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Images of BetBoom Team's MieRo and Aurora Gaming's kaori. — BetBoom and Aurora lead the Playoff-qualified teams at PGL Wallachia Season 8 (Images: PGL).

Dota 2

2 hours ago

Kurt "Gosu_Kurt" Lozano

BetBoom Team, Aurora Gaming lead Playoff-qualified teams at PGL Wallachia Season 8

The PGL Wallachia Season 8 Group Stage produced its fair share of surprising results, including powerhouses Tundra and Yandex bombing out.

The Dota 2 action in PGL Wallachia Season 8 is starting to peak as the tournament's Group Stage concluded on Thursday (23 April), with eight out of the 16 teams survived five rounds of the Swiss-format preliminary stage to advance to the Playoffs. Eastern European powerhouses BetBoom Team and Aurora Gaming lead the pack of Playoff-qualified teams after winning all their matches.

PARIVISION, Team Liquid, Team Falcons, South America Rejects (formerly paiN Gaming), HEROIC, and Team Spirit rounded out the list of teams to advance to the main stage of the tournament.

Meanwhile, GamerLegion, Xtreme Gaming, MOUZ, Vici Gaming, Virtus.pro (VP), Natus Vincere (NAVI), Team Yandex, and Tundra Esports all failed to make it out of the Group Stage and thus have been eliminated. Read on as we break down all of the action in the PGL Wallachia Season 8 Group Stage.

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
Organiser: PGL

BetBoom, Aurora lead Playoff-qualified teams at PGL Wallachia Season 8 as Tundra, Yandex bomb out early

Before the action even started in PGL Wallachia Season 8, two teams were considered the biggest favourites to claim the championship: Tundra and Yandex, the 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.

However, both Tundra and Yandex did not play 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. 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.

But even if they were playing with stand-ins, no one expected Yandex and Tundra to end up being the first two teams to be eliminated from the tournament. Yandex lost to Falcons and South America Rejects before getting eliminated by NAVI while Tundra were bested by HEROIC and VP and then got knocked out by MOUZ.

With Tundra and Yandex out of the way, BetBoom and Aurora claimed the mantle of favourites by winning all their Group Stage matches and becoming the first teams to qualify for the Playoffs. BetBoom lost just one game en route to the next stage, sweeping VP and Liquid before taking down Falcons in three games. Aurora, on the other hand, had a more challenging path to the Playoffs as they scored back-to-back-to-back 2-1 wins over South America Rejects, Xtreme, and PARIVISION.

PARIVISION, Liquid, and Falcons were the next three squads to advance to the Playoffs after the fourth round of the Group Stage. PARIVISION swept MOUZ and HEROIC in the first two rounds, lost to Aurora in round three, then defeated South America Rejects in round four. Liquid won their opening match against GamerLegion, lost to BetBoom in round two, then scored back-to-back wins over Vici and HEROIC. Meanwhile, Falcons defeated Yandex and Spirit in the first two rounds, lost to BetBoom in round three, then punched their tickets to the Playoffs with a sweep over GamerLegion.

The fifth and final round of the Group Stage then saw another surprising result, as the two South American teams in the tournament managed to qualify for the Playoffs despite many pegging the two to get eliminated early. South America Rejects defeated MOUZ in three games while HEROIC swept GamerLegion. Finally, Spirit claimed the eighth and final Playoff spot by sweeping Xtreme.

Here are all the results for the PGL Wallachia Season 8 Group Stage:

Round 1

Xtreme Gaming 2-0 Natus Vincere
Team Spirit 2-1 Vici Gaming
Team Liquid 2-1 GamerLegion
Aurora Gaming 2-1 South America Rejects
PARIVISION 2-0 MOUZ
BetBoom Team 2-0 Virtus.pro
Team Falcons 2-0 Team Yandex
HEROIC 2-1 Tundra Esports

Round 2

1-0 matches:

Aurora Gaming 2-1 Xtreme Gaming
BetBoom Team 2-0 Team Liquid
Team Falcons 2-1 Team Spirit
PARIVISION 2-0 HEROIC

0-1 matches:

Vici Gaming 2-1 Natus Vincere
GamerLegion 2-0 MOUZ
South America Rejects 2-0 Team Yandex
Virtus.pro 2-1 Tundra Esports

Round 3

2-0 matches:

BetBoom Team 2-1 Team Falcons
Aurora Gaming 2-1 PARIVISION

1-1 matches:

GamerLegion 2-0 Team Spirit
Team Liquid 2-1 Vici Gaming
HEROIC 2-0 Virtus.pro
South America Rejects 2-1 Xtreme Gaming

0-2 matches:

Natus Vincere 2-1 Team Yandex
MOUZ 2-1 Tundra Esports

Round 4

2-1 matches:

Team Liquid 2-0 HEROIC
Team Falcons 2-0 GamerLegion
PARIVISION 2-1 South America Rejects

1-2 matches:

Team Spirit 2-1 Natus Vincere
Xtreme Gaming 2-0 Vici Gaming
MOUZ 2-1 Virtus.pro

Round 5

2-2 matches:

HEROIC 2-0 GamerLegion
South America Rejects 2-1 MOUZ
Team Spirit 2-0 Xtreme Gaming

The PGL Wallachia Season 8 Playoff picture

The PGL Wallachia Season 8 Playoffs will see the eight qualified teams compete in a double-elimination bracket where they will all start in the upper bracket quarterfinals. All matches in the Playoffs will be a best-of-three except for the grand finals, which will be a full best-of-five series. Here are the matchups for the upper bracket quarterfinals: