Fans predict Spirit to win PGL Astana 2025, but the second contender is up in the air
The PGL Astana 2025 playoffs will kick off this Friday, May 16, and for the first time in months, the later stages of a CS2 tournament won’t feature some usual suspects like Vitality, Falcons, and MOUZ.
These teams skipped PGL Astana, and thus opened up a golden opportunity for lesser-ranked teams such as FURIA, Astralis, MIBR, and Ninjas in Pyjamas to guarantee a spot in the playoffs. Spirit are the only team in the playoffs that won a tier-one trophy this year.
Based on 1xBet analytics, most fans (85%) predict Team Spirit will lift the trophy. However, while the first potential finalist seems clear, the name of the second contender for the title remains a mystery.
The community speculates that Natus Vincere (5%), Aurora (4%), or The Mongolz (2%) are more likely to meet Spirit in the grand finals of PGL Astana. With their chances considered roughly equal, these teams are expected to deliver a tense and competitive playoff. On the other hand, fans see teams such as Astralis and MIBR as clear underdogs in the tournament.
The PGL Astana playoffs are bound to be unpredictable
After analyzing the matchups, the only safe guess is that Spirit will most likely beat NIP and advance to the semifinals, given they are one of the best CS2 teams in the world and NIP are just playing their first tier-one LAN in 2025.
All the other three games are rather unpredictable, even NAVI versus Astralis. NAVI’s form in the past couple of months has been shaky and Astralis showed some promising signs under Rasmus “HooXi” Nielsen’s leadership so far in the tournament, so it would be unwise to disregard their potential.
The MongolZ breezed past the group stage while Aurora needed all five games to make the playoffs. This suggests that The MongolZ could be considered favorites in the quarterfinals, however, the Mongolian team are yet to deliver when they play on the big stage in front of fans.
As for FURIA and MIBR, they already clashed in the PGL Astana group stage, and the former won convincingly. This match will be more tense in the playoffs, though, as the winner will get the privilege of calling themselves the best team in Brazil. Also, MIBR now have some material to study this new FURIA and possibly anti-strat them.
donk leads the MVP race in the eyes of fans
95% of fans see Spirit’s superstar Danil “donk” Kryshkovets as the undeniable favorite to win the MVP award, which is unsurprising considering he’s was the best CS2 player in the world in 2024 and hasn’t slowed down whatsoever this year despite Spirit not winning as many trophies.
Surprisingly, 1xBet analytics show that The MongolZ’s rifler Azbayar “Senzu” Munkhbold is in second place with 1.5% of votes. Senzu has long struggled to perform as well in the playoffs as he does in group stage matches, with many analysts seeing this as the primary reason why The MongolZ consistently lack in big matches.
The top four are rounded out by Spirit’s AWPer Dmitry “Shiro” Sokolov and The Mongolz’s sniper Usukhbayar “910” Banzragch trails him by just one vote.
Spirit could be considered the clear favorite to win PGL Astana 2025, but this doesn’t make the playoffs any less exciting, and who knows, maybe the fans will be lucky enough to have one more team finding their peak form heading to the BLAST.tv Austin Major.
