The VRS impact of PGL Astana

19-5-2025 20:23

Astralis, FURIA, MIBR and NIP exceeded expectations to become some of the biggest points earners of the $1.25 million tournament.

FURIA's new lineup made big strides off the back of the top-four finish

Following the conclusion of PGL Astana on Sunday, when Spirit beat Astralis to the trophy after a competitive best-of-five final, we can now look at the full impact of the tournament on the Valve Regional Standings.

With $1.25 million on offer in prizemoney, the biggest factor on the VRS, the tournament had a significant effect on the standings, with 11 out of the 16 attending teams improving on their placing.

Second-placed Astralis made big strides with a jump to #10 off the back of their surprising campaign with Rasmus "⁠HooXi⁠" Nielsen, in which they took down the likes of Virtus.pro, Natus Vincere and Aurora on the way to the grand final.

FURIA, another team to surprise with the new lineup featuring Danil "⁠molodoy⁠" Golubenko and Mareks "⁠YEKINDAR⁠" Gaļinskis, also made a huge jump, one worth over 300 points, after beating GamerLegion, MIBR twice and ODDIK en route to fourth place.

The VRS impact of PGL Astana, in order of the teams' placement at the event

Ninjas in Pyjamas made it to the quarter-finals in their Big Event debut with the new lineup, and came away with the reward of over 200 points and jump from a borderline top-50 team to one just on the outside of the invite cycle to the tier-one in 25th place globally.

Among other big earners were MIBR, who also surprised with a run to the playoffs, and HOTU, who came into the event as huge underdogs but contributed to the last-place elimination of GamerLegion to finish 12th-14th.

On the other end, four teams dropped off after sub-par showings: Virtus.pro, G2, who were forced to play the event without Nemanja "⁠huNter-⁠" Kovač due to visa issues, paiN and the last-placed GamerLegion.

Here's how the full top 30 looks in HLTV's live implementation of the ranking — which includes ongoing events and preliminary placements and points earnings from them — as of Sunday:

Explainer: The table below showcases the teams' standing in each sub-factor of the VRS: Bounty collected (BCOL), Bounty offered (BOFF), Opponent network (NETW), LAN wins (LANW) and the final head-to-head adjustment (H2H). Values in bold represent the top five earners in each factor.