After playing in the grand finals of ESL One Birmingham 2026, Yandex and Tundra were the first teams to get knocked out from PGL Wallachia Season 8.
PGL Wallachia Season 8's exciting Group Stage has already produced unexpected results. 
Team Yandex and 
Tundra Esports, the two strongest teams in the 2025-2026 competitive Dota 2 season and the Top 2 seeds in the tournament, were the first teams to be eliminated after losing in round three of PGL Wallachia Season 8's Swiss-format Group Stage on Tuesday (21 April).
With their losses, Yandex and Tundra have been knocked out of PGL Wallachia Season 8 in 15th-16th place and will take home US$10,000 each in consolation. This disastrous result for the two powerhouse teams is made even more disappointing when considering they were the grand finalists of the last major tournament, ESL One Birmingham 2026 in March, where Tundra defeated Yandex to claim their fourth championship this season.
PGL Wallachia Season 8
Type: LAN
Location: Bucharest, Romania
Venue: PGL Studio
Schedule: 18-26 April, 2026
Participating teams: 16
Prize pool: US$1 million
Organisers: PGL
How did Yandex and Tundra become the first teams to be eliminated from PGL Wallachia Season 8?
It is worth noting that Yandex and Tundra competed in PGL Wallachia Season 8 not at full strength. Yandex played with 
Dmitry “DM” Dorokhin as their stand-in offlaner as Evgeniy “Noticed” Ignatenko had to sit out the tournament due to visa issues. On the other hand, Tundra were without star carry Ivan “Pure” Moskalenko, who is focusing on his visa application process for future tournaments. Tundra tapped 
Alik “V-TUNE” Vorobey to stand-in for Pure due to the latter's absence.
In the opening day of the PGL Wallachia Season 8 Group Stage, both Yandex and Tundra lost their matches in the first two rounds of the Group Stage. Yandex suffered back-to-back sweeps from 
Team Falcons and South America Rejects (formerly
paiN Gaming) while Tundra lost in three games to 
HEROIC and 
Virtus.pro.
As a result, Yandex and Tundra were pit in the 0-2 elimination match in the third round of the Group Stage against 
Natus Vincere (NAVI) and 
MOUZ, who also lost in the first two rounds of the stage.
Yandex had a good start to their elimination match, dominating the first game of the series in 25 minutes. However, a resilient NAVI squad struck back and won back-to-back 44-minute games to secure the 2-1 reverse sweep over Yandex and boot them out of the tournament.
Meanwhile, Tundra were stomped by MOUZ in the opening game of their elimination series, though the former were able to win the second game to force a decider. However, Tundra were thoroughly outdrafted by MOUZ in game three, notably failing to counter the Medusa pick for 
Remco “Crystallis” Arets, and were eliminated after a 40-minute rout.
With their early exit from PGL Wallachia Season 8, Yandex and Tundra will have plenty of time to lick their wounds and prepare for their next tournament. Both squads have already been directly invited to BLAST Slam VII, which will be held from late May to early June. Yandex and Tundra are also expected to receive direct invites to the next Tier 1 tournament after PGL Wallachia Season 8: DreamLeague Season 29, which will run from 13 to 24 May.
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