PGL Wallachia Season 9 Recap: What the Dota 2 Live Scoreboard Did to Our Pick'ems

Before the playoffs, we published a full Pick'ems guide for PGL Wallachia Season 9. We called Team Yandex to win the upper bracket and Xtreme Gaming to take the title from below. One of those calls survived contact with the bracket.

Team Yandex won the event with a 3-0 sweep of Natus Vincere, claiming $300,000 and their second Wallachia title after Season 7 in March. They dropped only two games across the entire tournament. Xtreme Gaming finished fourth.

That gap between prediction and result is the most useful thing a Pick'ems player can study. If you played along with our GoCore bracket, here is exactly where the points went.

The Calls That Landed on the Dota 2 Live Scoreboard

Our single cleanest hit was Team Yandex over Aurora Gaming in the Upper Bracket Semifinals. We flagged the ATF versus Skiter storyline and picked Yandex on roster stability. Aurora took a game, then folded. That game one loss to Aurora would be the last time that Yandex dropped a game in this tournament.

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We also had Yandex winning the Upper Bracket Final and reaching the Grand Final as the first team through. Both happened. The dota 2 live scoreboard just showed a different opponent than we expected, because LGD Gaming arrived there instead of Xtreme Gaming.

NAVI Rewrote the Lower Bracket

Our biggest miss came first. We picked Team Nemesis to beat NAVI in Lower Bracket Round 1, backing the underdog story that carried Nemesis through the Swiss stage. NAVI won 2-1, then kept going.

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They swept Aurora Gaming 2-0. They swept Xtreme Gaming 2-0. They beat LGD Gaming 2-1 in the Lower Bracket Final to reach the Grand Final. Four straight elimination series against every team we had ranked above them.

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We also picked 1w Team over GamerLegion in the other Round 1 series. GamerLegion won 2-1, and 1w Team went out in a shared 7th-8th place with Nemesis.

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Xtreme Gaming Never Reached the Final

Our champion pick collapsed in the Upper Bracket Semifinals. LGD Gaming beat Xtreme Gaming 2-0, the same LGD side that had looked uncoordinated while beating NAVI a round earlier. We read that messiness as a weakness. It turned out to be a team still finding its shape, and they finished third for $120,000.

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Xtreme dropped to the lower bracket, beat GamerLegion 2-0, then lost 2-0 to NAVI. Fourth place and $80,000 for a team that entered the playoffs 3-0 in the Swiss stage.

What This Means for Upcoming Dota 2 Tournaments

Three lessons carry forward. First, Swiss stage dominance is thin evidence in a post-roster-shuffle event. Xtreme went 3-0 and finished fourth. Second, a settled lineup beats raw talent early in a season, which is exactly why Yandex cruised. Third, never write off a team that loses a close upper bracket series. NAVI went 1-2 to LGD and still reached the Grand Final.

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Odds on dota 2 betting sites will reset before BLAST Slam 8, where most of this field travels next, and the absent top teams return. GoCore Pick'ems resets too. Every correct pick is worth a point and every wrong one costs you, so the bracket reading matters more than the favorites list.

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Our record here was one clean series hit and a correct Grand Final qualifier. Post your own Wallachia score in the GoCore community and tell us which pick you got that we did not.

TL;DR

• Team Yandex won PGL Wallachia Season 9, sweeping NAVI 3-0 for $300,000
• Yandex dropped only two games across the whole tournament
• NAVI ran the lower bracket from Round 1 to the Grand Final, beating Nemesis, Aurora, Xtreme, and LGD
• Our correct calls: Yandex over Aurora, Yandex winning the upper bracket
• Our misses: Nemesis over NAVI, 1w Team over GamerLegion, Xtreme over LGD, Xtreme as champion
• Final placements: Yandex, NAVI, LGD Gaming, Xtreme Gaming