Smart Omega outplayed Blacklist International in a highly-tactical series, 3-2, to barge into the semifinals of the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Pro League-Philippines (MPL-PH) Season 6 early Friday morning.
Salic "Hadjizy" Imam, who tallied the highest KDA in the regular season, unleashed his signature Ling in Omega's three victories while SEA Games gold medalist Jeniel "Haze" Bata-anon stepped up with his Valir in the decisive game of the nerve-racking series.
With the hard-earned win, Omega arranged a best-of-five semifinal match versus Execration on Saturday at 4:30 p.m.
Joshua "Ch4knu" Mangilog and the gang also pulled off a 3-2 escape versus Cignal Ultra in the first quarterfinal pairing.
Omega and Execration are already assured of at least $3,000 (P145,000).
Blacklist and Cignal bagged $1,500 (P72,800) for finishing in the 5th-8th places.
Omega got off to a fiery start in Game 5 after grabbing a third Turtle and a 3-0 clash exchange in the eighth minute.
The squad in green and black took the first Lord and destroyed the inhibitor turret at the bot lane, but a Ruby flicker-ulti combo from Archi "KIL LER" Valencia caught Hadjizy and Jankurt "KurtTzy" Matira's Chou leading to a triple kill for veteran Jayson "ESON" Gerardo's Khufra and a successful base defense.
ESON continued to make big plays with Tyrant's Revenge but the duo of Hadjizy's Ling and Haze's Valir proved to be too much in the succeeding team fights as Omega prevailed in the 27-minute nail-biter.
The first four games of Omega and Blacklist seemed to be chess matches, with both squads displaying an objective-based playstyle.
Blacklist won the series opener with surprise picks such as Diggie and PNK, before Omega dominated the next two games.
The Tier One Entertainment-backed team, however, forced a deciding game behind Kairi "FULL CLIP" Rayosdelsol's Lancelot.