Wildcard and LAG top "red-eye" PGL Bucharest Open Qualifier that wrapped up at 4am
Last night saw the first of two NA open qualifiers for PGL Bucharest 2026 wrap up, seeing 33 teams compete for two spots in the Closed Qualifier. The qualifier was originally scheduled to run over the course of two days on February 14th and the 15th, however due to tech issues, PGL and Esportal had to condense the qualifier into a single day that started at 09:00PM, with the final match not wrapping up until 04:00AM.
These red-eye series saw Wildcard and LAG ultimately top the first open qualifier, besting ClayMakers Reborn and mouse, respectively, to make their way into the Closed Qualifier and earn some hard-fought shut eye.
Wildcard's road to the Closed Qualifier saw them start in the Ro32 with a 13-8 win Omen before issuing a 13-0 win beatdown to Open1-8 squad AUE ONE in the round-of-sixteen. From there Wildcard notched a 2-0 win over A Great Chaos mixteam featuring McKinley "Cyrix" Hollison to set up a showdown against Dmitrii "NIGHT666LADE" Botirov and ClayMakers Reborn.
This series ended up being a walk in the park for Wildcard as they won Overpass 13-6 before also taking Dust2 13-6 as well.
Wildcard| Wildcard |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Miłosz 'mhL' Knasiak |
41 - 20 | +21 | 108.3 | 73.7% | 1.59 |
 Jadan 'HexT' Postma |
32 - 25 | +7 | 80.9 | 81.6% | 1.38 |
 Anthony 'CLASIA' Kearney |
26 - 21 | +5 | 79.8 | 76.3% | 1.29 |
| Jaxon 'Peeping' Cornwell |
32 - 22 | +10 | 86.9 | 84.2% | 1.26 |
| Ethan 'reck' Serrano |
20 - 21 | -1 | 57.1 | 76.3% | 1.01 |
| K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Kuanysh 'stanf1x' Zhasbulatov |
26 - 29 | -3 | 66.9 | 73.7% | 1.00 |
 Dmitrii 'NIGHT666LADE' Botirov |
25 - 26 | -1 | 60.8 | 68.4% | 0.88 |
 Nikita 'TABEN' Holovachov |
21 - 30 | -9 | 63.3 | 57.9% | 0.87 |
 Ruslan 'Rulik' Tkhoryk |
22 - 33 | -11 | 65.8 | 60.5% | 0.75 |
| Dastan 'T0rby' Beisenov |
15 - 33 | -18 | 62.2 | 63.2% | 0.52 |
On the other side of the bracket, LAG's run began with a Ro16 win over Reunionunderscore2 before facing off against 1WIN in the quarterfinals. They breezed past the team while only dropping seven maps in the process, taking Inferno 13-3 and Ancient 13-4.
This led into a semifinals series against mouse that pushed LAG to their limit over three maps. The series started on Ancient with LAG t.aking the map 13-10 with a resurgent T-side after initially struggling to break through on their CT-side. Moving onto Inferno, mouse evened the series up with a close 13-11 win that was powered by a strong performance from Dylan "DYLAN" Frivalt.
With the series tied up, Dust2 kicked off with mouse pulling off a dominant T-side to lead 9-3 at the half, putting LAG at risk of elimination at the tail end of the qualifier. This situation was made worse for LAG as mouse were able to secure map point at a 12-6 socreline, however LAG were miraculously able to hold mouse off and force overtime by rallying around Jonathan "djay" Dallal before taking the map 16-14.
mouseLAG| mouse |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connor 'Jolts' Haines |
53 - 55 | -2 | 67.7 | 77.9% | 1.18 |
| Jasper 'Burglar' Martin |
49 - 55 | -6 | 76.1 | 67.5% | 1.13 |
| Dylan 'DYLAN' Frivalt |
55 - 54 | +1 | 76.0 | 67.5% | 1.12 |
| Kyle 'Sunk' Kallahan |
43 - 56 | -13 | 68.1 | 62.3% | 0.85 |
| Ethan 'Jester' Davis Comer |
45 - 61 | -16 | 60.5 | 63.6% | 0.84 |
| LAG |
K - D | +/- | ADR | KAST | Rating 3.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin 'Sandman' Saulle |
63 - 50 | +13 | 82.9 | 75.3% | 1.29 |
| Kyle 'Wolffe' Greenfield |
63 - 54 | +9 | 83.6 | 75.3% | 1.17 |
| Jonathan 'djay' Dallal |
56 - 55 | +1 | 84.8 | 77.9% | 1.11 |
| Kamron 'kmrn' Manii |
50 - 46 | +4 | 68.5 | 70.1% | 0.96 |
| Kevin 'consti' Yi |
46 - 40 | +6 | 61.7 | 83.1% | 0.94 |
Wildcard and LAG make their way into the Closed Qualifier, joining BOSS, Sakura, Voca, and FlyQuest RED as the direct invites announced today. Two more squads will advance into the Closed Qualifier via the second Open Qualifier set to start tonight at 09:00PM.
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