How the teams started the new season: Results of PGL Wallachia Season 9

PGL Wallachia Season 9 has come to an end, with Team Yandex. claiming the championship. In this article, CyberScore has prepared an analysis of the teams’ performance at the tournament and a comparison with expectations and predictions for the championship.

Team Yandex’s success was fairly predictable. The team had a strong showing last season, and ahead of PGL Wallachia, they bolstered their roster with Ammar ATF al-Assaf. It didn’t take the team long to build chemistry — the squad went undefeated in series throughout the championship. Additionally, ATF, as well as Alimzhan Watson Islambekov and Ilya CHIRA_JUNIOR Chirtsov topped the tournament’s KDA ratio leaderboard.

Natus Vincere’s runner-up finish also came as no surprise, given the team’s two months of successful performances. Ahead of the LAN championship in Bucharest, the roster won two tournaments in the EPL Masters series and went undefeated in the closed qualifiers for BLAST Slam VIII and BLAST Slam IX. At PGL Wallachia, the roster’s carry, Taras gotthejuice Linnikov, stood out statistically: he led the tournament in gold and last hits per minute, and was also among the best in fewest deaths, KDA ratio, structure damage per minute, and hero pool.

Among others, the multinational roster of LGD Gaming made a successful debut at the competition, despite questions about their team chemistry prior to the tournament’s start. The experience of Jingjun Sneyking Wu and Sumail SumaiL Hassan helped the team reach the top 3. And the team’s carry, Maximo Wits Orozco, ranked among the top five in a number of metrics.

The Chinese region’s nominally best team — Xtreme Gaming — finished PGL Wallachia in fourth place, marking the team’s best result in the past six months. Last season, the Chinese roster’s main problem was inconsistency. But their start to the new season was quite solid: the roster went undefeated in the group stage and, in the playoffs, lost only to teams from the tournament’s top three. It’s worth noting that Wang Ame Chunyu remains one of the statistically best carries.

Aurora Gaming, for whom NAVI proved to be kryptonite at the tournament, also put up a solid performance, finishing in the top 6 despite fielding a substitute in the mid lane. The team was expected to struggle with the stand-in, but Igor Stojkov, who played in the mid lane, turned out to be the breakout star of the tournament. The esports player, with almost no experience competing at the Tier 1 level, posted some of the best stats across several metrics at the end of the group stage.

1WIN Team, which was considered a tournament favorite alongside Team Yandex, posted a result significantly below expectations at PGL Wallachia. The forced substitution of Ivan Pure Moskalenko with the less experienced Indji shad Lub was not as successful as that of Aurora Gaming. The roster barely made it through the group stage and failed to win a single series in the playoffs.

The underdogs at PGL Wallachia failed to pull off an upset at the championship: most of them were eliminated in the group stage. Among them, the star-studded roster of Conventus Stellarum also failed to live up to expectations. The exceptions were Team Nemesis and GamerLegion, who managed to advance to the playoffs. Special mention should also go to support player PlayTime Matheus KJ Santos Jungles Diniz, who, just like last season, remain among the leaders in ward placement and destruction. He also ranked among the top players in courier kills.

The next challenge for the Tier 1 teams that competed in PGL Wallachia Season 9 will be BLAST SLAM VIII, featuring an even stronger field of participants: the tournament will mark the debut of the revamped rosters of BetBoom Team and Team Spirit. In addition, the winners of Esports World Cup 2026 and the runners-up of The International 2026 — PARIVISION — will compete for the trophy. You can check out the group stage draw and predictions for the first stage of the tournament in this coverage.

Earlier, CyberScore presented an analysis of changes to the meta at PGL Wallachia Season 9.