PGL Astana invites announced

On Tuesday, March 10, PGL announced a list of invited Counter-Strike 2 teams for the upcoming PGL Astana tournament, leaving four spots for regional qualifiers.

Scheduled to take place on May 9-17, PGL Astana 2026 is the eighth S-Tier CS2 tournament of the season and will run alongside Intel Extreme masters Atlanta.

The Kazakh event will welcome 16 teams, with all but four receiving direct invites based on their position on Valve Regional Standings (VRS) as of the March update.

With the standings recently updated, PGL have issued invites to the top-rated squads, which include many of the world’s heavyweights.

Notable attendees include four of the current top five teams in the global rankings: FURIA, MOUZ, Team Falcons, and PARIVISION. Joining them are other juggernauts in The MongolZ, Team Spirit, and Aurora Gaming.

However, several titans have declined invites, including Team Vitality, FaZe Clan, GamerLegion, NRG, Natus Vincere, and Astralis, who instead opted to focus on IEM Atlanta.

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  Fast Payouts

FUT Esports, who have accepted their invites to PGL Astana, have also confirmed their participation in the Atlanta event.

As explained by the team, they decided to accept both invitations to account for the possibility that they might not obtain visas to travel to the USA.

This is possible under PGL’s rules, which allow any team to withdraw from the tournament until a set date after the visa deadline for the IEM event.

With 12 teams announced, four spots for PGL Astana remain open and will be filled in by the winners of the European, North America, South American, and Asian qualifiers.

The four regional events will take place on March 31 – April 3. Asian qualifiers will feature winners of Oceanic, East Asian, and West Asian qualifiers, while the remaining three will feature four directly invited teams and four champions of open qualifiers.

PGL Astana will play out in two stages, starting with a 16-team Swiss-system group stage, where all matches are played as best-of-three.

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  The bookies' bookie

The top eight teams will proceed to a single-elimination bracket, where all matches are played as best-of-three, except for the grand final, which is best-of-five.

As the final list of teams is not yet complete, the top CS2 betting sites have not yet opened outright markets for the Kazakh tournament. Esports punters can expect to be able to place their predictions after April 3, when the regional qualifiers conclude.