PGL Wallachia Season 1 Champions: Team Spirit Is Back!
After securing their second TI victory, Team Spirit had gone missing throughout 2024, failing to make deep runs in Tier 1 events. Even though there aren’t millions of dollars to chase, Yatoro and the boys woke up and became the PGL Wallachia Season 1 champions after a victory against Xtreme Gaming in the Grand Final.
The two teams could not be separated, as all five games in the Best of 5 series were required.
In the first map, the Chinese outclassed Team Spirit on all fronts. Even though the laning stage came out even, XinQ’s position four Riki began finding pickoffs, allowing Xtreme Gaming to win the map after a 29-9 kill score.
Mind games were brought into the second map, as XinQ was forced to play Naga Siren to adjust to the team’s draft. Frankly, the support player could not find much impact in the game. Team Spirit took full advantage of their draft and ran over Xtreme Gaming once they hit their core item timings to tie the series.
It looked like Team Spirit was going to win the third map of the series to go up 2-1. The Eastern European squad executed a perfect team fight at the 25-minute mark to propel their net worth lead to 7,000. Team Spirit continued to choke Xtreme Gaming out of the map, and eventually built a 14,000 gold lead at 40 minutes.
However, with some Xtreme Gaming magic, Ame's Gyrocopter started shredding Team Spirit’s heroes to swing the game the other way. The Chinese squad managed to steal Game 3 after an impressive comeback fight.
Both teams were neck-in-neck in the fourth game, as the net worth lead was non-existent until the 33-minute mark. A massive team fight broke out in front of the Roshan Pit, and Yatoro beat down all Xtreme Gaming's heroes to pull a lead for his team and eventually win the game. Larl also performed exceptionally well, going 15/0/17 on Zeus and dealing 42,000 hero damage.
In the final map of the tournament, Team Spirit pulled out Anti-Mage for Yatoro, while Ame played Faceless Void. Team Spirit played the early game better, and built an 8,000 net worth lead at the 21-minute mark. Despite some signs of life from Xtreme Gaming, Yatoro and Team Spirit began outfarming their opponents, constantly adding to their net worth lead.
At the 55th minute, the game-deciding fight occurred in front of the Roshan Pit. After a galore of buybacks and a plausible effort from Xtreme Gaming, Team Spirit still pulled through to win the map and series.
Team Spirit claimed the crown in Romania, pocketing $300,000 for their hard-fought battles. Xtreme Gaming was compensated with $175,000 for their efforts.