Day two of the Mobile Legends Professional League Season 10 in the Philippines took place today, with two upper bracket series.
headline photo courtesy of Blacklist International
With only four teams left in MPL PH Season 10 Playoffs, today would see some upper bracket action, with no eliminations on the cards for now. The remaining four teams would be looking to avoid a trip to the lower bracket, while securing a spot in the upper bracket finals – one step closer to becoming champions of the region and claiming a spot at the M4 World Championships.
The Kingslayers fall
With a Season 9 victory, alongside their win at MSC 2022, RSG PH were a dominant force in the first part of the year, but it became much more difficult for the team to remain at the peak in Season 10. While they secured an emphatic victory over ONIC PH just yesterday, eliminating the Porcupines, RSG had a tougher task with ECHO today. With a series that went to four games, all last around 20-minutes, RSG could not find their way through the ECHO lineup.
With Atlas being one of the favoured picks for ECHO, the team managed to gain a two-game lead, before game three would be the one that RSG managed to break through the ECHO defence. However, when it seemed as though the Kingslayers might be making headway in the final game, a magnificent backdoor play from Bennyqt would push RSG down into the lower bracket – a tough spot considering who could be their challengers.
Blacklist clutch out the win
For the next series we would get an epic spectacle with the M2 victors taking on the M3 victors, with Bren Esports facing off against Blacklist International. It was clear that both teams were attempting to get back to their best, and a secured top 3 would go a long way on that journey. While Blacklist were definitely the veterans, while Bren were a much younger squad with only Pheww being there to guide his team on their task. Game one would see Blacklist showing exactly why they were back-to-back MPL PH champions last year, but Bren were ready to fight back, taking two games in a row and threatening to send their opponents into the lower bracket.
Although Bren were on series point, the calm nerves from the veteran players of Blacklist definitely began to pay off, as they claimed the two following games of the series. Thanks to some extremely smart split pushing plays from Edward’s Benedetta to distract Bren, the M3 World Champions were able to constantly seize map control with objectives, and eventually this would lead to the downfall of Bren after a magnificent 2-3 series.
With Day 2 of the action now over from MPL PH Season 10’s Playoffs, Blacklist International and ECHO will head into the upper bracket final tomorrow to fight for the first spot for the region at the M4 World Championships. For Bren and RSG, their tournament lives now hang in the balance as they go forward into a lower bracket series tomorrow, with the victor moving forward.
