The first day at ESL One Manila started with a huge surprise delivered by Team Empire and unexpected results from the Chinese teams.
Apart from being the first ever premium event held in the Philippines, ESL One Manila is also the first tournament where ESL dropped their famous single elimination bracket in favor of a GSL group stage played prior to the main event.
Day one matches from the GSL group stage are played behind closed doors and are a crucial setup for the big stage at Mall of Asia Arena. The two teams that win their respective groups will advance to the playoffs, while the losers will have to play tomorrow, April 24th in front of a live audience.
Wings Gaming and Team Liquid in the Group A winner match
photo credits @ESL One
Representing the Phillipines, Mineski was drawn in group A with Team Liquid, a front-runner for the trophy. Mineski lost their first series against TL 2-0, and their first match in front of their home crowd will be played tomorrow against another contender for top three, compLexity Gaming.
CompLexity faced the Chinese underdogs from Wings Gaming in their first series and after a rather one-sided game one had the lead in game two as well. However, Wings had the late game in the bag due to a carry Alchemist pick who was allowed to free farm and mount a comeback for his team.
Game three was all in favor of Wings from drafting stage to execution, and with a ferocious Invoker played by Zhou 'bLink' Yang (K/D/A 21-1-11), they’ve booked a group A winner final with Team Liquid.
Team Secret sent to the elimination series by Team Empire
photo credits @ESL One
The biggest surprise so far has come from the new Team Empire who simply destroyed Team Secret in the debut series from Group A.
There has been a lot of discussion regarding the big shuffle that Secret underwent after winning the Shanghai Major. Attacking the last and the most important part of the competitive season with a roster that on paper looks close to perfection, Secret came to ESL Manila with all odds in their favor to win the tournament.
What nobody could have expected was what happened today in the best of three series held against Empire. Everyone was excited to watch Artour 'Arteezy' Babaev reunited with EnVy and Puppey and to witness the first game of Saahil 'Universe' Arora outside Evil Geniuses, while not paying too much attention to what the return of Roman 'Scandal' Sadotenkov could mean for Team Empire.
Despite having Clement 'Puppey' Ivanov on his strongest heroes in both games, and with Jacky 'EternaLEnVy' Mao getting to play his traditional Naga Siren, Secret didn’t stand a chance in the face of an onslaught of the youngest carry in the professional scene, Roman 'Ramzes' Kushnarev. His Spectre, played in both games of the series finished game one six slotted with a K/D/A of 13-0-14, while EnVy’s Naga ended game one with 0-4-2, unable to execute the split push strategy.
For the second game Team Secret chose to continue drafting around comfort heroes that were shut down with a Doom and another Puck pick from Empire. Afterlife was the pivotal player for his team, with the Doom spell being reserved mainly for Arteezy’s OD and occasionally to secure a kill on EnVy’s Slark. Universe’s Tidehunter was constantly pressured in order to prevent the perfect Ravage initiation that would have potentially kept Secret’s hopes alive for a decisive game three. Thus, the player always regarded as the best offlaner was reduced to a shadow.
Secret was dominated by the new Russian line-up in game two as well and will be forced to play tomorrow against EHOME in the Group B elimination match which is scheduled for the grand stage at 14:30 local time.
