Aurora and nouns pulled out tight wins on Friday as the PGL Wallachia Season 1 got underway in Bucharest, Romania.
The $1 million Dota 2 event is beginning with 16 teams in a modified Swiss-system group stage. The top eight teams will advance to the double-elimination playoffs, while the bottom eight will be eliminated.
All matches in the tournament are best-of-three except for the grand final on May 19, which will be best-of-five. The championship side will make $300,000, with the runner-up receiving $175,000.
On Friday, Aurora earned a 2-1 victory over MOUZ in the tournament’s first match. Aurora sandwiched 30-minute and 54-minute wins on red around a 33-minute loss on green.
Ukraine’s Artem “lorenof” Melnick paced Aurora with an average 10.3/2.3/10.3 kill-death-assist ratio. The Czech Republic’s Ondrej “Supream^” Starha finished at 4.7/2.7/8.7 for MOUZ.
nouns also won in 29 minutes on green before Azure Ray responded with a 31-minute triumph on green. nouns sealed the match with a marathon 94-minute victory on green.
Germany’s Philipp “Copy” Buhler compiled an 8.0/4.7/11.0 K-D-A ratio for nouns. Zhang “Faith_bian” Ruida wound up at 6.0/3.0/4.3 for Azure Ray’s all-Chinese team.
The day’s other results were all 2-0 sweeps: BetBoom Team over Shopify Rebellion, Xtreme Gaming over BOOM Esports, Team Spirit over Virtus.pro, Team Liquid over G2 x iG, Team Falcons over HEROIC and Gaimin Gladiators over Team Spirit.
The Saturday matchups between 1-0 teams:
–BetBoom Team vs. Aurora
–Team Liquid vs. Xtreme Gaming
–Team Falcons vs. nouns
–Gaimin Gladiators vs. Team Spirit
The Saturday matchups between 0-1 teams:
–Azure Ray vs. MOUZ
–Shopify Rebellion vs. Virtus.pro
–HEROIC vs. BOOM Esports
–G2 x iG vs. Team Secret
PGL Wallachia Season 1 group standings
T1. Aurora, 1-0
T1. BetBoom Team, 1-0
T1. Gaimin Gladiators, 1-0
T1. nouns, 1-0
T1. Team Falcons, 1-0
T1. Team Liquid, 1-0
T1. Team Spirit, 1-0
T1. Xtreme Gaming
T9. Azure Ray, 0-1
T9. BOOM Esports, 0-1
T9. G2 x iG, 0-1
T9. HEROIC, 0-1
T9. MOUZ, 0-1
T9. Shopify Rebellion, 0-1
T9. Team Secret, 0-1
T9. Virtus.pro, 0-1
PGL Wallachia Season 1 prize pool
1. $300,000
2. $175,000
3. $120,000
4. $80,000
5-6. $60,000
7-8. $40,000
9-11. $20,000
12-14. $15,000
15-16. $10,000
–Field Level Media
