRIMINAL IS BACK

GOAT (after arenasy)

0.8 inc

his rating doesn't matter at this point. 0.1 or 0.8 who gives a fuck. he's not goin to be flamez or monesy or zontix, and he's not trying to be. Good to see him back and he offers something unique in the server for fans to watch

2025-03-27 01:49

If Stewie is only playing in the Astana qualifier to ensure Wildcard go to the NA MRQ and is not playing in the MRQ/Major its on the same level as the Drillas.

2025-03-26 23:15

7 replies

true

2025-03-26 23:20

I wouldn't say the same level - they've been in NA ever since that roster was formed and would only be forced to play in EU because of two heavy-handed Valve rules: sonic is basically a NA player, but he doesn't count as such because he was born elsewhere and because of that, having 2 EU players can throw the whole thing off.

2025-03-27 00:37

5 replies

Wildcard is a NA team and Sonic should be considered a NA player for determining region. But on principle this is a team who is using a stand-in to change their teams region and qualify for a region their regular roster would not go to. If they don't play the MRQ/Major with Stewie it would be extremely simillar to what drillas did and its a bad thing for any team. Wildcard does have excuses with actually being a NA team and competing in NA but the rule shenanigans are a overall negative to the scene.

2025-03-27 00:41

yeah, I won't disagree it's an exploit. just think it's too different from what drillas did to put them all together. Valve went too hard addressing that situation and opened the door to things like this being necessary (or even worse, if Blast inviting Liquid as an asian team to Rivals is true)

2025-03-27 00:59

3 replies

Its really not that different just using a sub/stand-in at opposite points Drillas using a sub that changes the teams region after qualifying and wildcard using a sub/stand-in that changes region before qualifying. If wildcard don't have stewie play the MRQ they are both going into the event RMR/MRQ with teams who would not be eligible to play in that given region with the rules. Its really not that different in the broad strokes Valve went hard on changing the rules and they might do it again if wildcard does actually abusing the system like this.

2025-03-27 01:06

one was a team artificially picking a region. the other is a team trying to remain in the region they roster was always from. broad strokes might be the same, but devil's in the details. it honestly makes no sense to have a rule that says you either go straight to the major or you need to qualify through an entirely different region. has to be a better way to close those loopholes.

2025-03-27 01:25

Clever use of VRS mechanics. Sometimes your participants are just having a good game.

2025-03-27 05:36

downgrade

Aura.

Now +swag

6 replies

i would love to see this

2025-03-26 23:18

Flair

2025-03-26 23:24

o no

2025-03-27 02:34

swag was donk but 10 years ago

2025-03-27 14:11

He was really good but was he even close to donk? No

2025-03-27 15:53

you cant compare cs from 2014 to 2025 just like any sport. obviously he wasn't as good as current day donk lol no one is. the comparison i was referring to was super young talent that was exploding onto the scene.

2025-03-27 17:29

SMOKE CRIMINAL!!!!

XDD

2025-03-26 23:21

Not a single player in Wildcard is not even slightly worse than stewie...

That's why everyone is assuming it's shenanigans for the MRQ (in the event they don't go straight to the major) and not a real roster change.

2025-03-27 14:04

WC really gotta pull out the big guns for their game vs Daaku huh

-susp?

2025-03-26 23:22

susp is their best player by far, would be really weird

2025-03-26 23:51

ratings wise hes their worse player

2025-03-27 04:14

depending on which ratings u're looking at. Bringing the data from the period while he played online from Sweden with 150+ ping every game = u're probably right. Going by BIG EVENTS (most important to define) it's: 1.Phzy - 1,03 2.susp - 0,98 (FYI He's got the worst role and worst positions) 3.Sonic - 0,94 4.Stan - 0,89 5.jBa - 0,87 Going by all LANS: 1. Sonic 1,06 2. susp 1,05 3. phzy 1,04 4. jBa 0,99 5. stan 0,93 So what do you mean by "rating wise worse player?". Even going by ALL games last 3 months he's still 3rd highest rated etc etc Putting this numbers up as a support/anchor, that's really impressive

2025-03-27 09:34

You need to make a tiktok video if you want him to reply. Ain't no way he's reading all that unless there's someone pointing at the words and saying it out loud while making exaggerated facial expressions

2025-03-27 15:57

The world is a scary place nowadays .. Thankfully my kids love to read.

2025-03-27 16:31

Lets go Stew!

holy shit, wildcard could do the funniest thing ever at PGL ... ... and bomb out in last place

2025-03-26 23:23

flair name

2025-03-27 02:37

You could say WildCard's addition of Stewart was...a wild card This transfer sucks so much dude

wow so funny muahahahaha

2025-03-27 11:18

clown fiesta incoming

2025-03-26 23:25

+swag when

2025-03-26 23:35

The entry goat is back 🔥

2025-03-26 23:44

Well it's not phzy cuz he's AWPing If susp is leaving, I assume phzy is gone too as that was the main reason he switched to NA. So Sonic it is!

2025-03-26 23:50

From Freakazoid's stream: Stewie2K: They just need a player for the Astana qualifiers Stewie2K: Somethin up with phzy but not sure

2025-03-27 00:12

LFG WILDCARD TO WIN AUSTIN!!

2025-03-26 23:52

Mentioning the .85 is so funny loll

2025-03-27 00:01

lol

2025-03-27 00:20

rip bob ross?

It's a new team for the hate-watching list, hell yeah!

2025-03-27 00:21

my favorite pro is back, let's goo

2025-03-27 00:32

I cant see where he fit, -sonic?

Ah of course it's because of vrs roster reasons

Downfall of wildcard

2025-03-27 00:42

RIP Sonic

2025-03-27 01:04

Incoming 0.95 rating

2025-03-27 01:24

ez4stew

2025-03-27 01:35

kinda weird move, because who can be replaced by him rn?

2025-03-27 01:39

Seems like they're not confident they can beat M80 in the Astana qualifier? But stewie is definitely worse than anybody in their roster, so they're also making it harder for themselves lol

2025-03-27 01:43

from tier3 to tier2.9

cheapest quickest solution to prevent them from going through EU major MRQ. No way they intend on it being permant. There is so many better NA choices.

2025-03-27 01:53

another washed up bum soon to leave again

2025-03-27 02:21

Young stew 🥰

2025-03-27 02:29

-Sonic please

2025-03-27 03:33

👊🦅🔥 wc era confirmed

2025-03-27 03:38

He's not as good as anyone he'd replace... stupid, typical NA move...

2025-03-27 03:46

Did you just not read the article

2025-03-27 05:43

I guess they gave the charitable reading that Wildcard *isn't* trying to circumvent the spirit of Valve's region rules.

2025-03-27 11:20

There are better NA players that could fit better.

2025-03-27 14:57

rip vitality streak

2025-03-27 03:53

who adds who

2025-03-27 06:26

Now +s1mple

2025-03-27 06:38

2025-03-27 06:41

fraud only playing at dallas

2025-03-27 07:27

Yay cheating bot coming back to the circus!

2025-03-27 08:47

Who?

2025-03-27 08:50

Return of the King Zywhoo and d0nk in shambles

2025-03-27 08:51

stewie2k washed threads inc

2025-03-27 09:22

Decent downgrade, gl.

2025-03-27 09:23

No hate towards Stew but I don’t see this working out. I HOPE I’m proven wrong…

2025-03-27 10:19

lol, this might only work if he had learnt from what sir Lewis taught him as well as his own mistakes, and if he’s given space and is going to be allowed to do the things he’s comfortable doing in the server, but even then dont see this working out unless his egoistic ego and attitude issues have been ‘’fixed”. Even if they do some here at the quals and qualify etc then that wont mean much as the team without him would likely qualify anyway as Wildcard had a decent line up and already had a few serios wins and caused upsets just like M80 did, so we’ll have to wait and see what wildcard can do with him in the long run if he’s even allowed to stay that long depending on results i guess. In any case no hate, its just he himself is his own enemy with his childish attitute and ignorance towards valuable feedback he’s recieved from many months ago where he had to admit he f””ked up instead of saying f””k off to everyone because that clearly got him nowhere to this day (in the long run as that short lived win where he s””ked and was carried is whatevar), but if he can get out of this and actually learned his lessons and helps the team then good for him, otherwise i see this collapsing this year with him going back to streaming etc. GLHF

2025-03-27 11:13

banned from wildcard in 2month after stalking amouranth, "sup b*tch"

2025-03-27 11:11

#StackTheDeck = trying to pull a Drillas and go through an easier qualifier XDDDDDDDD

o7 sonic

2025-03-27 11:41

Better than Sonic.

2025-03-27 12:51

It was about time. Welcome back king!

2025-03-27 12:55

Welcome back Stewie, GGs to Sonic, we'll see ya again sometime

2025-03-27 14:44

From GStew to STEWild!

2025-03-27 15:43

NA SAVIOUR IS BACK

2025-03-27 21:03

Out of all the talent, they went for leftovers 😭 Early elimination inc?

2025-03-27 22:46

he played the PGL Astana qualifir instead of phzy lol.. Is he awping?

2025-03-28 11:34

Fuck stewie

2025-03-28 18:25

Interesting pickup! Stewie2K's experience could be a huge boost for Wildcard in the PGL Astana qualifier. Curious to see how he fits into the team’s playstyle. calcvat.uk

2025-03-29 21:56