PGL Wallachia S7 Playoffs Day 2: VG and Aurora drop out

The conclusion to PGL Wallachia Season 7 is fast approaching, with two more teams now eliminated from contention as a result of the lower bracket matches on the second day of the playoffs.

After a day of compelling matches in which we were treated to three separate three-game sets, Vici Gaming and Aurora Gaming will have to pack their bags as they could not put it together against their opponents today.

The heroes march on

Is it really a series involving HEROIC if there aren’t any clowny throws in between? They ended up disposing of Vici Gaming in the end after three games, but the second game was as head-scratching as they come — even for this team.

I’ve never seen a team seemingly just decide on the fly that they didn’t want to win a game despite being up around 17,000 gold 36 minutes in. Adrián “Wisper” Dobles’ boneheaded decision to just blink in for no reason as Beastmaster while his team was pushing VG’s mid high ground was one of the biggest throws in this tournament, and it was even more puzzling when the rest of his team followed suit.

They all proceeded to just chain feed thereafter like they were playing a pub game. You know how toxic pub players feed intentionally if they feel like you “don’t deserve” to win the game because of their perception of how you should play? It kind of looked like that when HEROIC gifted this one to VG.

Now, to be fair to VG, Zhang “Bach” Ruida played out of his mind in this game, showing once again that he is one of the best Mars players this season. While it’s true that HEROIC put their clown shoes in the final 10 minutes or so, Bach and the rest of VG still had to be there to pick up the pieces and capitalize on their mistakes.

🛡️HEROIC take the series 2-1 against Vici Gaming after a hard-fought battle!@heroicdota2 stay alive in the Lower Bracket, while @VICI are eliminated from PGL Wallachia Season 7 🐺🇷🇴#PGLWallachia pic.twitter.com/IjQTQhoSeK

— PGL DOTA 2 (@pgldota2) March 13, 2026

Sadly for the Chinese squad though, HEROIC still ended up being the better team in this series. The shellacking that they put onto VG in the first game came in handy as a safety net against their tendency to lose games that they really shouldn’t. They repeated this in the third and final game, with Wisper making up big time as Timbersaw for his blunder in the second game.

The prospect of a Tundra Esports versus HEROIC elimination match is now a real possibility. Knowing that David “Parker” Nicho Flores is currently standing in for Tundra, there will a bit of a grudge factor in play given that HEROIC benched him in the months after their shocking win at PGL Wallachia Season 2. The potential storyline is tantalizing, so I’m hoping that these two teams survive long enough to face each other in the lower bracket.

Tundra picking up steam

Speaking of Tundra, though, staving off elimination against Aurora Gaming certainly didn’t come easy for them. Rafli “Mikoto” Fathur Rahman made sure of that by popping off in game 1 as Void Spirit, taking full advantage of the fact that Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov was playing Invoker in order to win the lane hard. Invoker is one of the worst laners from the position right now, so this was pretty much to be expected — but Mikoto still had to do something with the advantage that he built in the laning phase.

That is of course exactly what he did, notching 12 kills thanks to a fast 13 minute Spirit Vessel timing followed by a 24 minute Aghanim’s Scepter. The game was pretty much well in hand at this point, since Tundra’s draft was extremely vulnerable to the silence effect from the upgraded Resonant Pulse (E). It didn’t help that Tundra were very disorganized to begin with, something that Mikoto was more than happy to exploit.

Sadly for Aurora, that’s where the good news ended. Game 2 saw them be on the receiving end of a Parker Morphling game where he notched 10 kills while dying only the once.

This was a free Morphling game based on Aurora’s picks in the draft, with tons of juicy heroes to Morph (R) into. The mid Batrider from bzm also made sure that Mikoto (playing Ember Spirit) did not have a fun time, something that unfortunately became a theme from the second game onwards.

On that note, Mikoto was supposed to be the answer to bzm taking the Ember Spirit for himself in game 3. He won the lane as is expected of Monkey King against melee heroes, but was rather slow at grabbing Diffusal Blade against Tundra’s Medusa-based draft. Instead of the ideal 8-9 minute timing, it got delayed to 13 minutes — something that wasn’t helped by the fact that he bought two Wraith Bands in an era where getting double stat trinkets isn’t really a thing anymore.

As a result, Aurora missed their window entirely. V-Tune playing carry Abaddon always meant that he and his team were on a timer this game, and they just couldn’t end the game quickly enough to prevent Parker from getting too big for them to handle. Worse still, Matthew “Ari” Walker was playing Keeper of the Light, one of the best supports ever to pair with Medusa because of the synergy between Mana Shield and Chakra Magic (E).

Oh well, this was still a pretty good result for them considering their stand-in situation. At least they made the playoffs even without Egor “Nightfall” Grigorenko in the building.

Dragonslayers

BetBoom Team are really hitting their stride in Bucharest now. Knocking out the undefeated Team Spirit was always going to be a difficult task for this squad, but they went into this challenge with no fear and a good amount of confidence that they could indeed pull it off.

The first game was supposed to be a draft win for Spirit, as they got their hands on Nyx Assassin for Aleksandr “rue” Filin against Ilya “Kiritych” Ulyanov’s Medusa. After all, removing as much as 25 percent of Medusa’s maximum mana with every Mind Flare (W) has to be a hard counter, right? Unfortunately, it ended up not mattering much. Danil “gpk” Skutin going ham as Storm Spirit (another hero somewhat countered by Nyx!) meant that rue could never really get going.

He tried to catch up with a Hand of Midas, but it was far too late at that point. And with Magomed “Collapse” Khalilov playing Slardar and Illya “Yatoro” Mulyarchuk playing Templar Assassin, it was a simple matter for Kiritych to bring it home. Armor reduction does absolutely nothing to help against Medusa, so Spirit really didn’t have the tools to deal with Kiritych in the late game.

Despite the stomp in the first game, though, Spirit struck back nicely in the second game, thanks in no small part to Denis “Larl” Sigitov’s Invoker and Yatoro’s Beastmaster. This Beastmater hero is still insanely powerful despite the nerfs to his Aghanim’s Scepter, because the tempo at which he can play is often too much for even pro teams to handle.

Yatoro’s 13 minute Scepter timing, combined with Larl’s 11 minute Meteor Hammer, allowed Spirit to lock the map down early. With not much space to work with, BetBoom just lost control of the mid game, and things just spiraled endlessly from there. It took Spirit just 32 minutes to seal the deal on this one, thus tying the series at one apiece.

I know a clown when I see one 🤡 pic.twitter.com/Yl9JRMk42n

— BetBoom Team (@BetBoomTeam) March 13, 2026

This was when Matvey “MieRo`” Vasyunin really powered up and locked in. Faced with the possibility of having their hard work advancing in the upper bracket undone, he made the difference in the third game as Mars. Paired with gpk’s Void Spirit, he set the pace in the deciding map, facilitating BetBoom’s plan to always show up in force with numbers wherever Spirit went.

It was just in time as well, because Yatoro’s Morphling got completely shut down as soon as they made moves everywhere. With too many deaths to contend with, Yatoro was held to less than 600 gold per minute in this game, which was never going to cut it against Kiritych’s Faceless Void. Faceless Void is one of the best hypercarries in the game, and there’s really not much that an underfarmed Morphling can do against Chronosphere (R).

A huge setback for Spirit, and now they’ll have to fight for survival in the lower bracket against a tough opponent in Tundra Esports. BetBoom, meanwhile, are rapidly gathering strength in this tournament, and they could very well go all the way at this rate.

Elementary, dear watson

Team Liquid got absolutely rolled by Team Yandex today, with the loss mostly being on the shoulders of Marcus “Ace” Christensen. In the first game, his Mars looked completely impotent compared to some of the better Mars players in PGL Wallachia Season 7, with Ace always being late to engagements or just missing entirely. His lack of impact was felt by the entire squad, when Mars is supposed to be one of the best offlane heroes at initiating/counter-initiating in teamfights.

Instead, he mostly wandered around aimlessly in the 35 minute contest. Yandex were more than happy to take advantage of his poor play, especially Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov who played an excellent Invoker game. Not to worry, right? Liquid’s experience and talent should allow them to turn this series around in game 2, right?

Wrong. Ace kind of got in his own head again in game 2, this time as Tidehunter. Where his performance in game 1 saw him produce pretty much no useful Arena of Blood (R) in 35 minutes, the same could be said about Ravage (R) in the second game. And not only that, he was also in no man’s land a few times this game, getting caught out alone for seemingly no reason and feeding away deaths to Yandex.

That death of his close to the bottom Roshan pit was really silly, and the rest of his teammates knew it when they left him for dead after he got isolated. Meanwhile, CHIRA_JUNIOR was playing the Puck game of his life, preventing Liquid from ever getting comfortable in teamfights. Actually, Yandex’s teamfight execution as a whole this entire series was top notch, and it’s what allowed them to take it to Liquid in just two games.

Liquid will now have to face up against HEROIC in the lower bracket. This is a match that they should win on paper, but the momentum is on HEROIC’s side. Meanwhile, Liquid will have to find a way to forget about their abysmal performance against Yandex today, if they are to win tomorrow and not lose to themselves first.