Team Yandex needed almost an hour to pull out the decisive fifth round of the grand final, defeating Team Liquid 3-2 for the PGL Wallachia Season 7 title on Sunday in Bucharest, Romania.
Yandex earned every penny of their $300,000 first prize as the grand final took close to four hours of game time spread across five rounds. Liquid took home a consolation prize of $175,000.
The $1 million Dota 2 tournament began last weekend with 16 teams. Eight teams advanced from the 16-team group stage, which concluded Wednesday. All matches were best-of-three until the best-of-five grand final.
Yandex opened with two wins on green, both taking about 37 minutes apiece. Pushed to the brink, Liquid won a 72-minute marathon and prevailed a second time in 35 minutes, both on red.
Yandex took the do-or-die fifth map in 57 minutes on green. Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov of Russia tallied a team-high 13 kills with five deaths and 22 assists on the final map for Yandex.
Earlier in the day, Team Liquid advanced to the grand final by defeating BetBoom Team 2-1 in the lower-bracket final. Liquid sandwiched a 76-minute win on red and a 66-minute win on red around BetBoom’s 83-minute win on green.
According to Liquipedia, Liquid-BetBoom was the second-longest competitive best-of-three series of all time at three hours, 45 minutes and 50 seconds. That meant Liquid played close to eight hours of competition on Sunday between the two matches.
PGL Wallachia Season 7 prize pool:
1. $300,000 — Team Yandex
2. $175,000 — Team Liquid
3. $120,000 — BetBoom Team
4. $80,000 — Team Spirit
5-6. $60,000 — HEROIC, Tundra Esports
7-8. $40,000 — Vici Gaming, Aurora Gaming
9-11. $20,000 — Xtreme Gaming, Natus Vincere, PARIVISION
12-14. $15,000 — Team Falcons, OG, Yellow Submarine
15-16. $10,000 — MOUZ, Team Nemesis
–Field Level Media
