The post-TI Dota 2 tournament calendar finally has a start line. PGL Wallachia Season 9 opens on 19 September and runs to 27 September at PGL Studio in Bucharest — a sixteen-team LAN for $1,000,000, the first tier-1 or tier-2 main event since The International 2026 — TI15 — ended on 23 August. PGL confirmed the full lineup on 16 September, three days before the first match, closing out two weeks in which the post-TI schedule looked like it might not hold together.
The September calendar had been wobbling. As we reported on 4 September, 1win Essence III was pulled on the morning it was due to begin, with too many tier-1 teams still rebuilding their rosters, and Wallachia was reported to be hitting the same wall. Both questions are now answered: 1win Essence III has landed on 12–18 November, and Wallachia has a full field. Note the date correction — early-September reporting, our own included, had Wallachia opening on 17 September; Liquipedia's tournament page now runs it 19–27 September, with the Swiss group stage on 19–23 September and the playoffs on 24–27 September.
What PGL Wallachia Season 9 is
Sixteen invited teams, no qualifier route. The format is a modified Swiss group stage of all sixteen, every match best-of-three, top eight advancing to a double-elimination bracket with a best-of-five grand final. The prize split is steep at the top: $300,000 to the champion, $175,000 to the runner-up, $120,000 for third and $80,000 for fourth, sliding to $10,000 for the bottom two. It is being played on patch 7.41f, the gameplay update Valve shipped on 15 September, which means the item-cost changes in that patch get their first competitive stress test at Wallachia.
The invited sixteen are 1w Team, Aurora Gaming, Conventus Stellarum, GamerLegion, Hokori, LGD Gaming, MOUZ, Natus Vincere, Pibbles Corp, Pipsqueak+4, PlayTime, Team Cobra, Team Nemesis, Team Yandex, Xtreme Gaming and Yakult Brothers. Neither Team Spirit nor Team Vision — the two TI 2026 grand finalists — is on that list, and several of the rosters that are there have been rebuilt since The International, including Aurora with skiter and Team Yandex with ATF, both covered in our post-TI15 roster shuffle tracker. Despite the seven-figure pool, both Liquipedia and Valve's own league listing classify Wallachia Season 9 as a tier-2 event — a reflection of who turned up rather than what is on the table. English coverage runs on the tournament's own channels, Twitch, YouTube and Kick, with separate Russian and Spanish broadcasts listed alongside them.
Upcoming Dota 2 tournaments: the full schedule
| Event | Dates | Prize pool | Teams | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PGL Wallachia Season 9 | 19–27 Sep 2026, Bucharest (LAN) | $1,000,000 | 16 | Swiss, then double-elim |
| BLAST SLAM VIII | 29 Sep – 11 Oct 2026, playoffs in Malta | $750,000 | 16 | GSL groups, then double-elim |
| 1win Essence III | 12–18 Nov 2026, online | $200,000 | 12 | Round-robin, then double-elim |
| BLAST SLAM IX | 20–29 Nov 2026, online | $750,000 | 16 | GSL groups, then double-elim |
| DreamLeague Season 30 | 2–13 Dec 2026, online | $750,000 | 24 | Round-robin, then double-elim |
| DreamLeague Season 31 | 20–31 Jan 2027 | $500,000 | 16 | Round-robin, then double-elim |
| PGL Wallachia Season 10 | 2–14 Mar 2027, Bucharest | $1,000,000 | 16 | Swiss, then double-elim |
The five 2026 events in the table above carry $3,450,000 in announced prize pools across roughly twelve weeks. BLAST SLAM VIII follows immediately: it starts two days after Wallachia's final and carries the higher Liquipedia tier of the two, with its first four slots already locked in by closed qualifiers at the end of August.
What is not on the calendar is as telling as what is. Every event above is run by a third party — PGL, BLAST, ESL and BASED Esports — and Valve has announced nothing of its own for the 2026-27 season. There is no The International 2027 page on Liquipedia and no TI 2027 announcement in the Dota 2 news feed as of 19 September 2026. There is no dated Valve circuit to plan around yet.
What to watch at Wallachia Season 9
Wallachia Season 9 is as much a roster shakedown as a title race. Several of these rosters are freshly rebuilt, and stand-ins are confirmed at three of the sixteen teams. 1w Team play Shad for Pure, and Team Nemesis play Mo13ei and SaberLight for Ken and Jabz, both on visa grounds; Aurora play Stojkov for Mikoto for personal reasons. The first competitive read on 7.41f arrives with them. Swiss is unforgiving about that: eight of sixteen go home without reaching a bracket, and a team that misfires in its first two best-of-threes is close to eliminated before it has settled.
FAQ
When does PGL Wallachia Season 9 start? It runs 19–27 September 2026 at PGL Studio in Bucharest, with the Swiss group stage first and the double-elimination playoffs after.
What is the next Dota 2 tournament after PGL Wallachia Season 9? BLAST SLAM VIII, from 29 September to 11 October 2026, with $750,000 and sixteen teams, and its playoffs played at BLAST Arena Studios in Malta.
How much is PGL Wallachia Season 9 worth? $1,000,000 in total: $300,000 for first, $175,000 for second, $120,000 for third, $80,000 for fourth, $60,000 each for fifth and sixth, $40,000 each for seventh and eighth, $20,000 each for ninth to eleventh, $15,000 each for twelfth to fourteenth and $10,000 each for the bottom two.
Are Team Spirit playing at PGL Wallachia Season 9? No. Neither Team Spirit nor Team Vision, the two TI 2026 grand finalists, appears on the sixteen-team invited list PGL announced on 16 September.
When is The International 2027? Valve has not announced it. There is no The International 2027 page on Liquipedia and no announcement in the official Dota 2 news feed as of 19 September 2026.
Why was 1win Essence III moved? As we reported on 4 September, the original early-September edition was postponed because too many tier-1 teams had not finished rebuilding their rosters after TI. It is now scheduled for 12–18 November 2026 with twelve teams and $200,000.
Sources: PGL Wallachia Season 9 and 10, BLAST SLAM VIII and IX, 1win Essence III, DreamLeague Season 30 and 31, Qualifier Tournaments 2026, the Aurora Gaming and Team Yandex team pages, and Portal:Tournaments on Liquipedia; Valve's Dota 2 league data API (league 20279); the official Dota 2 news feed and patch notes feed. Retrieved 19 September 2026.
