Our representative Aurora suffered an early exit from the Starladder Budapest Major in Stage 2 after a 2-1 defeat against Astralis.
Starting the tournament with a victory over M80, our representative Aurora fell to the 1-2 pool after losing to FaZe and PARIVISION in the Bo1 stages. Their opponent in the 1-2 bracket was Astralis, who had lost to their first two opponents M80 and Ninjas in Pyjamas before securing a 2-0 victory over FlyQuest.
Although their form was high, we were facing an Astralis side that had started the Major 0-2. Despite being the favorites, the mistakes made cost us the Major.
Having been crowned champions of PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 last month, our representative arrived at the tournament with high morale and motivation. However, the one-month break seemed to have worked against the team. Simple errors and our inability to get into the game as a team were the root causes of it all.
Aurora made a fast start on Nuke, a map expected to be played. Starting with a 4-0 round streak, Aurora dominated the CT side. However, after finishing the first half 8-4, things started to turn around. After bringing the score to 12-8, Astralis attempted a comeback. Once the score reached 12-11, we executed a solid team round and managed to win the first map by a narrow margin.
Our representative also started Train by winning the pistol round, but despite a decent first half, they couldn’t deliver the expected performance on the CT side. After a 7-5 first half, conceding a 7-round streak upon switching sides played a major role in the loss. We couldn’t withstand Staehr’s performance and lost Train 13-8.
On the decider map Mirage, our representative once again started by winning the pistol round but couldn’t quite seize control of the first half. Although conceding 5 consecutive rounds dampened spirits, the tie achieved at the end of the first half kept us in the game.
Upon switching to the T side, however, we watched an Aurora far from their usual T-side form. The performances of w0xic and Wicadia were insufficient for the offensive side. Multi-kill performances from the duo of HooXi and jabbi caused the map to slip away. Although we kept the score close, minor errors and a simple mistake in the final round cost us our spot in the year’s final and biggest tournament.
Our inability to play as a unit throughout the tournament and the team’s evidently broken motivation reflected on everything. It was disheartening to see Astralis step up as a cohesive team while we struggled.
Now, we have reached the end of a long year. We bid farewell to the season with a poor and unwanted result. Narrowly missing out on qualifying for Stage 3 in the VRS rankings, followed by lackluster performances… Even though we experienced the PGL Masters Bucharest 2025 championship, this early exit from the Major is a bitter pill for everyone to swallow.