regain and BEBRA1769 top second PGL Astana OQ marred by cheating, matchfixing accusations

The second NA Open Qualifier for PGL Astana 2026 wrapped up on March 25th, seeing regain and BEBRA1769 top the 31 team qualifier to join six other teams in the Closed Qualifier. Other notable teams that competed in the qualifier include SportsBetExpert, the new Akimbo roster, and the familiar 1WIN mixteam.

Also read: BOSS and Fisher College qualify for PGL Astana Closed Qualifier

Unfortunately, PGL's qualifier was marred by serious cheating accusations leveled against AVANT, one of the teams in the qualifier, with SBE's owner Peter Anadio sharing via a post on X that shows Evan "Evan" Cawthorn allegedly receiving messages on Telegram encouraging him to play with AVANT while offering him radar cheats and up $1,500 per match should the team make the Closed Qualifier.

https://x.com/SBETeam/status/2037011203243803099?s=20

While Evan turned down the offer and the team were reported to PGL's admins, AVANT were allowed to go ahead in the qualifier, making it all the finals before forfeiting the third map in the qualifying series.

With that said, AVANT were on BEBRA1769's side of the bracket and played a noticeable effect in them making it to the Closed Qualifier as SportsBetExpert forfeited their match against AVANT in the semifinals. As previously mentioned, this set up a qualifying match between BEBRA1769 and AVANT where a 1-1 series went the way of BEBRA1769 thanks to Lucas "LUKE4k" Mizumoto suddenly dropping out of the server in the third map, forcing a forfeit loss for AVANT.

While the top half of the bracket was marred by scandal, seeing regain push past Afterimage, 1WIN, and Akimbo to qualify to the Closed Qualifier. The qualification match against Akimbo ended up being a hotly contested affair, requiring three maps and close to every single regulation round played for regain to secure the win.

PGL Astana 2026 North America Open Qualifier 2

Bo3

Akimbo

1 - 2

regain

All maps

Akimbo	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 3.0
Maks 'laxiee' Andryei	65 - 54	+11	104.8	80.0%	1.34
Ochirbileg 'obi' Shinebaatar	45 - 48	-3	69.9	74.3%	1.00
Bishrel 'N2o' Tamir	56 - 51	+5	78.0	68.6%	0.96
Mason 'mason' Watkins	39 - 51	-12	65.3	77.1%	0.91
Bryan 'Marro' Valles Valenzuela	39 - 47	-8	62.2	68.6%	0.84

regain	K - D	+/-	ADR	KAST	Rating 3.0
Kyryl 'fuzenko' Kotov	62 - 49	+13	89.1	77.1%	1.36
Brennan 'grape' Greer	56 - 46	+10	78.4	78.6%	1.28
Eric 'Zucar' Zuccaro	55 - 48	+7	85.7	70.0%	1.22
Andrew 'dvrk' Brunken	41 - 50	-9	63.1	65.7%	0.91
Alexander 'sasha' Burke	36 - 52	-16	64.7	70.0%	0.91