PARI Universe Playoffs Day 2: Yandex Win 72-Minute Epic

Day 2 Results at a Glance

Day 2 of the playoffs was played on October 29, 2026, and it was a day of sweeps with one giant exception. Three of the four series ended 2-0. The fourth, PARIVISION against Team Yandex, produced both the longest game and the shortest game of the entire playoffs so far, 72:26 and 16:10, in the same three-game series.

The upper bracket semifinal losers, PARIVISION and OG, drop into the lower bracket. The lower bracket first-round losers, Astra Invicta and LEGION, are out. Per the prize table on Liquipedia that is $5,000 each for a 7th-8th place finish.

The Four Series, Game by Game

Here is how each series actually went, with drafts and the moments that decided them. Hero names and KDA come straight from the OpenDota match data.

Team Liquid 2-0 Astra Invicta

Game one was a slow grind that Liquid controlled the whole way. It ran 64:08 (match 9066750920) and Liquid won 34 kills to 17. The notable fact is the gold graph: Liquid’s net worth lead never dipped below zero at any minute of the game. They were 3,090 gold ahead at 10 minutes, 4,489 ahead at 20, and 9,776 ahead at 30, and then spent half an hour converting it into a win.

Liquid first-picked Dazzle and filled the draft with Death Prophet, Mars, Techies and Nature’s Prophet. m1CKe’s Nature’s Prophet finished 14/1/9, Malr1ne’s Death Prophet 8/3/20 and Wisper’s Mars 8/3/17. The strange line in that game belongs to tOfu: the first-pick Dazzle went 0/8/22 and Liquid still won comfortably, which tells you how much of the value in a Dazzle game is the heal and the Shallow Grave timings rather than the scoreboard. Astra drafted Slark, Windranger, Dark Seer, Winter Wyvern and Pangolier, and OmaR’s Windranger finished 0/10/11.

Game two (match 9066833957) was closer. Astra first-picked Lone Druid, and Nightfall’s Lone Druid went 7/1/8, but Astra led by only 2,065 at 20 minutes and Liquid took over after that, reaching a 6,677 lead by minute 30. Liquid’s Kez, played by m1CKe, finished 8/0/9, and Wisper’s Timbersaw finished 12/2/11. Liquid won 33 kills to 22 in 43:00. The worst gold deficit Liquid faced was 2,402.

Team Spirit 2-0 LEGION

Spirit opened the series by first-picking Techies (match 9066926114), then adding Kez, Earthshaker, Dark Willow and Mars. rue’s Techies finished 9/4/20, Yatoro’s Kez 13/2/8 and Larl’s Earthshaker 6/1/17. Spirit won 37 kills to 18 in 42:09 and their worst gold deficit all game was 75. LEGION’s draft was Lifestealer, Hoodwink, Brewmaster, Nyx Assassin and Lina, and Danial’s Nyx Assassin ended 0/14/14.

Game two (match 9067019772) is the one that should worry Spirit a little. It ran 63:10 and finished 36 kills to 32 in Spirit’s favor. LEGION first-picked Largo and built around Windranger, Dazzle, Dark Willow and Ember Spirit. They led by 3,275 gold at 20 minutes and Spirit still found a way to flip it, reaching a 3,075 lead by minute 30. Spirit’s worst gold deficit in the game was 4,028. Yatoro’s Kez went 17/4/9, and Batyuk’s Tidehunter finished 5/2/25. On the other side, Spirit’s Hoodwink (not_me) ended 5/12/22.

Spirit are into the lower bracket quarterfinals, but this was a 2-0 that needed 63 minutes of work in game two. Watch whether they can keep winning long games when the opponent is a stronger team than LEGION.

Team Yandex 2-1 PARIVISION

This is the series of the day, and it gets its own two sections below. The short version: Yandex won game one in 72:26, PARIVISION answered with a 16:10 demolition in game two, and Yandex took game three in 42:19 (match 9067412106). Yandex first-picked Slark in both of their wins. In game three, watson’s Slark finished 9/2/11 and AMMAR_THE_F’s Timbersaw finished 13/2/7. Yandex were ahead at 10 minutes (by 2,304), at 20 minutes (by 3,795) and at 30 minutes (by 3,018), and their worst gold deficit all game was 316.

PARIVISION answered with Templar Assassin, Dark Seer, Earthshaker, Dark Willow and Techies. Satanic’s Templar Assassin was 9/2/2, but Dark Willow (9Class, 3/12/6) and Techies (Dukalis, 1/12/10) combined for 24 deaths. Yandex won 32 kills to 17 and moved to the upper bracket final.

GamerLegion 2-0 OG

OG had the Day 1 headline win over Team Spirit, and GamerLegion ended that run. Game one (match 9067529830) lasted 38:08 and GamerLegion won 22 kills to 9. OG led by 1,762 at 10 minutes. By minute 20 GamerLegion were up 8,332, and by minute 30 it was 12,068. Yuma’s Sven finished 8/2/6, RCY’s Dragon Knight 5/1/13 and Fayde’s Lycan 3/0/18. OG’s Dazzle (skem) went 0/6/5 and the Sand King (Topson) went 1/6/3.

Game two (match 9067617648) was a 43:42 stomp, 40 kills to 13. GamerLegion first-picked Lone Druid and Yuma finished 9/1/2. RCY’s Snapfire went 15/3/11, and Fayde’s Dawnbreaker 10/2/16. Bignum played Bounty Hunter, the only game of the day where that hero was not banned, and finished 1/5/18 on the winning side. OG ran Techies into this game, and skem finished 1/15/11. By minute 30 OG were 13,917 gold behind.

GamerLegion now face Yandex for a spot in the Grand Final. They have won their last four games in a row, and their worst gold deficit in game two against OG was only 394.

The 72-Minute Marathon, Minute by Minute

Match 9067177642 is the longest game of the PARI Universe playoffs so far. It lasted 72:26, finished 51 kills to 45 for Yandex (96 total kills), and it contains one of the wildest gold swings you will see in a pro game.

The draft: PARIVISION ran Kez, Doom, Earthshaker, Dark Willow and Disruptor. Yandex first-picked Slark and added Invoker, Pangolier, Warlock and Windranger. Here is how the gold advantage moved. Positive numbers mean PARIVISION were ahead, negative numbers mean Yandex were ahead.

Read that table twice. At minute 57 Yandex held a 12,578 gold lead, the biggest of the game. Three minutes later it was 2,730. By minute 66 PARIVISION were up 7,598 and looked like they were about to win the game. Yandex still won.

The turn started with a single fight at 57:42. The teamfight data shows PARIVISION killing three Yandex heroes without losing one of their own, and in that fight their five heroes gained about 6,700 gold during that fight window. That swing turned a Yandex siege into a PARIVISION push. What PARIVISION never got was Roshan: Yandex took all four Roshan kills in the game, at 31:52, 43:02, 55:51 and 66:48, and the last one came about six minutes before the throne fell.

Think about what that means. PARIVISION went from 12.6k behind to 7.6k ahead in nine minutes, and Yandex went from 12.6k ahead to losing the lead in the same nine minutes and still won the game. In a game this long, a net worth lead is a loan, not an asset. It is the last fight and the last Roshan that count, and the team that kept its composure for those two moments won.

Satanic’s Kez finished 21/10/14 for PARIVISION with 60,844 total gold earned. On the Yandex side, AMMAR_THE_F’s Pangolier went 14/7/16 and CHIRA_JUNIOR’s Invoker went 14/11/18. Yandex’s Warlock (Maladych) ended 2/14/24 and was still on the winning team, because in a game like this the ultimate and Fatal Bonds timings outrank the KDA.

The 16-Minute Stomp

Then there is game two of the same series (match 9067346550). It lasted 16:10, the shortest game of the playoffs, and PARIVISION won it 25 kills to 1. The only Yandex kill came from Saksa’s Windranger.

The draft explains most of it. PARIVISION first-picked Nature’s Prophet and surrounded it with Brewmaster, Dragon Knight, Dark Willow and Winter Wyvern. Yandex drafted Lone Druid, Slardar, Dawnbreaker, Techies and Windranger. Satanic’s Nature’s Prophet finished 5/0/13, Noticed’s Brewmaster 5/0/9, No[o]ne-‘s Dragon Knight 7/0/10 and 9Class’s Dark Willow 5/0/6. The only PARIVISION death was Dukalis’ Winter Wyvern, once.

Our read, and this is our opinion rather than a fact from the data: Yandex leaned on Lone Druid and Techies, two heroes that want space and time, into a PARIVISION lineup built to fight from the first minutes. The takeaway for a ranked player is that PARIVISION did not win this game with a mechanical edge. They won it in the draft, with a lineup that punished a team that needed time.

Game One Flipped: Day 1 vs Day 2

On Day 1, all four series winners lost game one and came back. On Day 2, all four series winners won game one: Liquid, Spirit, Yandex and GamerLegion each took the opener and finished the series. If you combine both days, series winners won game one in 4 of 8 series, which is exactly what a coin flip looks like.

This is a small sample, and we said the same about Day 1. But it is worth being honest about, because Day 1’s pattern made a nice story and Day 2 killed it. Do not build a theory on four series. Here is the day-by-day comparison.

The big difference is length. Day 2 games averaged 47.2 minutes against 41.7 on Day 1, and three of the nine games crossed the 60-minute mark. Teams that can fight and control Roshan at minute 55 are still winning series.

Another difference is the side split. Radiant won 8 of 12 on Day 1 and only 3 of 9 on Day 2, so over all 21 playoff games Radiant has won 11. There is no real side advantage in the data, just an even split.

Draft Data From All 9 Games

Day 2 had 44 different heroes picked across the nine games. Dark Willow was the most picked hero again, but this time the story was very different from Day 1. She was picked in 8 of 9 games and won 4 of them. On Day 1 Dark Willow won 6 of 8. Combined over the 21 playoff games, Dark Willow is 10-6, by far the most-picked hero of the playoffs.

The hero that tells the clearer story is Hoodwink. Over the 21 games Hoodwink has been picked 11 times and has won only 3, a 27% win rate. It was picked 3 times on Day 2 and won once. At this level Hoodwink is a pick that looks fine in the draft and keeps losing the games.

Techies went 2-3 on Day 2 and is 4-5 over the whole playoffs. Techies was also banned 11 times, so teams are not shy about removing it when they do not want to play against it. Kez went 3-1 on Day 2, with Satanic, Yatoro and m1CKe all playing it, and Nature’s Prophet went 3-0.

Here are the cumulative numbers for the heroes picked most often across all 21 playoff games so far.

The Ban Phase

Teams banned 46 different heroes on Day 2. Bounty Hunter was banned in 8 of 9 games. Over the 21 playoff games Bounty Hunter has been banned 20 times, which is a 95% ban rate. The only time it was not banned was Day 2 game nine, when GamerLegion’s Bignum played it and won. It is the single most banned hero in the tournament by a wide margin.

The bans split into two groups. One group is heroes that teams do not want to see in the other draft: Enigma (7 bans on Day 2, 17 total), Viper, Earth Spirit and Huskar. The other group is heroes that teams keep fighting over: Lone Druid and Slark were each banned 6 times on Day 2, and each was still picked three times. If a hero is both banned and picked three times in nine games, whoever gets the pick is getting something the other team badly wanted to deny.

Over the whole playoffs, Lone Druid has been banned 16 times and picked 5 times. Slark has been banned 14 times and picked 5 times. Teams keep banning both of them and keep picking them when they get through.

Comebacks, Marathons and Stomps

The table below pulls the memorable games out of the nine. “Winner worst gold deficit” is the largest net worth deficit the eventual winner faced at any minute. To keep the numbers in context, the biggest comebacks of the whole playoffs so far are 9,384 (Day 1, Liquid-PARIVISION game one), 8,130 (Day 1, LEGION against GamerLegion) and then 7,598 on Day 2, which is Yandex in the marathon.

Three of the nine Day 2 games lasted more than 60 minutes: the 72:26 marathon, the 64:08 Liquid-Astra opener and the 63:10 Spirit-LEGION second game. Across both days there have been five games over an hour in 21 matches, which is almost one in four.

Standout Individual Performances

Here are the best and worst lines of the day, again straight from the match data. Note that the worst lines are not always on the losing team.

m1CKe’s Nature’s Prophet in game one against Astra is the cleanest line of the day: 14 kills and a single death over 64 minutes. Larl’s Earthshaker for Spirit (6/1/17) and Fayde’s Lycan for GamerLegion (3/0/18) are the kind of lines that never trend on social media but decide the series. On the other side, skem’s Techies went 1/15/11 and Danial’s Nyx Assassin went 0/14/14, two players who spent the games dying while their teams did the work elsewhere.

What Is Next: The Bracket After Day 2

Here is where the bracket stands. Team Yandex and GamerLegion meet in the upper bracket final, and the winner goes straight to the Grand Final. The loser drops into the lower bracket final. In the lower bracket, the schedule listings on October 30 show PARIVISION against Team Spirit and OG against Team Liquid in the quarterfinals. The losers of those two series finish 5th-6th, which pays $10,000 each, and the winners meet in the lower bracket semifinal.

Check the live bracket on Liquipedia before you watch, because start times can move. The prize pool is $250,000, with $125,000 for first place, $50,000 for second and $30,000 for third. The Grand Final on November 1 is a Bo5.

The matchups to watch: PARIVISION against Spirit is two teams that just played 72-minute and 63-minute games respectively. OG arrive off a 2-0 loss to GamerLegion, and Liquid arrive off a sweep of Astra Invicta.

What Ranked Players Can Steal

You do not need to be a pro to use Day 2. These are the lessons we would take straight into a ranked queue.

• A 12k lead is not a win. Yandex led by 12,578 at minute 57 and PARIVISION led by 7,598 at minute 66, and Yandex won. In a ranked game, gold leads evaporate when one fight breaks, so keep buyback and Roshan discipline when you are ahead, and find one clean fight when you are behind.
• Roshan decides long games. Yandex took four Roshans in 72 minutes and won. If your team is not controlling the pit at minute 50, you are not winning the late game, no matter what the gold says.
• Do not fall in love with a hero. Hoodwink is 3-8 and Dark Willow is 10-6 over 21 playoff games. Pick what the draft needs rather than what is trending.
• Punish a slow draft. PARIVISION’s 25-1 win was a draft that wanted to fight at minute ten against a lineup that wanted to farm. When the enemy picks a greedy lineup, play the fight.
• KDA lies in support roles. tOfu went 0/8/22 and Liquid won. Maladych went 2/14/24 and Yandex won. Look at what the support does with the spell timings, not the death count.

If you want help turning habits like these into rank, read our guides on choosing a Dota 2 boosting service and how MMR boosting works, and see whether Dota 2 boosting is safe before you decide. Our Dota 2 coaching is the better pick if you want to learn the skills yourself, and the MMR boost is there if you would rather skip the grind.

Full Results Table: All 9 Games

Every game of the day, with match IDs for verification. “Winner worst gold deficit” means the lowest net worth point the eventual winner reached.

Data Notes

• All game data comes from the OpenDota API for league 20395 (PARI Universe by FISSURE), match IDs 9066750920 to 9067617648, played on October 29, 2026 on the 7.41 patch line. The latest patch in Valve’s patch list at the time of writing is 7.41f of September 15, 2026.
• Player names are as OpenDota lists them for those matches. Kill totals are team kill scores from the match data.
• Pick and ban counts cover the 9 Day 2 games unless a table says “21 games”, in which case they combine the 12 Day 1 games and the 9 Day 2 games.
• The Day 3 pairings come from schedule listings at the time of writing and may change. Prize figures are from the Liquipedia tournament page.
• Win rates over small samples are noisy. A hero that is 3-1 in four games has told you very little.