OG announce withdrawal from PGL Wallachia Season 8, citing visa renewal

All-Filipino Dota 2 squad OG will not be at PGL Wallachia Season 8, as announced by the organization earlier today on their official social media channels.

The BLAST Slam 6 Malta podium finishers will be pulling out of the tournament scheduled for April 16th to the 26th, citing the wait for confirmation of the renewal of their European visas.

Yet another setback

This is unfortunate news for OG and their fans from the Philippines and the rest of Southeast Asia. They already failed to impress at ESL One Birmingham 2026 by the admission of their coach Adam “343” Shah, but now they have to deal with visa issues as well. While it’s true that they haven’t really looked good overall compared to the top teams for about a month and a half at this point, it would be kind of hasty to say that they’ve already hit their ceiling as a unit.

OG sadly has to announce our withdrawal from PGL Wallachia S8, as we await confirmation of the renewal of our European visas for the second half of the competitive season.

We wish the attending teams all the best of luck at the event and extend our thanks to PGL for the… pic.twitter.com/oMC6sHxmsi

— OG (@OGesports) April 4, 2026

There’s still room for them to figure things out versus the usual Eastern and Western European teams, but it’s safe to say that skipping out on PGL Wallachia Season 8 is not going to help them in this regard. They need all the practice they can get against stronger and more consistent clubs — but this is just the life of a Southeast Asian roster.

Visa problems will always plague players from the region, with the probable exception of Singaporean players given the privileges that normally come with their passports. OG will certainly not be the last SEA squad to grapple with these issues, but this case is probably the one with the worst timing in recent memory.

On the bright side, this gives OG the break that they were hoping for. 343 mentioned in our interview with him that his players have felt burnt out lately, and that they needed a break as a result. He mentioned that the tiredness might have affected their performance at Birmingham, though noted that he was not trying to make any excuses in that regard.

OG are out, but who will come in?

So, this begs the question: who will replace OG at PGL Wallachia Season 8? All of the participating teams will come in through invitation only, so there’s no obvious answer as far as any would-be qualifier runners-up are concerned.

We’ve been invited to PGL Wallachia S8 🔥

📅 April 18–26
🇷🇴 Bucharest
💰 $1,000,000 prize pool

Let’s get to work 🐻‍❄️ #Dota2 #GOGOVP @pglesports pic.twitter.com/vzHoevhSBm

— Virtus.pro Dota 2 (@virtuspro_dota2) April 4, 2026

Thankfully, Virtus.pro have already done the work for me. At around the same time that OG announced their withdrawal from the tournament, VP likewise broke the news that they had indeed been invited. Not a huge surprise here; this roster in particular has hung around the midfield in most tier 1 Dota tournaments this season, most recently finishing joint 9th-10th at ESL One Birmingham 2026.

Fans of the former Shopify Rebellion roster will therefore find reason to watch PGL Wallachia Season 8, as VP’s current lineup is comprised entirely of previous SR members — including coach Kanishka “BuLba” Sosale. And while it’s unlikely that they’ll make that big of a splash in Bucharest once the tournament begins, there aren’t really any other teams, whether from the same region as OG or not, that would have made worthy replacements anyway right now.