PGL Astana 2025Spirit come back from 10-3 down to advance in Astana over NIP
NIP performed above expectations but still fell to the tournament favorites.
Tournament favorites Spirit continued their flawless run through PGL Astana by defeating Ninjas in Pyjamas 2-0 in the quarter-final.
After a straightforward 13-8 victory on NIP's pick of Train, Marco "Snappi" Pfeiffer's side surprised by storming to a 10-3 lead on Spirit's stronghold of Dust2. In 2025, only Falcons and Vitality have beaten Sergey "hally" Shavaev's squad on the map but NIP came two rounds away from adding their name to that list.
A Myroslav "zont1x" Plakhotia Five-SeveN triple, however, turned the tides and Spirit erected a wall on CT side to maintain their 100% win-rate in Kazakhstan ahead of a semi-final against FURIA tomorrow.
That's now eight map wins in a row for Spirit, as they attempt to turn the $1.25m tournament into a procession given their status as the sole top-four team in attendance. So far, so good.
| Date | Matches | |
|---|---|---|
| PGL Astana 2025 | ||
| 17/05/2025 |
16:00
|
Match |
Job done: NIP climb to 25th on VRS with QF run
Ninjas in Pyjamas came to Astana hoping to make the most of the sole tier-one LAN they qualified for this season.
And boy, did they do it —- despite failing to close out Dust2. Winning Fragadelphia got them to 46th on the VRS pre-event but wins over Virtus.pro, HOTU, and G2 got them a surprise playoff match and 19 places on Valve's ranking.
That can only be termed a success for a team that has spent so much of this year toiling in online qualifiers. Coming close on Dust2 was a bonus (and proof Artem "r1nkle" Moroz can hang), not a regret.
chopper: "We're not in excellent shape"
It's obvious that Spirit and everyone else in Kazakhstan expect them to lift the trophy on Sunday. The gulf is so big in the team list that Leonid "chopper" Vishnyakov could honestly tell James "BanKs" Banks the team were "not in excellent shape" whilst winning all eight of the maps they have played in Astana.
It remains to be seen whether a team can push Spirit like Ninjas in Pyjamas did on Dust2 with the conversion to close.
  Spirit |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45 - 32 | +1.15% | 94.2 | 75.6% | 1.48 | |
| 29 - 25 | +3.01% | 76.2 | 86.7% | 1.21 | |
| 31 - 29 | +1.09% | 79.2 | 82.2% | 1.17 | |
| 30 - 28 | +2.54% | 71.6 | 80.0% | 1.13 | |
| 32 - 27 | -0.37% | 70.4 | 77.8% | 1.10 |
  Ninjas in Pyjamas |
K - D | Swing | ADR | KAST | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 37 - 28 | +1.44% | 86.0 | 77.8% | 1.21 | |
| 33 - 35 | -1.63% | 71.6 | 77.8% | 1.02 | |
| 27 - 32 | +0.88% | 68.9 | 68.9% | 0.92 | |
| 25 - 35 | -3.45% | 61.8 | 66.7% | 0.77 | |
| 18 - 37 | -4.97% | 54.6 | 57.8% | 0.64 |
Dan 'apEX' Madesclaire
Robin 'ropz' Kool
Shahar 'flameZ' Shushan
William 'mezii' Merriman
Richard 'Xizt' Landström
Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis
Danil 'molodoy' Golubenko
Janusz 'Snax' Pogorzelski
Nemanja 'huNter-' Kovač
Mario 'malbsMd' Samayoa
Damjan 'kyxsan' Stoilkovski
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