Our representative Aurora will face their first challenge at the StarLadder Budapest Major 2025 against M80. According to the VRS rankings, Aurora is favored against their 25th-ranked opponent.
Aurora’s Major journey begins now. After winning the PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 in recent weeks, our team enters Stage 2 of the Budapest Major as one of the favorites.
Aurora’s first opponent is M80, who advanced from Stage 1 with a clean 3–0 run. M80 defeated B8, PARIVISION, and NRG in order to reach the next stage. With this performance, they’ll be looking for an upset against our team in the Bo1 stage. Since our players are not fond of Bo1 matches and surprises are common in this format, predicting the outcome becomes much harder.
Aurora is favored in Stage 2. Both in seeding and overall strength, the team stands above most of their opponents. Due to some setbacks, Aurora had lost its place in the top 5 of the VRS rankings but still secured a spot in Stage 2. We can safely say they are on the same level as the Stage 3 teams.
The only real concern regarding Aurora is that the opening matches are Bo1. In these matches, the team tends to make simple and irreversible mistakes. While this can happen to any team, Aurora loses Bo1s more often than most.
Root discussed this in his analysis on his YouTube channel and placed Aurora in the 3–2/3–1 section of his CS2 Pick’Em list.
Despite celebrating the PGL Bucharest championship earlier this month, the team hasn’t played an official match in 27 days. Such long breaks have historically affected this roster negatively. Their first matches often look cold, stiff, and tense.
Considering M80 is a strong team that performed well in their first match, I expect Aurora to advance from the group with a score other than 3–0… We might finish first in the group, but due to the Bo1 risk, I’m predicting 3–1 or 3–2. I expect one loss in the first two Bo1s.
We know our players really dislike Bo1 stages. Looking at the last two Majors, both performances were influenced by the team’s form… At the BLAST Major, we lost 2 out of 3 Bo1 matches. At the Major in China at the end of 2024, we again lost 2 of the 3 Bo1s we played.
Özgür “Root” Alagül
Aurora gained huge morale by winning an S-Tier event ahead of the Budapest Major. Winning their first big tournament with this roster and having this momentum before the Major greatly motivated the team. However, the one-month break after the tournament may impact their performance — we’ll see to what extent. The M80 match likely won’t reveal their true form just yet.
The match against M80 will be played on Saturday, November 29 at 17:00. Root, Arhaval, and imoRR will be live on streaming platforms. You can follow Esportimes’ social media accounts for access.