CS2: Team Takeaways, PGL Cluj Edition

Going through each team at PGL Cluj-Napoca 2025 and grading them - alongside prescribing them a pathway to improve.

Well, are they? (Yes and no…)

Preamble

As I was granted co-streaming rights for PGL Cluj-Napoca, I had a closer eye than usual on each team and their performance. Given that most CS2 tournament formats are not a best-of-three Swiss system, this is the most match data in one meaningful tournament (looking at you, ESL Pro League…) that we’ve gotten in a while.

I thought it best to summarise some of my thoughts in this article and give each team a little bit of personalised feedback. Not that they need to value my opinion on this…but I do wish some of them would! If you want to hear more details or have a question for me, reach out on Twitter.

0-3 Teams

Imperial Valkyries

I’ll sidestep the criticisms and issues people have with the circuit that led to Imperial Valkyries having multiple top tier tournament attendances in this year. Valve’s rulebook explicitly allows for selecting by demographic - their listed example, “female rosters based in Canada”, is part of why leagues like ESL Impact are allowed to be Valve ranked and thus give teams points in the rankings. As the formula balances itself and as the circuit normalises, I don’t think it’s going to be a long-term problem. If anything, this was an interesting opportunity to answer the sorts of questions that people have been asking for ages - what happens when you put the best team from the Impact circuit against some top and sub-top teams that attend Tier 1 LANs?

The answer is unfortunately a thrashing in this tournament. Far from their close maps against NaVi and FURIA in the past, the teams they faced clearly knew they had the ability to disrespect Imperial Valkyries individually and utilised that to quickly 2-0 them across the board. So what’s the conclusion?

I’ve said this in the past but I may as well put it in writing here - I think that tactically, Imperial Valkyries aren’t half bad. Some of their team play is good enough to put themselves in winning situations. Their main problem is that individually, they can’t stand up to any source of disruption. This is why against NaVi, while they were still being respected, they put up good halves and looked somewhat competitive - and why against Complexity, a team which is verifiably worse than NaVi in every conceivable way, they got stomped, because the individuals just didn’t give them any room to execute on their playbook.

It’s difficult to prescribe this team anything specific. Perhaps more practice opportunities would indeed improve their skills - and I’d be interested to see them continue to play in CCT tier events and hone their skills. I’m not knowledgable enough to suggest roster moves or potential up and comers (apart from BiBiAhn, shout out to a fellow Aussie) in the scene. I simply hope they either improve or that another female team can grind and eventually put up a better fight.

FlyQuest

Suffice to say that as an avid watcher of the core of this team for at least half a decade, the kinds of words that I was uttering at their losses cannot be reasonably repeated in this article. FlyQuest’s individuals took turns falling asleep and while I can reasonably accept a loss to Falcons, especially given their later tournament result, losing to BIG and SAW should cause permanent changes in the team.

It has been more than enough time for dexter to construct his vision of a system. Vexite has been playing in an iteration of this team since August 2022 - at this point, he should be more consistent. INS, who has otherwise been a shining light of strength, had an off tournament - no doubt that was a key factor in this result. As for regali, I’m not very impressed. For an imported AWP, he fulfills the minimum bar of being better than what aliStair was delivering for a while, and he has room to grow - but it’s not a great start.

Liazz…I could dedicate an entire article’s worth of my words here. His position in this team is the same as KRIMZ in fnatic. The only possible justification at this point is some mythical experience, which he doesn’t really provide given the team’s inability to hold it together, or some sort of “legacy contract” which he does not deserve given his in-game performance. He is a known quantity and the quantity has not been going up. Don’t even get me started on erkast - we often say we don’t know what coaches do specifically in CS teams, and thus can only judge them based on results and media comments. Since joining, I have not seen any reasonable tactical improvements that I would be able to attribute to him; I have not seen timeouts be more effective in reducing tilt or rethinking game plans either. It’s nice that he’s friends with the boys. That does not make him a good coach and unless we get a ton of new info that suggests he’s the only man holding it together in there, a long overdue European coach is in order.

In summary, while this is their first few events with a new AWPer, I’ve already seen enough from much of the rest of this team. The GM of FlyQuest should be scouting site anchor and coach replacements, preferably imported. INS should return to form and dexter is good enough if the team has the aforementioned added support. If this comes to pass, we can finally expect a little more from this team.

1-3 Teams

MIBR

Given that MIBR have already benched drop and brought brnz4n back to the starting lineup, alongside a coaching change, there’s less for me to say regarding this team. As a caller, drop was uninspiring (not that exit is very inspiring, but there aren’t many options) and I am still yet to see Lucaozy perform relative to the ridiculous buyout that was rumoured for his transfer.

This tournament was also a little quiet for insani considering the hype surrounding the young Brazilian prodigy. Given that MIBR only beat Imperial Valkyries in this tournament it’s no wonder changes were in order - but I don’t see much of a path upwards. I don’t foresee exit suddenly becoming a genius caller, nor do I think brnz4n is the solution. This team is stuck where they are until someone buys insani at which point they will be pulled downwards. It’s been the same story for years and the organisation seems to be content with this method of running the team - so I’m going to move on.

Complexity

As the other team that only beat Imperial Valkyries, Complexity came into this tournament with something to prove and left it having proven the opposite - that without EliGE, they truly are nothing. JT being their highest rated player tells you everything you need to know.

I have no reason to be harsh on Cxzi and nicx (what fantastic usernames, by the way…). They are new to this level of competition and even if they were talented domestically, it would take time for them to become acclimated to the individuals and tactics of Europe. It’s natural they would struggle.

I do have plenty of reasons to be harsh on Grim and hallzerk. Grim spent his time on the EliGE roster of Complexity dodging criticism and hiding behind the excuse of inferior roles. Now that he’s taking the roles that in theory should be a return to form for him (even though it’s been quite a while since Triumph), this level of performance cannot be repeated. Unfortunately the organisation does not have many better options available, so he’s just going to have to get it together.

As an aside, floppy did not deserve to be benched if this is the level of performance the rest of the players are putting forth. He was actually fairly capable as a supportive element and North American teams desperately need that sort of player, even if the statistics painted a bad picture for a while.

There is no way to improve Complexity on a budget. Either you need more imported players, which is clearly at odds with their recent direction, or you buy from your rivals (M80, NRG, BLUEJAYS) who are unlikely to sell to you given they have a fair chance at making the Major. The most likely path is that JT leaves and Complexity lower their standards to compensate. Either way, nothing good is in their immediate future.

Wildcard

We finally arrive at a team where I believe their result belies their performance. Despite a loss to BIG where JBa proved his inexperience and inability to perform under pressure, the rest of their results were fairly promising. Close games against The MongolZ despite eventual losses, and a fairly close loss to a streaky VP suggest to me that stanislaw’s game plan is fairly put together. Numerical results aside, some of the T side calling from this team impressed me.

The weakest links are the non-imported players, obviously - but I do think that susp should pick it up, given that he was touted alongside nilo as a promising Swedish talent not too long ago. Sonic is performing acceptably for his roles, and JBa will either grow comfortable or be replaced. This is the first team where I would actually wait and see them run it back in subsequent events before making more concrete changes or transformations. Aside from the possibility that stanislaw leaves for a better team, everyone else is pretty well positioned in Wildcard to continue to improve.

2-3 Teams

3DMAX

If there ever was a team characterised by the phrase “how are they winning these games?!” it would be this team right now. Even after bodyy joins this squad, none of the individuals impress me at all, and yet they manage to look competitive in quite a few games thanks to a solid tactical foundation.

Aside from a shocking 2-0 defeat to SAW, every other result leaves me with remarkably little to comment upon. They cleaned up against teams whom I would consider equal or worse than them (VP, MIBR) and lost to clearly better teams (Eternal Fire, MOUZ). There is also no path for them to improve individually via new French players, nor do I think any tactical changes are in order. This team is built to go 2-3 or 3-2 and lose in the next game, and that’s okay! For a domestic team from a region where the best players are in an international roster, they are unironically doing their best.

Virtus.pro

Having only defeated North American teams in this event, VP’s roster looks exactly as I expected - a streaky individual firepower squad who could upset a top team but never deliver consistent results. When everyone is online, they have perhaps some of the best players across the board - there’s no obvious weak links, which most teams can’t claim to have.

However, the average performance of this team is middling. electroNic’s calling is okay, but he’s not making up for it with his individual performances at all. ICY is actually the best takeaway from this event as a relatively stable AWP presence - but FL1T is far from his best here, while fame is relegated to the background.

FL4MUS may have ruined his prospects of going to a better team by joining VP. He’s got new roles to adjust to and will have to develop on his own instead of looking like a stud on GamerLegion and getting picked up after a longer period of development by a better team. Sadly, VP seem to have committed to the electroNic IGL path given their separation from Jame, so I think the best path forward is to keep an eye out for talented Russian riflers (perhaps offer kyousuke your entire net worth to join?) while hoping electronic can call a decent enough game to not deter new players from joining. Out of FL1T, fame, and FL4MUS, you’re hoping one of them becomes consistent - perhaps some role changes if things don’t feel comfortable.

BIG

I struggle to find anything positive about BIG’s performance. They don’t have unique tactical angles like previous BIG lineups, tabsen is deteriorating individually, hyped is unimpressive and only good for about three rounds per map, and kyuubii is equally flat.

JDC and Krimbo are both pretty good at their roles, which makes this even more frustrating. Neither of them can show up at the same time, and even if they did, the rest of the team has such a low floor that it often doesn’t matter. The sad reality is that syrson was definitely worse than hyped is right now, and rigon wasn’t meaningfully different to kyuubii. There are no paths left in Germany for this team to improve.

It’s time for tabseN to take more anchor positions and either get in the lab for a return of their unique style, or try to construct something new entirely. Even then, their CT sides aren’t going to be better because their individuals aren’t good enough to stand up to rigorous site attacks most of the time - so I do think the best shot they have is focusing on nerding out with utility to sneak upset wins against top teams, like they have done in the past. Much like 3DMAX, that’s where your ceiling is as a domestic team with the current talent pool.

Quarter Finalists (Losers)

The MongolZ

After a consistent ramp-up in performance and a few attempts at playoff runs, this seemed like the best time for The MongolZ to secure victories and shake off accusations of choking and plateauing that had been starting to gather.

A stellar group stage performance where they essentially took care of business was overshadowed by a terrible 2-0 at the hands of a barely functional Astralis lineup. A complete lack of individual cohesion and decision making, combined with a classic absence of fragging across the board, is reinviting those conversations.

After calming myself down, I think the measured take is this - every Mongolz big crowd loss so far is characterised by different conditions. The Major was their first time and they put up a relatively decent fight, while Senzu clearly choked individually. Their Katowice victory over Eternal Fire was mostly a red herring, considering Eternal Fire is equally prone to choking but is less of a “team” in terms of synergy and distribution of fragging - and the Vitality loss is not really a problem. This time around, the conversations about being title contenders and favourites in these matchups were unique and contributed to making this game losable.

I’m not blind, however, and I see that something does need to be changed. If possible, mental coaching or team psychology is warranted to get over the hump of crowd performances. The team is still very young and there are no individual weak links - this year, 910 has looked stellar and Senzu’s injury is still healing. bL1tz is excellent as always, and Techno continues to be the obedient soldier - and mzinho’s lurks are improving in impact. I would rather see this team keep at it for many more months rather than jump the gun on what is probably the most balanced team they could construct from Mongolian players. They should be disappointed by this result and considering they themselves were talking about winning the event, this should be a solid wake-up call.

SAW

Not much to say about a team that was dead on arrival. While I don’t really understand the reasoning behind going international only to pick up AZUWU and cej0t, there seem to have been personal issues and I’m no expert in Portugese CS.

Their wins against FlyQuest and Complexity are more meaningful as detrimental points for their opponents, and the individual performances against 3DMAX were somewhat impressive. Nevertheless, I have nothing to prescribe in this case and their loss to FaZe was expected.

paiN

The rising Brazilian squad should be proud considering their losses to group stage MongolZ and the eventual winners in MOUZ. While the young talent of snow has been up and down, dav1deus was consistent in the group stage and this was a breakout tournament from nqz, who looked fantastic round to round with accuracy on the AWP previously not seen from him.

This is biguzera’s first time in a big event playoffs, and they played a great team-based game in the playoffs only to lose to MOUZ who individually defeated them whenever it looked close. The experience this should give to the entire squad will prove valuable if they stick together, and I recommend they keep at it - in many ways, this mirrors The MongolZ’s rise. Their game plans honestly looked better than MOUZ in that semi final and if that stays consistent then the individuals will eventually either catch up or be replaced. The benefit of being a Brazilian team is that the rifle talent pool is fairly deep (despite buyout problems) so while it’s no guarantee that this is the lineup that can find a playoffs victory in the future, I think that a biguzera-led team can do it sooner or later.

Eternal Fire

I predicted Falcons would defeat Eternal Fire before the game, and some people laughed at me - but the last laugh is mine on this one. I think that in low pressure games, Eternal Fire have the explosivity and talent to take anyone on if the conditions are perfect. XANTARES is a generational talent and even woxic has looked capable of carrying a series from time to time - and the new generation are steadily getting better.

That being said, this seems to be their ceiling. Unlike the aforementioned younger teams like The MongolZ and paiN, Eternal Fire’s most valuable core are aging out rapidly. XANTARES underperforming on stage is tough but it exposes the absence of a win condition when MAJ3R doesn’t have an individual cheat code on the server.

There are no better players in the region to suggest on a role by role basis. I might actually suggest something out of left field here - a break. MAJ3R was vocal online about the tiring nature of their schedule, and I do sympathise with the difficulty of spending so long away from family - but this is the price you pay for attending every event. If skipping one event would allow the team to reset and come back stronger, I think it’s better than making playoffs only to lose time and time again. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s much left for them to do that they aren’t presumably doing already. Their window of victory is closing as XANTARES and woxic aren’t going to deliver for much longer, and MAJ3R is alongside karrigan as one of the oldest active players.

Top Four

FaZe (4th)

A dominant group stage where they took care of business against Eternal Fire and MOUZ is contrasted by their 2-0 loss to Falcons. EliGE looks individually good at times but him and frozen take turns showing up, and the elephant in the room is that karrigan is individually costing this team while no longer providing the perfect calls that he has done in the past.

This was also one of broky’s worse tournaments, and for a team that relies on distributed fragging without one clear star, only having two players perform will necessarily limit their wins. Ever since their CS2 dominance early on, FaZe have looked capable of providing entertaining games and upsets against teams with less experience - but this EliGE lineup looks like it will need time before his style and vision clashes are resolved. I am worried that EliGE will have too much of a say in what was clearly karrigan’s team, and every season could theoretically be karrigan’s last as a player. Still, it’s not right to push retirement on such a historic IGL - especially when good callers are in short supply.

I’d still like to see broky either change his style or be replaced with a more consistent AWPer, but the problem is he is still able to have stage performances like few other AWPers can in the biggest events - so replacing him prematurely is going to be tough. It may also finally be time, with many aggressive riflers rising through the ranks, to replace rain with someone capable of performing in his new roles (not to say an old player can’t learn new tricks, but a new player would certainly play better in some of his positions currently). This result isn’t out of the ordinary and changes need to be made before I call this FaZe a true title contender again.

Astralis (3rd)

People may be fooled by this result into believing that Astralis is a top team again - they are not. Their Swiss stage victories were SAW, MIBR, and BIG, - some of the most underwhelming teams in this tournament - and they took advantage of a choking MongolZ before losing to MOUZ, letting a newborn Brollan IGL a 4-12 T side comeback on your map pick. Their third place decider victory doesn’t carry much weight to me considering how infamous FaZe’s ability to “not try” when matches aren’t as important is, but it does contribute further to the jabbi event EVP which was well earned and a stark return to form.

stavn continues to be a complete paper tiger who is incapable of showing up when it counts for years at this point. Astralis are certainly regretting selling blameF (the sunken cost from buying him and jabbi for all those millions caused that one) but they don’t have much of a choice but to start trying all sort of paranormal solutions to figure out how to get him to frag out.

device is fairly consistent all things considered, and Staehr is fulfilling his role and serving up highlights here and there - so it falls to cadiaN. While this may have been one of his better individual tournaments on average, his positioning and willingness to sacrifice his life in the best way possible is somewhat lacking. After years of being an AWP IGL who played around himself frequently, I’ve seen him simply die in untradeable ways too often for an IGL in this team. He is not skilled with the SMGs (as seen on Twitter), and often invests into the double AWP to the team’s financial detriment. Despite all this, his T side calling on Inferno is pretty good at this point, and it’s starting to look tenable on other maps like Ancient.

I still think it’s probably for the best if cadiaN AWPs and calls his original style with complete freedom. Unfortunately he is playing with device, so this is wholly dependent on factors out of his control. I’m loath to give roster advice to Astralis but they’ve been ignoring it for years now, so I’d suggest finding a stavn replacement and either let cadiaN try it with an actual star in those roles, or turn device into a rifler (which he has done before and is fully capable of) to make cadiaN the primary AWP and IGL.

Falcons (2nd)

The grand finalists and home of the MVP, NiKo, Falcons lived and died by individual performances in this event. The calling was acceptable in that it didn’t impede the TeSeS and NiKo openers (not that kyxsan needs to tell NiKo what to do), and degster showed up exclusively against FaZe to deny them any freedom before returning to his underwhelming tournament-wide form in the grand final.

This tournament is the first time people have looked at Falcons and saw improvements. Magisk is silently looking worse and worse, which makes little sense considering he is still relatively young and looked like the only good player in Falcons not too lnog ago, and zonic is not proving his worth yet with this lineup. Still, I am yet to see this Falcons as anything but a temporary seasonal roster which has finally performed enough to attract players. If the promise of NiKo wasn’t enough, now you know he’s in MVP form and that TeSeS is actually capable individually.

Compared to other teams, it’s easy to suggest Falcons roster moves considering they should have essentially free reign to pick and choose. Recent rumours suggest m0NESY does not want to join Falcons, but I find it hard to believe that if G2 doesn’t go bankrupt offering him the entire net worth of the organisation, Falcons doesn’t try to swoop in with record high offers just to get him in the team. I’d also like to see perhaps sjuush or Perfecto trial in place of Magisk, if only to know whether he really is underperforming in his positions. kyxsan is decent enough to only really be replaced with siuhy or a retiring karrigan who wants to play with NiKo one last time.

I don’t think this Falcons will lift a trophy - they have too many weak players and the calling isn’t making up for that. This mid-year break will no doubt change that and if nothing else, NiKo can farm up some MVPs and EVPs in the mean time.

MOUZ (1st)

This is the part of the article where I admit that despite cheering for MOUZ in the past, I was actively rooting against Brollan’s IGL experiment for no reason other than that it would be an affront to Counter-Strike if you can bench the most skilled young IGL we have had in years and still look competitive.

Thinking more rationally, it makes a lot of sense that a lineup of essentially four top 20 players could still perform with whatever strats they had left over and Brollan’s limited playbook. I don’t believe for one second that he wanted to be an IGL or that this was somehow in the cards for anything but an emergency like this, but I have to say it - the calling, while it still isn’t anything near siuhy’s T sides, isn’t half bad for a brand new IGL. While the players on MOUZ are better than the players on Liquid, I honestly think Brollan has done better than Twistzz in terms of T side calling already.

He’s still first on the chopping block since the rest of MOUZ showed up in fantastic form, playing with individual freedom. xertioN shed some of the “stage choker” narratives with strong performances in the grand final maps, and Spinx’s addition was a clear upgrade in terms of killer instinct. Some of those lurk plays were clearly based on his ideas and initiative, and his experience from Vitality showed here.

Don’t jump the gun and call this experiment a success - now that this team is being studied, Brollan will have to come up with new ideas as well as avoid being individually weakened by this prospect. Still, with the level of firepower on this team, even if they don’t get better calling, MOUZ deserved this trophy and will continue to be a threat on good days - I just don’t think it means anything more than that.

Conclusion and Side Notes

Aside from the team commentary, I think the desks and casters did a fantastic job as usual - the innovations, such as the position maps in pre-game segments which are great ways of condensing information and making it readable for the viewer, were noticed on my end.

I’m a fan of decider games for VRS points over most showmatches these days as well. I think that it will create asymmetry regarding which teams try and don’t try as hard, but maybe that’s simply more apparent in those specific games - either way, it’s usually more entertaining.

This isn’t the article to discuss the reasons and backroom deals that precluded some teams from participating in this event, which players were vocally against (in the case of Team Liquid, at least), but I think it provides unique opportunities to those teams who did not skip the event, and more variety in the circuit is interesting to me at the very least. I look forward to seeing more PGL events in the future as we explore the new CS2 circuit!

Afterword

Thanks for reading all the way to the end of another article! This was the first event I’ve kept such a close eye on, so I thought it was serendipitous to write an article so as not to waste all those hours raging at FlyQuest and The MongolZ.

Thank you for the support on my socials as always. If you ever have questions or just want to chat, reach out on Twitter! I’ll also link my Discord server for real-time CS (and mostly random) conversations.