A brief guide to PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025

PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025, the tournament organiser’s first international Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) event of the year, is kicking off in just two days.

Held in Bucharest’s Cluj-Napoca, the competition will see 16 top-tier teams fight for its $1.25m (~£1.04m) prize pool from February 14th-23th.

With the stage set, here is everything you need to know about PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025.

Cluj-Napoca’s format is divided into two parts: the Group Stage taking place at PGL Studio and the Playoffs at BT Arena. All matches are best-of-threes (BO3s) except for the best-of-five (BO5) Grand Final.

The first stage follows a 16-team Swiss system format, which draws random match-ups between squads that have not faced each other yet and then places teams in high, mid, and low tiers based on their match results. This continues across five rounds, with winners of the high groups advancing and losers of the low groups being eliminated.

The emerging top-eight rosters qualify for the Playoffs, commencing on February 21st. A single-elimination bracket is used to determine the Cluj-Napoca champion. As part of PGL’s new playoffs format, an additional Third Place Match is held ahead of the Grand Final.

Throughout the tournament, CS2 fans can tune into the English broadcast on PGL’s official Twitch, YouTube, Kick, and Facebook channels. With some matches being played simultaneously, an official secondary stream is available on Twitch, YouTube and Kick.

PGL has announced that day one of the Group Stage on February 14th will start at 10:00am EET/ 8am GMT with the final matches of the day expected to commence at 7pm EET / 5pm GMT.

For the Playoffs, the Friday, February 21st quarter-finals will start at 10:00am EET/ 8am GMT with the semi-finals taking place the next day at 5pm EET/ 3pm GMT.

Finally, Sunday’s third-place match and the Grand Final will begin at 3pm EET / 1pm GMT and 6pm EET/ 4pm GMT, respectively.

Content creators can also apply to co-stream the event as long as their broadcast will be in English.

Kicking off just five days after the Intel Extreme Masters (IEM) Katowice Final, Cluj-Napoca will feature a unique lineup of teams. Several of the highest-ranking CS2 rosters have opted out of the event. Notably, current VRS ranking leader Team Spirit, as well as Katowice 2025 winner Team Vitality.

From the top-five teams, according to Valve’s CS2 ranking system, only Eternal Fire will attend Cluj-Napoca. The Turkish squad recently placed second at the BLAST Bounty Spring 2025 tournament. This, however, allows other organisations, such as TheMongolZ and SAW, to take centre stage instead.

Interestingly, Brazilian team Imperial Fe will also be among the contestants. Having won several iterations of ESL Impact, a league for marginalised genders, Imperial Fe recently became the first women’s roster to qualify for an IEM event.

The club was invited by PGL following the exit of fellow Brazilian organisation FURIA to prioritise a Visa acquisition for the BLAST.tv Austin Major.