Spirit clinch PGL Astana trophy after 3-1 final against Astralis

The Russian team secures its second title of 2025 after ending HooXi's fairytale run with Astralis.

Spirit have come out victorious from PGL Astana following a 3-1 victory over Astralis in the best-of-five grand final.

The Russian side hoisted the trophy inside a packed-out Barys Arena moments after completing a map four comeback on Train, denying Astralis a chance to keep their Cinderella run with Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen going into map five.

Danil "⁠donk⁠" Kryshkovets could not be denied, ending the grand final as the undeniable man of the match in continuation of his godlike form at the event, where he averaged a 1.50 rating over 15 maps to secure his second Most Valuable Player award of 2025.

The favorites made a statement early into the grand final with a dominant win on Dust2, limiting Astralis to just one CT round with perfect see-sawing, pulling the Danes from one end to the other and completely neutralizing Nicolai "⁠device⁠" Reedtz whenever he had the AWP.

Astralis go out with heads held high

It was clear from the outset that Nuke was going to be a different story, but Astralis still didn't manage to capitalize on their late economy advantage after fumbling two massive clutches at 10-11 and 10-12.

Leonid "⁠chopper⁠" Vishnyakov stepped up to lock in map point with a 1v3, and donk rounded out a player-of-the-map performance after clutching 1v4 in the next round with time against him, raising his arms high as chants of his name rang out all across the Barys Arena.

You could be mistaken for thinking it was over by then, but Astralis did not let themselves go out with their heads down.

Facing a 3-5 deficit in what could have been their last map at the tournament on Mirage, the Danes went on an unbeaten 10-round run off the back of a Victor "⁠Staehr⁠" Staehr-Martin "⁠stavn⁠" Lund combination to force Train.

There, the Danes put together a great offense after finally finding a way to limit donk, and hoped to extend the series to five maps after winning the forcebuy wars early into the second half for a 10-5 lead.

But a halfbuy win on B kickstarted the Spirit comeback and gave donk the time to wake up. The Russians made the run to 12-11 with Dmitry "⁠sh1ro⁠" Sokolov leading the way, and although they gave away a chance to end it in regulation after losing a 4v2, they made it happen in overtime after donk clutched a crucial 1v2 with the AWP.

Spirit back on the top step just before the Major

In a tournament without their two biggest 2025 rivals, Vitality and MOUZ, Spirit made good on their promise as heavy favorites to win PGL Astana.

The competitive grand final ended their otherwise convincing run to the trophy, and put the Russian team back on the top step for the first time since their BLAST Bounty victory in January.

With donk still very much at the peak of his powers, Spirit now hope to carry the confidence boost into the BLAST.tv Austin Major. That's the only tournament chopper and company have left on their calendar for the rest of the season, while most of the rest of the field travels to Dallas.

More highlights from the grand final

• stavn gives Astralis their only CT round on Dust2

• magixx all but locks in Dust2 with a triple spraydown

• donk 4K spraydown decimates Astralis force in Yard

• donk rips B open with a 4K on Mirage

• stavn flanks through Ivy to give Astralis control of Train

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PGL Astana final as it happened in live updates