All 14 direct invites match Valve’s November standings, but the closed qualifier has Fnatic in the sixth invited place and no Ninjas in Pyjamas.
PGL announced the teams for PGL Cluj-Napoca 2027 on Tuesday 10 November, with 14 invited sides and two places left for a closed qualifier that starts on Sunday 15 November. The 14 are the top 14 of Valve’s 2 November global VRS in the same order, exactly as we projected last Tuesday, so PGL did not have to go further down the list for the main event.
| Global VRS | Team | Points |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |  MOUZ | 1,960 |
| 2 |  Vitality | 1,922 |
| 3 |  FURIA | 1,912 |
| 4 |  Aurora | 1,860 |
| 5 |  Spirit | 1,842 |
| 6 |  BetBoom | 1,786 |
| 7 |  Falcons | 1,764 |
| 8 |  FUT | 1,721 |
| 9 |  Legacy | 1,662 |
| 10 |  Nemiga | 1,650 |
| 11 |  G2 | 1,616 |
| 12 |  1win | 1,598 |
| 13 |  NAVI | 1,589 |
| 14 |  Astralis | 1,572 |
Astralis keep the last invite, eight points ahead of Ninjas in Pyjamas. MOUZ, Vitality, FURIA, Aurora and Spirit are the five highest-ranked teams on the list, which puts each of them in line for the $60,000 bonus PGL pays to the top five that accept. 1win appear under their usual name, although they will play the Singapore Major as THE ONE.
One change in the closed qualifier
The qualifier is where the announcement differs from our projection. PGL invite six teams from Valve’s European standings, and five of the six we listed are there. NIP, 13th in Europe on 1,564 points and the first team outside the main event, are not. The sixth invite goes to Fnatic, who are 20th in Europe.
| Europe VRS | Team | Points | In our projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 |  PARIVISION | 1,560 | Yes |
| 15 |  HEROIC | 1,548 | Yes |
| 16 |  FaZe | 1,539 | Yes |
| 17 |  Eternal Fire | 1,513 | Yes |
| 18 |  100 Thieves | 1,511 | Yes |
| 20 |  Fnatic | 1,488 | No |
Fnatic share their 1,488 points with HOTU, who sit one place higher in Valve’s European table and are also missing from PGL’s list. PGL has not given a reason for either absence. Its rulebook says invites are issued in VRS order, that an invite not accepted by the deadline counts as declined, and that when a roster cannot accept or declines, PGL “proceeds down the same VRS list in order until all announced places are filled”.
Two more teams join the six from the open qualifiers, which run from Tuesday 10 to Friday 13 November. The closed qualifier is then played online from Sunday 15 to Wednesday 18 November as a double-elimination bracket of Bo3 series with no grand final, and the top two go to Romania. For PARIVISION, HEROIC, FaZe, Eternal Fire and 100 Thieves it ends six days before the PGL Major Singapore starts on Tuesday 24 November. Fnatic missed the Major.
What the three-player rule asks of the invited teams
An invite belongs to the roster, not the organisation. Under PGL’s rulebook a roster may accept only if “at least three of its Players were on the invited Roster on the Invite Date and will play in each Match of the Tournament”. The reference is the five players on the team’s VRS roster on the invite date, and a team that fields fewer than three of them forfeits the match.
That matters over a winter transfer window. Each of the 14 invited teams, and the six in the qualifier, can replace up to two of those five players and still meet the condition. With a third change the roster no longer does, and PGL’s replacement rule sends the place down the VRS list. Pulling out later is expensive: outside a medical emergency or a visa refusal, an organisation that withdraws from the main event pays a fixed $30,000 fine and covers the costs of the team that replaces it, and the roster is barred from a direct invite to the next PGL event.
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2027 has 16 teams, $1,000,000 in prize money and another $300,000 in VRS invite bonuses, with $280,000 in total for the winner. The group stage is a Swiss stage of Bo3 series, and the top eight play a single-elimination bracket that ends with a Bo5 grand final. PGL lists the BT Arena dates as Friday 19 to Sunday 21 February 2027.
