Nigma, AVULUS, Edge and more bounced out of PGL Wallachia Season 5

The fourth day of the Swiss group stage at PGL Wallachia Season 5 is now done, with only one day remaining to break any ties still left over.

Although the field has shaped out more or less as I expected in my Wallachia power rankings, there are a few outcomes here that are genuinely surprising at best, and downright shocking at worst.

Edged Out

While not necessarily the most astonishing result coming out of the group stage, South American team Edge is now out of the tournament, after winning only one of their four matches in the first four days. Hardly anyone expected them to do well at PGL Wallachia Season 5, including myself — but after the organization announced that Team Secret’s Clement “Puppey” Ivanov would be standing in for them, I’m sure plenty of Secret fans wanted Edge to at least get to the playoffs.

🇵🇪: Tercer día en Rumanía finalizado, y mañana toca el derby sudamericano por la vida en el torneo vs @heroicdota2
Llegó el momento del todo o nada.
🇺🇸:Third day in Romania over, and tomorrow we have the South American derby for survival in the tournament against @heroicdota2 pic.twitter.com/23bz5tvXJ9

— EDGE (@EdgexEsports) June 23, 2025

Alas, their 1-3 record four days in is now mathematically insufficient to get them through to the bracket. They actually turned a few heads beating BetBoom Team two games to one on the first day of play, but couldn’t follow through as they lost every match in the next three days. To add insult to injury, the loss that ended up eliminating them came at the hands of HEROIC, their South American compatriots.

Sadly for Puppey, not even becoming a substitute for a squad that got invited directly to a major LAN this season was enough to end his suffering — or at least dull the pain temporarily. He’s had to deal with the misery of not qualifying for either TI14 or the Esports World Cup this year, and there’s the fact that Team Secret’s Dota 2 division is just a complete revolving door right now.

I don’t think this will be the last we’ll see of him in a competitive setting, but it’s looking worse and worse in that regard as the days go by. If you asked me, the next season could very well be his final chance at putting an actual respectable roster together.

AVU-Lost

It’s probably safe to say that any team that doesn’t make it to either TI14 or the Esports World Cup will probably disband before the season is over. AVULUS is likely going to be one of those teams, because it’s been rocky for them over the last several months. I once considered them a pretty good midfield squad, one that could potentially upset the pecking order at the top level every now and again. But looking at their results over the last few tournaments, I’m afraid that they might just go their separate ways soon.

Rough end to the season, but I'm very happy with this season overall. Until TI and EWC quals, we qualified and played in pretty much every tier 1 event that had a qualifier. I played more games vs tier1 teams this year than in my last 5 years combined.

— Andreas Xibbe (@Xibbe) June 23, 2025

That’s what happens when you go 0-3 to start the tournament. Though to be fair to them, they didn’t exactly get the best draws out of the first day’s results. They had to face Tundra Esports immediately after falling to Gaimin Gladiators, and then they lost to HEROIC in just two games. It’s a harsh reality, but in the end, this team just doesn’t have the talent level to be anything other than perennial top 8 to top 12 finishers.

Here We Go Again

Nigma Galaxy fans, are you all okay? After the fan favorite squad qualified for TI14 through the Western European regional qualifiers, I wouldn’t be shaken at all if I heard that even non-fans were starting to regain their faith in this squad. After all, it’s been more than five years now since this team (in its current incarnation and previous one as Team Liquid) had even been to The International.

Saving strats for TI… pic.twitter.com/t0aoDvlTFX

— Nigma Galaxy (@NigmaGalaxy) June 24, 2025

Unfortunately for everyone, fans or otherwise, they’ve gone back to their old ways. Only Nigma Galaxy is capable of throwing away a 30,000 gold lead and a seemingly unbreakable position against an Alchemist-based draft — and that’s exactly what they did in the first game of their series against Xtreme Gaming earlier today.

I’m no professional player, but I just cannot fathom what was going through the minds of Daniel “Ghost” Chan, Tony “No!ob” Assaf, and Maroun “GH” Merhej when they got themselves caught with their hands in the cookie jar in game 1. By that I mean they got punished for hanging around one of XG’s tier 3 towers for too long, seemingly overconfident in the fact that they were ahead of a draft that relied on Alchemist.

That fiasco just broke them, and allowed XG to get back in the game. Nigma’s decision making really needs to improve a whole lot if they want to do well at TI14, but at least now that they’re out of PGL Wallachia Season 5, they’ve got plenty of time to figure things out.

Last Chance for Six

Like I mentioned, there’s still another day of play left in the tournament, to resolve the six-way tie between clubs like Team Tidebound, Wildcard, and HEROIC. Sitting across from the aforementioned teams in the tiebreakers are Tundra Esports, BetBoom Team, and Xtreme Gaming. Yes, two of those names probably shouldn’t be there right now.

Tundra has been one of the strongest squads throughout the entire season, so to see them be as inconsistent as they’ve been this tournament is just hard to believe. Same goes for BetBoom. I don’t care how often they throw away games that they should be winning — this roster is too good and has been too successful this year to get eliminated this early.

The tiebreakers tomorrow are going to be very, very tense as a result. That Tidebound-BetBoom match in particular has plenty at stake, and the fixture you shouldn’t miss if you can only watch one series on the final day.