PGL Astana 2026 announced

Through a blogpost, PGL has announced details for PGL Astana 2026, an S-tier Counter-Strike 2 event coming in as PGL's second of the year, carrying a prize pool of $1,600,000 USD. PGL brought S-tier Counter-Strike to Astana, Kazakhstan earlier this year and broke several regional esports records. An Astralis Cinderella run was cut short by Spirit in the grand-final.

PGL Astana 2026 will feature a total of sixteen teams out of which twelve receive direct invites based on the Global VRS as of March 2026. Four regions- Asia, Europe, North America and South America will receive one slot each through open and closed qualifiers. The Asian qualifier will run across several sub-regions- West Asia, East Asia and Oceania before matching up regional winners in the closed qualifier. The tournament will take place between May 7 - May 18, 2026 with 16 teams fighting it out for the prize pool and silverware.

The main event starts with a Swiss system bo3 and the top eight teams make it to the playoffs where a single-elimination bracket concluding with a bo5 grand-final crowns the winner.