PGL has announced the teams invited for its $1.25 million Masters Bucharest 2025 event on September 29. However, the team list is far from ideal, given the size and investment of this CS2 tourney.
This is because the majority of the best CS2 teams in the world have declined an invitation to PGL Masters Bucharest. In fact, out of the 16 teams invited, Aurora and Astralis are the only ones currently in the top 10 of the Valve Regional Standings (VRS). You can check the full list below:
| Team | VRS rank |
|---|---|
| Aurora | 8 |
| Astralis | 10 |
| Team Liquid | 12 |
| 3DMAX | 13 |
| paiN Gaming | 15 |
| GamerLegion | 16 |
| Ninjas in Pyjamas | 17 |
| B8 | 19 |
| HEROIC | 22 |
| BetBoom | 23 |
| Fnatic | 24 |
| Gentle Mates | 25 |
| SAW | 26 |
| Legacy | 32 |
| FlyQuest | 34 |
| MIBR | 39 |
So, PGL Masters Bucharest has essentially become a tier-two LAN, despite its $1.25 million prize pool.
Spirit is one of the teams that declined Masters Bucharest to play at IEM Chengdu. Credit: Stephanie Lindgren | © BLAST
The reason why the best CS2 teams will miss PGL Masters Bucharest is that the Romanian event nearly clashes with ESL’s IEM Chengdu 2025.
Originally, PGL Masters Bucharest was set to end on November 2, the day before IEM Chengdu’s opening day. Later on, PGL adjusted the schedule so that the tournament would finalize on November 1.
However, that wasn’t enough to convince the teams. Especially after ESL informed that a last-minute withdrawal from IEM Chengdu would result in a ban for IEM Kraków 2026, the next event in the ESL calendar, and the spiritual successor to the traditional IEM Katowice.
This back-and-forth between PGL and ESL showed there’s an ongoing dispute behind the scenes of CS2 esports. PGL’s CEO, Silviu Stroie, went as far as saying that ESL and BLAST operate a duopoly.
For anyone asking about Bucharest and Chengdu, we’ve announced our dates for events in 2025 and 2026 on March 31, 2024. They well knew our dates for both 2025 and 2026 before they decided they wanted to continue the monopoly, and they will do whatever it takes to stop teams from playing PGL events. So there is no randomness; it’s a joint strategy.
PGL also had to update its prize pool structure this year to add club incentives. ESL and BLAST already offered a share of the prize pool for the organizations, which led several teams to choose to play their tournaments over PGL’s at the start of 2025.
As 2025 is coming to an end, it remains clear that ESL and BLAST are the preferred CS2 tournament organizers, even though Valve killed their partnership leagues for the 2025 season.
PGL Masters Bucharest will run from October 26 to November 1 in the PGL Studios in Romania.
Feature image Credit: Luc Bouchon | © PGL
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