PGL Astanaâs finals will be preceded by a third-place decider match between Aurora Gaming and Furia; who should you bet on?
Team Spirit and Astralis will face off in the grand finals of PGL Astana, a showdown that is half surprising and half blasé. The same goes for the third-place decider too, with Aurora Gaming facing Furia.
Aurora Gaming has been consistent throughout 2025 in a way where a solid finish is effectively a guarantee. On the flipside, Furia has rebounded hard after a generally disastrous start to 2025. Who will come out on top when they face off here, though?
SEMI-FINALS! FURIA vs Spirit â HIGHLIGHTS – PGL Astana 2025 | CS2
Aurora Gaming and Furia will face off in a best-of-three match in the PGL Astana playoffs on May 18, 2025. This is a third-place decider match, with the proverbial bronze medalist taking home. The only things on the line here are money and pride, as PGL does not have a seasonal prize structure akin to the Intel Grand Slam or BLAST Frequent Flyer program.
Aurora Gaming is set to post one of its standard efforts in 2025; placing highly in PGL Astana without actually winning it. Thatâs par for the course for Ä°smailŃan âXANTARESâ DörtkardeĆ and company, who have made top-eight runs across every tournament they have played in this year. XANTARES has been the driver of its success in PGL Astana, standing as one of the eventâs top-rated players.
Furia, meanwhile, will notch its best showing in 2025 regardless of this outcome. This follows the additions of Danil “molodoy” Golubenko and Mareks “YEKINDAR” GaÄŒinskis to the roster. Though their arrival coincides with success, the full Furia roster has contributed to their success in Astana.
Aurora Gaming was a touch shaky in the group stage, going 3-2 with wins over HOTU, NiP, and ODDIK while losing to BIG and NaVi. Its playoffs run started with a win over The MongolZ, but an upset loss to Astralis nixed a grand finals run.
Aurora Gaming acquired the all-Turkish roster of Eternal Fire earlier this year and benched its standing European squad:
Aurora is historically good or great pretty much everywhere, but the team is actually on a four-game losing streak on Train since donning the black and teal jersey. On the flipside, itâs been perfect across six games on Mirage,
Furia has impressed in PGL Astana, even in defeat, with a strong group stage run being followed by a competitive showing against Team Spirit in the playoffs:
Furia added Danil “molodoy” Golubenko and Mareks “YEKINDAR” GaÄŒinskis to its roster ahead of PGL Astana, and this new lineuphas impressed in its debut:
Furiaâs 2025 has been a messy one and thatâs seen in its low winrates across almost every map. In PGL Astana specifically, the team has been thriving on Train and Anubis, going 7-1 across those two maps.
SEMI-FINALS! Aurora vs Astralis â HIGHLIGHTS – PGL Astana 2025 | CS2
Furia hasnât played this Aurora Gaming roster in some time. Furiaâs standing core of yuurih, KSCERATO, and FalleN played against Eternal Fire a few times in 2024, though. Furia won a pair of best-of-ones but Eternal Fire came out on top of their most recent match, a best-of-three in BetBoom Dacha Belgrade 2024 #2.
Aurora Gaming is a 1.5 favorite against Furia. The moneyline on Furia stands at 2.5. Though the map preferences actually favor the Brazilian squad, the betting sites arenât ready to buy into this new Furia roster against this proven opponent. Yet.
Aurora should be able to get the win over Furia. Fans shouldnât be overly confident in Aurora though, as any member of Furia could get hot and push the team to an upset victory.
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