G2, paiN face visa issues in PGL Astana 2025

G2 and paiN announced this Friday, May 9th, that their players Nemanja "huNter-" Kovač and Franco "dgt" Garcia will miss the first matches at PGL Astana 2025 due to visa issues.

paiN said dgt has permission to enter Kazakhstan on May 12th, the third day of the tournament, and the head coach Henrique "rikz" Waku will stand in for the Uruguayan. G2, on the hand, simply said that the head coach Wiktor "TaZ" Wojtas will be their stand-in for the starting matches as huNter- will not travel until "it's resolved."

The absence of dgt and huNter- is a huge blow for paiN and G2 as it will heavily impact their performance during the Swiss group stage of PGL Astana. The Brazilians hope to achieve a better result in Kazakhstan than in BLAST Rivals 2025 Season 1, in which they finished in last place.

As for G2, they'll play their first tournament without Ilya "m0NESY" Osipov following his transfer to Falcons last month, and will have their debut with the stand-in Olek "hades" Miskiewicz, who will stay on the roster until the BLAST.tv Austin Major concludes.

PGL Astana will be played from May 10th to 18th and is a good opportunity for a plethora of teams to get some VRS points, as Spirit and Natus Vincere are the only top five teams in attendance.