PGL Astana 2025Spirit cruise past Astralis to PGL Astana playoffs
The Shanghai Major champions eased past the Danes in a two-map series.
Spirit lived up to their billing as favorites at PGL Astana with an authoritative victory over Astralis to lock in a playoff berth.
The Shanghai Major champions were in cruise control for much of the series, making up for close first halves by decimating after the swap.
Astralis showed small signs of promise strategically but couldn't overcome a dismal Dust2 from Jakob "jabbi" Nygaard, sloppy Ancient from Nicolai "device" Reedtz, and a pitiful series overall from Martin "stavn" Lund, leaving Rasmus "HooXi" Nielsen to finish atop the series scoreboard with a 0.99 rating.
They came out ahead early doors on Dust2, multi-kills from device and, surprisingly, HooXi, as well as a victory around a force-buy doing the legwork in a 6-2 lead.
Flat performances from jabbi and stavn became glaringly obvious once Spirit got rolling, however, and the lack of firepower from the Danish pair left Astralis destitute.
They managed just one more round at the end of the first half, courtesy of a quad kill from HooXi, but couldn't go pound-for-pound against a red-hot Danil "donk" Kryshkovets.
The best player of 2024 was in Astralis' face in the second half and throttled their defaults round after round, with Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotia chipping in with a 1v2 to keep Spirit's sheet clean on the CT side for a 13-7 win.
Astralis pulled off a flawless pistol strategy on Ancient by wrapping from Red Room into an empty B bombsite, but overfaced into rotating Spirit players despite the bomb timer ticking down to lose the round.
That was a microcosm of how the rest of the half would unfold as Astralis couldn't capitalize on the space they were given, cut down by zont1x and Dmitry "sh1ro" Sokolov as Spirit jumped ahead, 5-0.
Two triple kills from jabbi carved open B and gave Astralis a fighting chance at the break with the gap brought down to two rounds, but Spirit pulled back a 3v5 and 4v5 early into their offensive effort to shut down any hopes of a real recovery.
 Astralis |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 26 - 28 | +1.38% | 74.9 | 73.7% | 0.99 | |
| 24 - 25 | -0.44% | 68.3 | 65.8% | 0.88 | |
| 22 - 30 | -2.04% | 62.6 | 63.2% | 0.71 | |
| 18 - 30 | -6.95% | 55.8 | 63.2% | 0.62 | |
| 16 - 30 | -5.67% | 61.6 | 55.3% | 0.61 |
  Spirit |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45 - 21 | +9.37% | 118.5 | 86.8% | 1.84 | |
| 31 - 18 | +6.12% | 78.9 | 81.6% | 1.35 | |
| 26 - 24 | +0.45% | 75.8 | 76.3% | 1.20 | |
| 24 - 22 | -0.76% | 74.6 | 78.9% | 1.10 | |
| 16 - 21 | -1.46% | 44.6 | 63.2% | 0.86 |
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