Oh PGL Astana, it really is hard to care about you.

It’s not that there’s no intrigue at all, but your team list is just so uninspiring. It’s not you, it’s us. We just don’t care about BIG, paiN, ODDIK, MIBR, and whatever a “HOTU” is.

Two days down in the Swiss stage, there hasn’t even been any big upsets. G2 lost against ODDIK and MIBR, but they’re playing with both TaZ and Snax. Expecting them to win any games with that is like expecting Astralis to make it to a Major. It’s just not going to happen.

Aurora also lost to BIG, and weren’t exactly confident against HOTU. But they actually missed events for the first time this year, so they’re probably just shaking off some ring-rust.

It’s been nice to see NIP’s return to tier one, though.

They currently sit in the 1-1 bracket after a strong win over VP and an expected loss at the hands of Spirit. sjuush has impressed in both games, but we’d like to see more from arrozdoce and ewjerkz if NIP are actually going to get to where they want to be.

FURIA have also been a pleasant surprise.

They also find themselves in the 1-1 bracket with a loss to The MongolZ and a win against GamerLegion, but so far, we quite like what we see. FalleN already feels like he’s adapted to rifling better than cadiaN did, and molodoy looks like a genuinely good pick-up.

NAVI also look to be in decent form. Not that they should have been tested by M80 or BIG, but given how poor they’ve looked at times this year, nothing would surprise us.

Sadly, Astralis have also looked good thus far in Astana. Who knew HooXi would be a far better fit for this team than cadiaN? We did. Or at least I assume we did, this tl;dr writer wasn’t actually on staff when cadiaN joined, but I have faith in my comrades to have good opinions. Most of the time.

In all seriousness, we’re happy for HooXi. We like HooXi. It’s just a shame that his 2-0 record at this event is coming at the benefit of Astralis.

Elsewhere, The MongolZ have seemingly returned to form in Astana. They’re also 2-0 with wins against FURIA and MIBR. Maybe this will finally be the event they don’t disappoint us in the latter stages.

Ah, who are we kidding? We’ve accepted reality by now.

Group play continues throughout the week, and playoffs start early Friday. See you then, with a preview.