PGL Bucharest 2025 shortened

Through a post on X, PGL has announced that their upcoming event, Masters Bucharest 2025 will be shortened by a day and will end on Saturday, 1st November 2025 instead of the following day. The change comes amidst their scheduling clash with IEM Chengdu 2025 and the previous schedule made it impossible for teams to attend both events.

Adding to the stress, ESL had issued a stern warning that if a team would withdraw from IEM Chengdu at the last moment, a single ESL event ban would be enforced which would be IEM Krakow. ESL also gave a 2-day window to withdraw from their event without consequences but none of the teams went ahead with the offer.

At PGL, we are strong supporters of transparency, the strict application of rules, and a fair ecosystem.
We would like to draw everyone’s attention to what has been announced in the past, so everyone knows what to expect, and to emphasise what is important for both teams and the wider community to remember and understand.
As part of the additional information for Cluj-Napoca 2026, we posted a rule that could disqualify a roster from a Direct VRS Invite:
“A team will be denied an invitation if they accepted the invite for, but failed to attend, the previous PGL event for which they were eligible.”
PGL, X

PGL also announced that it would retract a clause from its rulebook enabling them to omit a team from direct VRS invites if the said team had previously not attended a PGL event after accepting the invitation. PGL mentions that this rule would go out of effect after PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026.

Despite the change, teams that would make it to the final day's play at PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 would not be able to attend IEM Chengdu 2025's Media day which according to ESL's rulebook is a mandatory deliverable from all participating teams.