It seems history may be repeating itself for Team Liquid at PGL Wallachia Season 5. After playing through the first stages of the tournament with stand-in Tobias “Tobi” Buchner, the reigning PGL Wallachia champions are now heading into finals day with another. According to a tweet posted to their official X account, Aydin “Insania” Sarkohi’s condition has now worsened, forcing him to sit out of grand finals day.
While the stakes might not be as high as they were back in in 2023 at the Lima Major, where Boxi was forced to leave the tournament early for health reasons, it’s unfortunate for Liquid that they’ll now be heading into another lower bracket finals without a key part of their roster.
I don’t want to call it ironic since perhaps that trivialises the situation, but by astonishing coincidence, Gaimin Gladiators themselves are once again waiting in the grand finals to see if Liquid can pull the ultimate Uno reverse. If Liquid can pull this off, it may be the redemption they need after their crushing run of losses against GG that began in Lima.
Ari stands in for Insania
Luckily for Team Liquid, Matthew “Ari” Walker, who is currently on loan from OG Esports to NAVI, has stepped up to the plate. Playing with a stand in is not exactly an unfamiliar situation in Dota but it’s by no means what Liquid need right now. Finding synergy and understanding a team’s strategies takes time, time that there’s no way Ari had having only been eliminated from PGL Wallachia Season 5 himself yesterday.
It’s also worth remembering that while he is a support player, Ari usually sits in position 4 in the offlane, while Insania is a classic position 5. It’s not the end of the world, especially since it seems Samuel “Boxi” Svahn has stepped into the 5 position himself for this initial series, but it’s not ideal.
Liquid face off with BetBoom Team
At the time of writing, Liquid are currently fighting their way through map one against BetBoom Team, the very team that knocked them down to the lower bracket of PGL Wallachia Season 5. Somewhat surprisingly, BetBoom have let Batrider through the draft and Ari is making his presence known after a solid laning stage paired up with Jonáš “Saberlight” Volek’s Axe. This is by no means a stomp and if anything, is falling in Liquid’s favour.
Update after map 1: I can only assume that I personally cursed Liquid by publishing the above paragraph before the map finished. Sorry, Liquid.
