Five teams set to attend IEM Dallas and PGL Astana, potentially creating scheduling chaos

As first pointed out by Endpoint Community Manager Tom "tomtom94" Coles, G2, Eternal Fire, The MongolZ, FURIA, and GamerLegion have all accepted invitations to PGL Astana 2025 and IEM Dallas 2025, looking to make the most out of the packed 2025 calendar. However, their decision to try and attend two S-tier events in mid-May may cause chaos for ESL and PGL as the American LAN is set to start around 24 hours after the conclusion of PGL Astana.

As such, any teams that make a deep run in Astana may find it incredibly difficult, if not outright impossible, to make it to Dallas in time for their opening match at the Intel Grand Slam Season 5 tournament. It is currently unknown how teams intend to resolve this scheduling fiasco, with it being possible teams end up pulling out of one of the two tournaments, forfeiting their opening match in Dallas, or somewhat comically, hoping they aren't too successful in Astana, giving the team time to travel to Dallas.

The decision to accept invitations to two events so close together is questionable as it gives players no recovery time between events and will be logistically impossible for some teams, however it is important to consider why the five teams decided to attempt this "Cannonball Run" of an event schedule.

For starters, Astana and Dallas will be two of the first big events alongside the Blast.tv Austin Major that will provide VRS points for the second Major of 2025. Additionally, PGL Astana's massive $625,000 prizepool and IEM Dallas' contribution to the Intel Grand Slam make both events incredibly lucrative for players.

Finally, as previously reported teams involved in ESL FACEIT Group's revenue-share agreement cannot decline three invites to ESL events within a two-year period, and two events in a single year, making it difficult for teams to turn down invites to EFG events.

With all of these factors combined, it's easy to see why teams accepted both events, but whether or not this pays off for them or turns into complete chaos remains to be seen.