by Romanian esports tournament organiser PGL revealed more details about the qualification process for their third Counter-Strike 2 tournament of the season, PGL Astana 2025.
PGL Astana 2025 is an S-Tier CS2 tournament that is set to take place from May 10-18, welcoming 16 teams in Kazakhstan’s capital, where they’ll battle it out for the lion’s share of the US$1,250,000 prize pool.
Out of 16 slots, 12 have already been filled via invitations based on the Valve Regional Standings (VRS).
The list of confirmed attendees includes Team Spirit, The MongolZ, Eternal Fire, G2 Esports, Natus Vincere, Astralis, paiN Gaming, Virtus.pro, GamerLegion, FURIA, BIG, and MiBR.
The remaining four will be filled in by winners of regional closed qualifiers in Europe, North America, South America, and Asia.
Each region will have four open qualifiers and a closed qualifier.
Eight teams from European, North American, and South American open qualifiers (two per open qualifying event) will advance to the closed qualifiers.
Each of Asia’s sub-regions open qualifiers will award just one invite.
Open qualifiers will use a single-elimination, best-of-one format.
Quarterfinals and semifinals will be best-of-three.
The Asian Open qualifiers will use a double-elimination BO3 bracket.
Open qualifier dates
- Open Qualifier #1: March 14-15
- Open Qualifier #2: March 16-17
- Open Qualifier #3: March 21-22
- Open Qualifier #4: March 23-24
Closed qualifier dates
- Closed Qualifier Group Stage: March 27-30
- Closed Qualifier Playoffs: March 31-April 1
PGL Astana 2025 closed qualifiers will run for six days, between March 27 and April 1, except for Asian closed qualifiers, which start on March 31 and end the next day.
The qualifiers will start with four double elimination groups of eight teams, with all games played as best-of-three series.
The group winners advance to the single-elimination playoff bracket, where the semifinals are best-of-three and the grand final best-of-five.
The Asian qualifier will be single-elimination with BO3 semifinals and BO5 grand finals.
Only the top team from each of the four regions will advance to PGL Astana 2025, which will mark the 10th CS2 S-Tier tournament of the year, preceding Intel Extreme Masters Dallas 2025.
