At the Barys Arena in Astana, the capital of Kazakhstan, we watched some fantastic Counter-Strike 2 (CS2) esports action unfold from 16 highly motivated teams, all looking to gain some momentum before the next Major Championship. In case you couldn't watch all the top-tier action unfold live, we've got you covered!

The battle for the top-tier LAN trophy and a $1,600,000 prize pool (roughly R27 million) began in the Group Stage, where home crowd favorites Team Spirit stood tall with a 3-0 record, alongside underdogs 9z Team.

Continue reading to find out what happened, or watch our highlights video with the best plays from the Grand Final below, or both if you have some spare time!

In the single-elimination Playoffs Stage, the top eight teams duked it out in BO3 matches, with 9z Team falling in the first round.

Team Spirit took no prisoners in the bracket, beating G2 Esports with a 2-0 score and crushing MOUZ with an exceptionally clean 2-0 affair to claim a spot in the Grand Final. On the other side of the bracket, Team Falcons, with Finn "karrigan" Andersen now at the helm, bested FURIA in a reverse-sweep comeback and beat dark horses, Magic, with a clean 2-0.

In the BO5 Grand Finals of PGL Astana 2026, Team Falcons put up an admirable fight on the first map, Dust2, pushing it to overtime before losing 16-12.

On Mirage, Team Spirit powered up to beat Team Falcons 13-7 and finished off proceedings with a 13-10 win on Ancient, thereby sweeping Team Falcons 3-0.

Congratulations to Team Spirit for becoming back-to-back PGL Astana champions, and to their star rifler, Danil "donk" Kryshkovets, who put up a chart-topping performance for the MVP award.

Check out the table below featuring the complete results and final standings of PGL Astana 2026, including how much money each team won.

As always, stay tuned to Esports Central for lots of CS2 event coverage and more!

Header image via PGL.