After emerging as the ultimate champion in the DOTA 2 category of Predator League last month, Filipino eSports team TNC Predator recently bagged another major accomplishment as it wins the championship trophy with $500,000 (over P26 million) top cash prize in DOTA 2 Grand Finals of the World Electronic Sports Game (WESG) 2018 in Chongqing, China on Sunday, March 10, 2019.
TNC Predator won the Grand Finals after defeating Chinese eSports team Keen Gaming 2-0, the latter ending up as first runnerup with $200,000 (over P10 million) cash prize. Prior to this, the Filipino team defeated Russia's White-Off 2-0 in the semis, the latter taking the second runnerup slot with $100,000 cash prize.
TNC Predator's winning team consists of of Armel Paul “Armel” Tabios, Kim “Gabbi” Villafuerte, Nico “eyyou” Barcelon, Timothy “Tims” Randrup, and Lotac’s Marc “Raven” Fausto. Team captain Carlo "Kuku" Palad wasn't able to take part on the competition. Palad was banned due to an alleged racial slur he posted on a chat against Chinese players during a public game.
WESG is an international eSports tournament that holds the highest prize pool of any third-party competition across multiple titles amounting to $5.5 million. As an “Olympic-style” tournament, WESG follows the Olympic standard where teams must consist of players from one nationality to emphasize national pride and encourage fans to take part in the competition.
WESG was established by Alisports, the sports division of Jack Ma's Alibaba Group, in 2016, the same year when TNC Predator took home its first WESG championship trophy with $800,000 cash prize (over P42 million).