Team Liquid keep their 100% win rate over Tundra Esports with PGL Wallachia championship title

PGL Wallachia Season 3 came to an end on Sunday, March 16, 20025 with Team Liquid claiming the trophy at the end of a dominating tournament run, resembling their TI13 performance.

This marked the first LAN victory for Team Liquid since The International 2024 (TI13), and the first tier 1 championship title for their new offlaner, Jonáš "SabeRLight-" Volek. The big win couldn’t be sweeter for the Liquid fans, as it came over Neta "33" Shapira, who left the TI winning roster to build his own dream team under the Tundra Esports banner.

All champions have their kryptonite

Coming into PGL Wallachia Season 3, one team stood apart from the rest. 33’s handpicked line-up quickly established themselves as the best team, not only of the season, but the most successful in the history books. They secured four grand finals spots and won two back to back to back Tier 1 tournaments in 2025 to become the highest Gliko rated team in the Dota 2 scene.

But all champions have their kryptonite, and for Tundra in the current competitive season Team Liquid fulfills that role. Ahead of the PGL Wallachia S3 grand finals, Team Liquid boasted a 100% win rate over Tundra Esports in 2025, and 80% in the six months that passed since 33 swapped the Liquid jersey with the Tundra one. While Liquid were still working on finding their synergy with SabeRLight and finished middle of the pack in almost all the tournaments before PGL Wallachia Season 3, they still held the upper hand over Tundra.

A new drafter for Team Liquid

At PGL Wallachia Season 3, Liquid shifted gears and tactics. They had Michał "Nisha" Jankowski putting in the extra work, as he took on the drafting responsibility, which changed their preferences and took many by surprise with their picks for this tournament. Liquid dominated from start to finish. They were one of the only two teams to land three consecutive wins in the Swiss group stage and secure an upper bracket start in the playoffs. One of the three teams that fell at the hands of Liquid in the group stage was Tundra, who were amongst the first to see a glimpse of what the defending TI champions were cooking with a Time Zone position 4 Faceless Void and Aydin "Insania" Sarkohi playing just his 20th Silencer in his entire pro carrier.

It wasn’t just Silencer or Faceless Void that were new for Liquid in this tournament. Insania had also brought back to the meta the position 5 Tinker, a hero that he played just twice in competitive matches prior to Wallachia S3. Nisha managed to make perfect use of some of his teammates' most played heroes, mix in some novelties and hot meta picks to give Liquid the advantage straight from the drafting phase and crush not just Tundra, but all other adversaries.

From the group stage to the grand finals, Liquid dropped only two games, interestingly enough, both times to Aurora, in the Swiss stage and in the playoffs upper bracket quarterfinals, but never a series.

At the same time, Tundra Esports, their grand finals adversaries, took the long road, via lower bracket series, and through all their matches they managed to keep a 100% win rate on one hero, namely Alchemist.

With Anton "dyrachyo" Shkredov dominating with Alchemist before the grand finals, Tundra felt compelled to pick it when they were 0-2 in the best-of-five final act and managed to avoid a shameful sweep in front of Liquid. The victory in game 3 gave Tundra the confidence that they could repeat the feat and push the series to a decisive game 5, but it felt like Liquid were trapping them to go for another Alchemist game as they had the answer to it.

Liquid put an end to dyrachyo’s Alchemist win streak with heavy team fight and an overall fast-paced tempo, focusing the early aggression onto Tundra’s safe lane to snowball to a very one-sided victory.

With this being their first Tier 1 tournament victory of the season, Team Liquid might have locked in a direct invite to The International 2025. We are still in the early days of the 2024-2025 competitive season, with plenty of tournaments still to come, the next LAN being set to take place in the United States of America. ESL One Raleigh 2025 will unfold April 7-13, followed by PGL Wallachia Season 4 set to run from April 19 to 24th in the PGL Studios from Bucharest, Romania.

PGL Wallachia Season 3 final standings and prize pool distribution

• 1st place: $300,000 - Team Liquid

• 2nd place: $175,000 - Tundra Esports

• 3rd place: $120,000 - Team Falcons

• 4th place: $80,000 - Team Spirit

• 5th-6th place: $60,000 - Aurora Gaming, Xtreme Gaming

• 7th-8th place: $40,000 - Team Tidebound, Gaimin Gladiators

• 9th-11th place: $20,000 - HEROIC, Natus Vincere, Yellow Submarine

• 12th-14th place: $15,000 - Nigma Galaxy, AVULUS, Wildcard

• 15th-16th place: $10,000 - OG, Mosquito Clan