PGL Wallachia Season 7 Meta Recap: Small Changes

PGL Wallachia Season 7 is over, and our meta recap is back on the menu. Let's check which heroes were the most popular across the 124 total games played during the tournament.

On top of that, we will also take another look at the shadow meta and talk a little about heroes that might be up teams' sleeves as aces for the upcoming ESL One in Birmingham.

PGL Wallachia Season 7: Meta Recap

Supports Are Safe Picks

This time around, our meta recap starts with Mars as the only dedicated core in the Top 5, with a 47.62% win rate across 42 matches. Vici Gaming was the best-performing team with Mars in the arena, winning 4 out of 7 games with the hero.

In fourth place, Tiny comes in as the most versatile hero of the Top 5, winning 48% of his 50 games. He seems to be the key to a good performance, since Team Liquid won 8 out of 11 games after picking him, and Team Yandex comes next, winning 5 out of 7 games.

In third place, we have Warlock returning to the Top 5 with an impressive 55.77% win rate in 52 matches. His Fatal Bonds have been a solid laning and teamfight ability for a while now and will most likely get nerfed soon.

BetBoom Team won 3 out of 4 matches with Warlock, but Team Liquid also took advantage of his strength to reach the Grand Final, winning 5 out of 8 matches after picking him.

Shadow Shaman is Popular and Effective

Despite not taking first place, Shadow Shaman is well positioned in the Top 5 and also has the group's best win rate, having won 58.93% of his 56 matches.

He is Team Yandex's second big ace up their sleeve, considering they won all 5 matches with Shadow Shaman in their roster.

Finally, we once again come to announce that Jakiro is the favorite among professionals. The twin dragon won 45.90% of his 61 matches, the lowest win rate in the Top 5.

Nonetheless, Jakiro reigns supreme in the Top 5, and Team Yandex took advantage of this by winning 6 out of their 8 Jakiro matches. If you're a support player, there is no running away from Jakiro until a new patch is released.

Shadow Meta: The Parker Effect?

The shadow meta is very limited considering we had no major gameplay changes, and carries seem to be heavily in favor of Parker's preferences in the upper echelon of the shadow meta.

Above 70% Win Rate

Starting with the undisputed strongest heroes of the shadow meta, we have Templar Assassin dominating PGL Wallachia Season 7. The Guardian of Secrets achieved an impressive 77.27% win rate in 22 matches.

As an alternative to TA, Ursa was also a very high performer, winning 71.43% of its 21 games. Both heroes are mostly used as carries and should be considered if you play as position 1.

Above 60% Win Rate

Despite being a relatively long tournament, PGL Wallachia Season 7 also has a very limited pool of heroes performing above a 60% win rate. Largo is the best performer with a 69.57% win rate in 23 matches.

Below him, we have Doom with a 66.67% win rate in 12 matches and Treant Protector returning with an even 60% win rate in 20 matches. This selection of heroes shows that the offlane is a very important role right now.

Largo is a particularly interesting option that has been adapted to the offlane and has the advantage of still being relatively new, making enemies work twice as hard to figure out a way to counter him.

Closing Thoughts

PGL Wallachia Season 7 was an unsusual tournament with lots of distortions. On the other hand, the current metagame has solidified around safe support picks and strong cores to back them up.

It is hard to point out if teams still have something getting tested but everything indicates that the ESL One will be a relatively predictable event in terms of meta picks and favorite heroes.

Valve seems to be preparing the TI patch as we speak and in the meantime, we take the best we can from what we've got. If you want to stay informed on tournament previews, meta shifts and more, check out news section in the Strafe website!

Featured Image Source: Dota 2 and PGL