Team Yandex beat Natus Vincere 3-0 in the grand final of PGL Wallachia Season 9, closing out the first tier-two tournament of Dota 2's 2026-2027 season without conceding a game in the series, Esports.gg reported.
Esports.gg described the final as one-sided and credited much of it to Team Yandex's newly acquired offlaner, Ammar "ATF" Al-Assaf, who out-farmed most players on the map in each game and bought time for his carry. The outlet reported that Team Yandex also outclassed NAVI in teamfights, despite NAVI arriving in the grand final from a lower-bracket run in which they had beaten LGD Gaming 2-1.
Two losses across the whole event
Team Yandex dropped only two games over the course of PGL Wallachia Season 9, according to Esports.gg, which called it the roster's best tournament performance so far. One loss came against MOUZ in the group stage and the other against Aurora Gaming in the upper-bracket semifinals, a series that was the first time ATF had played opposite his former team-mate Oliver "skiter" Lepko.
The run followed public doubts about the lineup. Esports.gg noted that Russian caster Vladimir "Maelstorm" Kuzminov had called the new Yandex roster a "ticking time bomb" before the tournament.
The teams that were not there
Team Yandex's captain, Martin "Saksa" Sazdov, said after the win that the team still has more to prove, pointing to the top sides they had not yet faced. Several of those teams sat out PGL Wallachia Season 9 while they rebuilt their rosters, Esports.gg reported, among them The International 2026 champions Team Spirit, runners-up PARIVISION, Team Liquid and BetBoom Team.
Asked in a post-game interview about the Daedalus that appeared in his Quick Buy on Centaur Warrunner in game two, ATF said he sometimes adds items to the panel at random, and recalled having once tried the item on Necrophos.
