PGL Wallachia Recap

The second season of Wallachia was a blast through and through. Despite technically being on a patch similar to TI, the diversity of strategies and hero picks was considerably higher. Today we would like to have a quick recap of the historical tournament and highlight some of the most exciting facts.

South America is undeniably a Tier 1 region

Perhaps the most exciting part of the tournament — the first ever LAN victory for South America. The region has been steadily getting more and more competitive in Dota and it culminated in one of the most satisfying performances this year.

Naturally, we cannot disregard the absence of some notable teams: the big four of Team Liquid, Team Spirit, Gaimin Gladiators and Xtreme Gaming didn’t participate in the tournament. However, given considerable reshuffles in the scene and the fact the Heroic had to beat Team Falcons in a best-of-five, it shouldn’t take away from their victory.

On top of it, three SA teams made it into top8 of the tournament with Beastcoast getting incredibly close to making it into top4 as well.

Hopefully the region will keep its momentum going forward, as their brand of Dota is a lot of fun to watch. Perhaps because they have a slightly different approach to the game as a whole.

The return of hard carry

ɹǝʞɹɐd⚔️ is a tournament MVP for a reason and even if Heroic faltered in the grand finals, he would still be deserving of the title. Reminiscent of K1 back in the day, this SA player potentially redefined the carry’s place in the meta, being the deciding factor in almost every game.

This is in stark contrast to what was the de-facto approach for top teams for a really long while. With supports getting a lot of late-game tools and better scaling and Offlaners sometimes being re-imagined into an additional carry role, carries felt slightly less significant than in the early days of Dota.

After Parker’s performance it is safe to say that hard-carrying the game is still possible, as long as you are good enough. And even though it is perhaps too early to place him in the same category as Ame and Yatoro, we are still incredibly hyped for the upcoming tournaments featuring him and Heroic in general.

Meta changes

Wallachia also delivered in terms of overall meta. The game’s state is still far from perfect professional meta-wise and we’ve had much more diverse patches before, but it seems we are moving in the right direction.

Twenty heroes went ignored throughout the tournament, which is still unideal. However, only one hero had a 90%+ contest rate and only three were picked or banned in 80%+ of the games. Overall, we feel like team preferences and ideas played a much bigger part in what felt viable in the tournament, which felt refreshing in comparison to the “pick the best meta heroes” approach of the last couple of years.

On top of that, we finally had multiple non-aura Offlaners making a return. Or rather, we finally had players play to their heroes’ strengths, rather than trying to make heroes like Timbersaw an aura carrier. Because of it, the games felt a little bit more dynamic, despite taking longer on average.

The pickoffs felt like they mattered, and smart strategic gambits also happened a lot more frequently in a tournament not defined by balling up into an unstoppable force with multiple auras as soon as possible.

Don’t get us wrong: the game is still incredibly tankiness reliant, however the latest patch definitely made it feel a little bit more open-ended. Though, truth be told, we are hoping for even more changes to the meta.

Closing thoughts

PGL Wallachia Season 2 was an awesome start to the new competitive season. We’ve got to see new faces rise to the top and are incredibly excited about what’s next. Hopefully on a new, economy-redefining patch.

What do you think of this tournament? Do you share our sentiment that it was one of the most entertaining tournaments to watch or was the absence of the competitors a deal-breaker? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.